crosswordfiend.com

hi, i'm new here. nice to find a place where i can indulge this habit of mine. yesterday a friend sent an email about a band he liked years ago that had reformed, which led to this clue:

Nude dragons released rusty cage crooners (11)

Well, the answer must be SOUNDGARDEN although someone will have to explain the "rusty cage" part to a guy who grew up with the Beach Boys. Bob

"rusty cage" was a minor hit. johnny cash covered it on 'unchained,' for whatever that's worth.

here's another, completely ridiculous one i just dug out of an old email:

Exclaimed 'Ass!' with lower part of mouth about a German, thanks (5,6)

(with apologies to either trip payne or mel taub, i can't decide which.)

If Trip or Mel wrote that, he should be the one doing the apologizing.

Some clues beg to be solved. This one doesn't.

Bob

hence "completely ridiculous." if it didn't cry out to you, all apologies.

Well, I like a challenge, but .... I'm thinking the answer wanted is DANKE SCHOEN (homophone? Punny DONKEY a la Mel Taub, but ... the last part I can't rationalize. In a lot of Germany that's pronounced more like SHERN, and Wayne Newton made it Danka SHANE, but the "lower part of mouth" doesn't help me? ? ?

Dave

right on! "schoen" gets the homophone from "exclaimed" via CH(A)IN (with the assist from wayne newton).

(the whole thing is a stretch, i know. it was inspired by a coworker who said "donkey chain" in gratitude for something.)

Correct German pronunciation aside, it seems strange to construct via wordplay ("lower part of mouth about a") one of the words to be homophoned.

I hadn't thought about it before, but just as anagram fodder is generally expected to be literally in the clue adjacent to the anagram indicator, the homophone fodder is generally expected to be either right there in the clue, or else indicated by synonymy.

that's a good point, although clue nesting is certainly common, for instance scrambling letters and then placing the resulting string inside another word. in mathematical terms, that's like 3 x (4 + 6). only here it's "homophone (donkey ch(a)in)." i don't think i've seen that done with homophone clues before, though, you're right. to my mind there's no reason it couldn't be, although you might piss off the solver, which is rarely a good idea.

all of that said, i spent about three minutes writing that clue, for an audience of one, and it wasn't meant to follow cryptic conventions to the letter (especially since the person it was written for had only a glancing understanding of how cryptics work). i posted it here only because it made me laugh, even if it bent the rules a little.

For fun:

Fossil-lover is a feeble existential scholar [14]

PALE+ONTOLOGIST

At its core, PALE is not related to PALEO.
But the re-use of (O)LOGIST with the same meaning probably makes it less interesting outside the identification of the cute find.

LOGY (sluggish) might be promising in conjunction with PALE.

i liked that "Fossil-lover is a" is 14 letters, which sent me on a wild goose chase for an obscure Kierkegaardian with a long-ass last name.

A few teasers from my latest puzzle. Enjoy!

GSC 1. Chew blanket idly? It's fashionable (3,3,5)
GSC 2. Experts' treatment for impotence in small pets (11)
GSC 3. Cruise vehicle in unsafe traffic (5,8)

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Latest puzzle: "Information Society" (06/19/10). Visit kryptonologist.com for more – now with Across Lite downloads!
If more than one mouse is mice and more than one louse is lice, shouldn't more than one spouse give you spice?

GSC 1. Chew blanket idly? It's fashionable (3,3,5)
THE NEW BLACK*

Crossers:

GSC 2. Experts' treatment for impotence in small pets (11)
--> S _ E _ I _ _ _ _ _ S <--

GSC 3. Cruise vehicle in unsafe traffic (5,8)
--> _ I _ K _ / B _ _ _ _ _ _ _ <--

_________________

Latest puzzle: "Information Society" (06/19/10). Visit kryptonologist.com for more – now with Across Lite downloads!
If more than one mouse is mice and more than one louse is lice, shouldn't more than one spouse give you spice?