What's Wrong With These Clues ?

[crosswhit99]

A couple of howlers that managed to slip past the editors from recent IQ (1364) and EV (1151) puzzles respectively:

Ligaments requiring ingestion of recipe - sprouts ? (8)

Substance used to treat eating complex, note (7)

[factor-fiction]

Try TENDRONS

[Cloverjo]

Second one:
Antigen. Anagram of eating+n

[novalis]

Antigen - anagram of eating ( indicated by complex ) + n for note.

[jim360]

So in that case what's wrong with them?

[Peter Pedant]

antigens arent really used to treat
at least I cant think of one.....

vaccines are modified antigens but arent used in treatment rather prevention

and i have never heard of tendron but clearly others have

[factor-fiction]

I think tendril is used more. Tendrons is defined here
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tendron

[TheFrogman]

Personally I wouldn't want to ingest a recipe, neither would I use an antigen for the purpose of negotiating. But I don't consider either clue to be unfair.

[crosswhit99]

Fair or not, neither clue is accurate: ligaments are not tendons, and as Peter has already noted, the term 'antigen' is not adequate to denote a form of treatment.

[TheFrogman]

Ah, I don't see those as the issues (at least in a generalist puzzle) - a ligament is a 'a physical connection or bond', which fits the dictionary definition of a tendon, 'tissue that attaches a muscle to a bone or some other part'; and antigens I believe can be used in the treatment of certain medical conditions. But a recipe is not something you eat, it's a list of ingredients and directions; and 'treat' in the sense of 'apply treatement to' is a transtitive verb and must have an object, which it has here in the surface reading but not in the definition - as an intranstivie verb it means 'to negotiate'.

[crosswhit99]

You seem to be confusing the sense of ligament meaning ligature with the anatomical ligament. A tendon is neither of these - it joins a muscle to a bone, but not in the manner of a ligament/ligature, and the generalist nature of the puzzle doesn't really excuse the oversight. I agree that the surface reading is also nonsense !

Regarding the EV clue, there are zillions of antigens and thousands of medical treatments, but very few of the latter work in the manner of the former, making this a decidedly dodgy definition even if the verb was the correct case !

[TheFrogman]

Well, I think we can agree that we don't like either of these clues very much!

[TheFrogman]

...'tendrons' is a nice word to clue, something like 'Merry rodents start to nibble sprouts' would be suitably seasonal; I don't like words like 'antigen' because of the definition problem, but the mildly libertarian &lit 'Agent in stimulation?' could work (a better definition than 'substance used to treat', possibly?).