i Cryptic Crossword 1883 Quixote
February 20, 2017
A good Monday puzzle – on the easier side, but with a few clues here and there to get the old brain cells ticking over. A few new things learnt as ever from the Don – in my case the additional meaning of 11ac, and the Canadian city.
COD? 2d – ‘Appropriate message for one trying to be religious? (6)’.
To the beginning of September 2012:
http://www.fifteensquared.net/2012/09/03/independent-8077quixote/
Same here with regard to 11a and 15d. Got a bit hung up on 1a couldn’t get tripod out of my mind and started looking for Italian engineers🤔
Me too Sprouthater. I don’t think I find Quixote as easy as some others for some reason. As I solve his clues it’s often less with pleasure and more with grudging acknowledgement. Just me I guess. And I failed altogether on Poshly. Heigh-ho.
11ac was a new usage for me too. All thoroughly decent, as per.
11ac: ‘Lace’ can mean rather more than ‘reprimand’ – Chambers also has ‘thrash’. Does it possibly come from association with ‘lacerate’?
As a synonym for “reprimand” it appears to be a 20th century American colloquial usage, rendering it infra dignitatem as far as I’m concerned. 🙂
In older usages, it can go beyond “thrash”, even, to the extent of “riddle with bullets”. The OED illustrates this bracingly with “Wherevpon the Gunner at the next shott, lact the Admirall through and through”. Clearly this is straying from the matter in hand more than a little, but I enjoyed that one.