Listener Crossword No 4280 Face Off By Bero

[trux]

Another rather gentle exercise with easier than normal clues (perhaps perforce) and a not too complex endgame, neatly tieing up all of the thematic material. Will be interesting to see how solvers interpret "identifiably entered" in the preamble. Thanks to BeRo for a brief but nonetheless enjoyable entertainment.

[djawhufc]

Sorry Jim that's what I meant (word separation). I'm comfortable I have the right answer now. Thanks for your comments.

[Woot]

Although I usually manage to complete The Listener, it normally takes me most of the week. I don’t look on this site as there are always clues, however minor or unintentional, until I’ve completed the puzzle. This means that by the time I’m ready, however, most people on the site have lost interest and moved on to the next puzzle. This week’s puzzle must have been slightly less difficult than usual as I’m done and dusted by Sunday. As always, I’m impressed by the ingenuity and imagination of the compiler (and amazed by the people who are able to solve these puzzles so quickly and easily).

Although I can see why there might be some discussion, I don’t think there’s much doubt as to how BeRo expects the four features need to be ‘identifiably entered’.

[salveMe]

Managed to scramble through the end game. Thanks to many above for convincing me to persevere with an approach to the couplet that eventually proved to be the right one, despite several failed variations. It was only when I really concentrated on the introduction that various pennies dropped.

However, I did all that with one empty light in the grid. There's a 4-letter clue that I just can't work out or find a viable answer to. And I'm sure the three checking letters I have are right. I have a nasty feeling I'm going to spend the week staring at it to no avail. Just tell me, is there a really, really, really unusual word among the answers?

[professorplum13]

salveMe - if you mean 18a, then yes it's a real word , in Chambers under its initial letter at the very beginning. Apologies if you mean another clue!

[JackDeCrow]

Ah! Been out all day and glad to find there has been a bit of controversy after all. I think Jim360's comment sums it up nicely - '"Nearest" is surely nothing to do with actual distance but word separation.'
That is the interpretation I went for but I don't think I could claim that the word near doesn't have quite a lot to do with distance. Perhaps the rubric might have been better (if more clumsily worded) "the adjective fewest words away"?

[salveMe]

professorplum - thank you! I'll keep searching. I may be failing to see the wood for the trees.

btw, I meant to say that I enjoyed the puzzle very much, though between it and the snowy sports to which I become addicted once every 4 years, I haven't really done anything at all this weekend!

[Cagey]

Finished this last night. Another very enjoyable puzzle, even though dipped into the world of poetry, a genre which always leaves me cold. I did not think there was any ambiguities as to what should be done at the end. I agree with others that fewest words (actually I went with letters but I am a splitter rather than a grouper (i.e. believe that if you cant pigeonhole everything neatly, add a pigeonhole)) is what is intended.

[Scorpius]

Have some solvers been preoccupied with a different work altogether by another author - Much Ado About Nothing?
Granted, 'nearest' is technically ambiguous, but to interpret it in any other way than that intended by the setter is perverse, for two reasons: firstly it undermines the whole point of the poem, secondly, the said item would be more or less invisible if another nearby adjective were chosen. 'Appropriate' might have been a better choice than 'nearest' but the sense of the latter is perfectly clear.

I do have one query: is there anything thematically significant about the omitted word? When treated thematically it doesn't yield anything. I realise the setter needed to condense the couplet, and provide a means of ensuring solvers had understood all the threads of the puzzle, but if it's not significant in any other way, that strikes me as a slight weakness in an otherwise excellent puzzle.

[Cagey]

I think the word beneath the grid provides the only evidence that the couplet has been identified and that some of the cryptic comments in the preamble are understood.

[sunny-dave]

Enjoyed that - easy gridfill, but a bit tricky finding the relevant poets and quotes without a decent internet connection (free wifi in Barcelona Cafes is all very well, but a tad slow for extensive googling).

I can't see any ambiguity in the entry of the features - which either means I'm right ... or I've missed something.

