AZED CROSSWORD 818

EMBUSQUÉ

1.  D. H. Tompsett: Skipper? Board dismissing for example Caine’s! (embus + Que(eg); ref. ‘The Caine Mutiny’).

2.  R. O’Donoghue: Space vehicle? Quite without appeal! I certainly won’t volunteer (em bus qu(it)e).

3.  J. R. H. Jones: Get troops moving once fit: you won’t find me there! (embus que(me), & lit.).

VHC

M. Barley: Could you style me as ‘bum-esque’?! (anag. & lit.).

Mrs A. R. Bradford: Waiting to board coach? First three in line only (embus que(ue)).

C. J. Brougham: Queen’s bounty man? Am exotic antonym: an —— (comp. anag. & lit.).

E. J. Burge: Requirement for doctor? Wretched queues all round. Might get slacker with government cash (MB in anag.; ref. NHS cash crisis).

E. S. Clark: Skrimshanker, unit cut off, runs away (em + b(r)usque).

A. G. Corrigan: In English, dissolute bum; is that, in French, flâneur? (E + anag. + ‘s + que).

N. C. Dexter: Bit of a bolshie – me! – about service involving Queen, perhaps (b + me (rev.) + Qu. in use, & lit.).

M. Earle: Lacking aspiration, he bums around entirely without anticipatory object ((h)e + anag. + qu(it)e, & lit.).

Dr I. S. Fletcher: Doctor beset by queues after surgery – he’ll not be private (MB in anag.).

A. Lawrie: After start of examination doctor takes a half of whisky. I’m not impressed! (e + MB + usque(baugh)).

M. A. Macdonald-Cooper: January’s exercise: waiting past, queues mob wildly, missing nothing! (anag. less 0; ref. Jan comp and sales).

Mrs J. Mackie: Cuthbert must mostly be rendered by that in French (que in anag. incl. mus(t); ref. ‘C. the shirker’).

D. F. Manley: I want the freedom of quiet slumbers, avoiding active list, right? (anag. less anag. incl. r, & lit.).

H. W. Massingham: Busy bees ’um, accommodating queen and drone (Qu. in anag.).

L. May: Blasted bum, see, without question (Qu. in anag., & lit.).

C. G. Millin: Drone bees hum shamelessly round queen without a bit of honey (Q in anag. less h).

T. J. Moorey: No stomach for crowd in jostling queues, I’m avoiding the Army & Navy (m(o)b in anag.).

C. J. Morse: Loafer lying in wait to board coach ahead of more than half the queue (embus que(ue), 2 defs.).

R. A. Mostyn: Double space at front of those awaiting transport – last two left waiting in shelter (em bus-que(ue)).

D. S. Nagle: Chicken perhaps before which French go into transports (embus + que).

F. R. Palmer: Bum? You do see that here, without question (Qu. in anag.).

Dr N. Smith: One reluctant to serve small measure runs out of short (em + b(r)usque).

HC

M. J. Balfour, J. D. D. Blaikie, Mrs F. A. Blanchard, E. Chalkley, C. A. Clarke, M. Coates, B. Cozens, K. W. Crawford, D. A. Crossland, A. E. Crow, G. Cuthbert, E. Dawid, R. Dean, Dr V. G. I. Deshmukh, P. Drummond, C. E. Faulkner-King, D. Finkel, E. G. Fletcher, H. Freeman, J. Gill, N. C. Goddard, R. R. Greenfield, A. K. Gregory, D. R. Gregory, J. F. Grimshaw, I. F. & L. M. Haines, P. F. Henderson, J. Hoggart, M. Humphries, W. Jackson, J. S. Johnson, R. E. Kimmons, C. W. Laxton, P. W. W. Leach, A. Logan, C. J. Lowe, R. D. Lyall, D. J. Mackay, I. Matthew, Rev M. R. Metcalf, J. R. C. Michie, R. F. Naish, R. J. Palmer, J. Phillipson, B. A. Pike, Mrs A. Price, C. H. Pryce, Rev E. H. Pyle, Miss I. Raab, A. J. Redstone, Mrs M. J. Richardson, D. R. Robinson, L. G. D. Sanders, T. E. Sanders, W. J. M. Scotland, W. K. M. Slimmings, B. D. Smith, D. M. Stanford, F. B. Stubbs, R. Thomas, V. C. D. Vowles, L. Ward, A. J. Wardrop, M. J. E. Wareham, Mrs M. P. Webber, J. F. N. Wedge, R. J. Whale, J. B. Widdowson, M. G. Wilson, S. Woods.
 

COMMENT
497 entries with about 20 incorrect (all through failure to solve the clue to WEAR: ‘Show tedious, left before finish’). For the rest most who commented remarked along the lines of ‘An enjoyable puzzle but a devil to clue’. I was also reminded that you’ve had rather a lot of 7- and 8-letter words to clue of late. My choice is usually made on the basis of what looks likely to give interesting possibilities, not on word-length, but I take the point that this needs to be varied as well and shall strive for greater variety accordingly. EMBUSQUÉ was predictably tough (those U’s again!) but an attractive word for all that. How it justifies its place in an English dictionary is hard to see, and rouses the question of whether a clue to its needs ideally to indicate its Frenchness, not to mention its acute accent. As is clear from most of the clues quoted above I did not insist on this, on the grounds that since it is in the dictionary it is reckoned by the lexicographers to have been at least partly assimilated into the language. (Full assimilation would presumably involve omission of the (Fr.) label and relegation of this information to the etymological note.) What, then, you might reasonably ask, about all those Scottish and obsolete words? Need their Scottishness and obsoleteness be indicated? I would say yes (though I don’t think I’ve ever given you a specifically Scottish word to clue) since neither are current in contemporary British English. Chambers is very much a Scottish firm, and proud of it: hence the abundance of Scotticisms in TCD. If my puzzle appeared in The Scotsman it would probably be unnecessary to signal Scottish words in any special way. Since it does not, I shall continue to do this, so Jock, Sandy and the rest will continue to flourish!
 
As I’ve said EMBUSQUÉ wasn’t easy to deal with well and originally. Bus queues and doctor’s queues were inevitably popular, only the best of them making the lists. I’d forgotten Cuthbert the shirker, though I gave him to you as part of a ‘Right & Left’ competition some years ago. The name was (according to Brewer) apparently coined by ‘Poy’, cartoonist of the Evening News, ‘during World War I for the fit men of military age, especially in Government offices, who were not called for military service, or who positively avoided it’. Well, well.