A recent competition entry of mine was: Plan to dislodge tory leader (6) to give BUDGET Two judges suggest that 'tory leader' CANNOT indicate T!?!? I beg to bloody differ!! - ThreadSky

sitterxwords.bsky.social • 22 days ago

A recent competition entry of mine was:

Plan to dislodge tory leader (6)

to give BUDGET

Two judges suggest that 'tory leader' CANNOT indicate T!?!?

I beg to bloody differ!!

Comments

flashling.bsky.social•22 days ago

I'd say they were utterly wrong. Those that insist it should be leader of Tories or some such rot hold up development of the art.

amoebacrosswords.bsky.social•22 days ago

Because it resolves to 'leader of Tories' it's alright by me, but never my favourite device (nice clue though).

flashling.bsky.social•22 days ago

I've never really understood the problem with redhead being R either.

sitterxwords.bsky.social•22 days ago

Exactly!

charliemethven.bsky.social•22 days ago

I've never really got why some who abhor "redhead" allow "shopfront" and "rooftop" on the grounds they really have a front/top. Surely they provide the precedent that makes redhead gettable? In fact that's much less of a logical leap than twigging that drunkenness=anagramming

cranberryfez.bsky.social•21 days ago

I don't much like any of them, but you can get from "shopfront" to "front of Shop" to S - you can't get from "redhead" to "head of red" because it doesn't mean that, so the logical link is lost and you never reach the R. Better to avoid the 2-step process in the first place, though.

charliemethven.bsky.social•21 days ago

Hmm but tons of words mean something more than their usual meanings in cryptics as long as there's clear precedent. "Head of red" can't "mean" the top bit of the colour red in normal speech either, but in cryptics, via eg "head of school", we all agree it can. Why's redhead via spearhead different?

sitterxwords.bsky.social•22 days ago

If it resolves to 'leader of tories' (I refuse to capitalise the bas**rds!), then that just proves it?!

amoebacrosswords.bsky.social•22 days ago

I agree it's OK. But there's a fine and often ignored line between that and e.g. First Lady meaning L, where you know it if you've seen it before, but the grammar doesn't actually take you there. So I'm always a bit on guard with such things, even when the specific example is fine.

charliemethven.bsky.social•22 days ago

I hate first fady but have never understood the objection to Tory leader. They're totally different IMO. One requires reading English in a completely unnatural way, the other merely requires that you've read a newspaper headline before

skirwingle.bsky.social•22 days ago

well I've just used "violent leader" for V (seemed to get away with it mostly) and that's not even a noun, so I'm glad I wasn't in whatever competition that was 🤣

charliemethven.bsky.social•22 days ago

In crossword-mode, everything's a noun! "Violent" here is a noun meaning "this bunch of letters here which I'm asking you to move around in a crossword"!

skirwingle.bsky.social•22 days ago

True

philippeauclair.bsky.social•22 days ago

Now that is ridiculous. "Tory leader" is T all day long for even the most casual of solvers.

offmessage.com•22 days ago

Any reason given? I would immediately leap to T from those two words. A quick dig through 15^2 shows it's not widely used, but not particularly uncommon

sitterxwords.bsky.social•22 days ago

Other than it should be leader of tory or tory's leader?! No - any of these work for me, but 'tory leader' is the phrase which works best!

crypticblah.bsky.social•22 days ago

The trouble for some of us with these usages is that it then gives setters who think appeal to authority isn't a fallacy carte blanche for cases that don't resolve linguistically let alone grammatically. It strikes me that use Leader of Tories does what you need it to do and shouldn't annoy anyone.

sitterxwords.bsky.social•22 days ago

Every single leader of (the) tories has annoyed the shit out of me!! 😂

crypticblah.bsky.social•22 days ago

Now that we can agree on and I'm a conservative! Absolute shower of morally vacuous idiots for the most part.

flashling.bsky.social•22 days ago

Sorry Rich, that whole thing reads like an &lit clue but I'll need the enumeration 🙂

cranberryfez.bsky.social•22 days ago

Yeah, have to agree with Blah here. "Tory leader" is essentially a whimsical / non-grammatical construction - there's a place for that (and with a good surface "redhead" *might* fall into that category) but where there's an equally good surface with correct grammar "x leader" seems a fudge (imho!)

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