Sunday Times Cryptic 4677 Sunday January 17Th 2016

[chardon713]

Your help greatfully received, and acknowledged
14d Cutting through some wound not covered in some places (5,5)
Letter pattern is *t*r* n*k*d
leading to likelihood of "stark naked" (where "wound" in the clue is the verb "snaked")
But how does the rest of it work ... and in any case "stark" = not covered in ALL places!

[scorpiojo]

Start naked?
Stark naked was originally s tart naked

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/stark+naked

[chardon713]

Please bear with me ..
I get the s (tart) naked structure .. but still stumped on the "not covered in some places"

[scorpiojo]

Sorry, chardon, I'm stumped :(

[dannyk13]

Simply a poor clue?

[gangesboy]

start naked is a dialectal/regional variant of stark naked - so not covered in some places?....just a thought

[scorpiojo]

^ I like that :)

[Togo]

Tart is cutting as in tart reply. In Snaked

[peteby]

It must be tart (cutting) in snaked (wound, past tense of wind).

Says he now reaching for the liquid paper, having written stark!

[scorpiojo]

^ answered at 9.05

[peteby]

Yes, it is a dialectical variant of stark naked, according to the Meŕriam-Webster dictionary.

[scorpiojo]

Look up^

[chardon713]

Bear with me .. the reference to " not all places" means that for completely naked in some places/regions the expression is stark .. and in others it is start?

[scorpiojo]

Yes..see gangesboy's reply ^

[chardon713]

Thank you everyone ... and to Scorpiojo for spotting it first ... a very tricky parsing