[Coalminers]

I don't suppose at this late stage my comments will receive any response, but I do think there is a big problem here. One of the features, as already mentioned, appears twice in the verse, and when deciding which is the nearest adjective to both of those entries, try as I might to conceive it otherwise, there is no doubt which the nearest adjective is, albeit a close run thing. And how to "identifiably enter" that feature according to that adjective leaves me completely stuck. I can only assume that the setter and vetters overlooked this other appearance of the feature and actually want us to use what, to my mind, is the second nearest adjective. My final decision on the issue is to sit on it until the last moment and see if there is any explanation on the Listener website. What a shame!

[maurice]

You are dead right, Coalminers: that's what I've been saying all along (but it's obviously just "not done" for most people, evidently, to criticize here)!
Have a good mind to wait like you & just hope s'one can soon react directly to this criticism (can't wait too long as I live abroad). Am not very optimistic though after the to and fro' on this subject without a definite convincing conclusion on both internet forums. Imho this proves how imperfect (despite otherwise brilliant construction admittedly) this puzzle obviously is. I had expected more! Even the supposedly "great" setters should keep to the rules of fairness & certainly not make themselves guilty of blatant blunders, surely!

[JackDeCrow]

Coalminers and maurice - I do agree it's a bit of a slip up, but go with the first adjective.

[sunny-dave]

OK - I missed something ... there is an ambiguity.

Now I'm just happy to be a non-submitter - I know I've done the puzzle & (fortunately) my satisfaction is not dependant on any marking decision.

[the_heisman]

It still intrigues me that BeRo did not use "appropriate" as opposed to "nearest"

[Cagey]

I went with first, but if they are the two adjectives I am thinking of, they are not mutually exclusive.

[Scorpius]

I'm a bit surprised that anyone's still agonising over the issue of ambiguity. I must confess that I didn't even consider the first occurrence of the feature that's mentioned twice since the adjacent adjective did not strike me as being amenable to identifiable representation in the grid. To anyone still unsure which of the two adjectives to apply I would suggest they consider the position of the marker, John Green, who will have to decide whether the letters have been entered appropriately or not. How on earth could anyone be sure that their representation of the five-letter adjective is seen that way by JG? Whether or not you think the preamble is faulty, misleading, ambiguous or whatever, go for the adjective that that can be represented unambiguously, and is surely the one intended by the setter.

[Zabadak]

Filled grid, stared for hours, identified the poet who I knew for sure had a poem called the "Theme Word", decided he was scattered rather unfairly in the grid. His poem is - absolutely - a couplet, and only a couplet, but not resolvable with "letters initially observable". gave up on trying to find the other poet, assumed to be similarly distributed. Knew I was missing a trick.
Left it four days, came back, spotted the answers to each challenge almost immediately and resolved all issues. The first occurrence of one of the features can't realistically be entered in the grid as described, so I'd submit the second if I were to be a) on time and b) bothered.
Was the red herring intended, perhaps even an aborted third reference? We won't be told! Messed me up something shocking.
friendly greetings to all

[JackDeCrow]

I think you might be on the wrong ambiguity, Scorpius. The first of the features to appear in the verse actually appears three times with three adjectives. The second adjective is technically "nearest" (to the first appearance, under any normal typesetting). But both second and third would be hard to represent as they would be somewhat hard to see for different reasons!

[Zabadak]

Hi Jack! I don't think you're helping much, and though I concede that's sort of the point in the Listener Q&A, you can be as oblique as you like, but surely not just inaccurate. As far as I can see (and search) only one feature occurs more than once, and then only twice, and it's not the first to appear. Each feature has an adjective which is capable of being rendered easily and unmistakeably in the grid, and each is one short word (or in one case, its equivalent) away. I suppose you could try rendering the double mention using both adjectives, in which case, best of luck! Perhaps it's you that's looking at a different poem, as it seems to me Scorpius is spot on.