XIMENES CROSSWORD No. 16

UNVULGAR

1.  P. Mallalieu (Woking): It’s not just vernacular to have vun with a gurl (anag.).

2.  Mrs Cheyne (Glasgow): To torment rustic sweetheart unclothed in Paris is the reverse of refined (rag luv nu (Fr.) (all rev.)).

3.  Gnr C. Herzig (Redcar): In short, without a game, but the beginnings of game and rubber in sight. Extraordinary! (unvul(nerable) ga(me) r(ubber)).

H.C.

F. Aylmer (Weybridge): To have a reversed guinea suspended in the uvula, right at the end, is not common (gn (rev). in uvula r).

Miss M. Behrendt (Scunthorpe): I’ve left my grin entangled in my uvula! This is far from common (anag. of gr(i)n uvula).

F. A. Clark (Croydon): United Nations Vulgate arrives, though not for public use (UN Vulg. ar.).

A. B. Kingsford (Scarborough): It is quite genteel for a Chaldean to lug van all over the place (anag. of lug van in Ur).

Mrs Lawlor (Belfast): Fractions at Miss Pinkerton’s? (2 mngs.; ref. vulgar fractions, Vanity Fair).

R. Leslie (Kingsbridge): A Frenchman with no clothes on going backwards, seen in front of fifty long-nosed fish? That’s not common (nu (Fr.) (rev.) + vu (Fr.) + L gar).

Rev W. McEntegart (Manchester): You! Envy you! Elgar? That’s literally, up to a point, uncommon! (‘U NV U L gar’).

W. Meade (E. Molesey): Curious! To put in our tongue is not this, to put out our tongue is not this, to hold our tongue is this (cryptic def.; i.e. the ‘vulgar’ tongue).

J. G. Milner (Harpenden): Shall we reverse and slightly alter this clue? ’Course not! (cryptic def.; i.e. not coarse).

Rev E. B. Peel (Fleetwood): Proper fraction in familiar juxtaposition for one killed in Arras (cryptic def.; vulgar fraction; ref. Polonius, Hamlet I.3).

Miss G. Savory (Croydon): It’s not common to call the United Nations mean (UN vulgar).

J. E. Smith-Wright (SW7): Hamlet’s forefathers, when they lived in the place, were just opposite (cryptic def.; ref. Gray’s Elegy, “The rude forefathers of the hamlet”).

J. Sparkes (Cardiff): Reverse of frolic love-letter reverse of commonly used (rag luv nu (all rev.); Greek letter).

COMMENTS:—A brute of a word! X. intends to be kinder in future. Many entrants disqualified themselves by writing E. B. Browning instead of embrowning in their solutions. To “embrown” is to “obscure” (Chamb.): to “brown” is not: further, if the answer is to be more than one word warning is always given. Her maiden name was E. Moulton Barrett. In writing a clue to unvulgar it was hard not to be either dull or excessively far-fetched; the above selection represents a noble effort! One clue is a curious anticipation of a clue in No. 17 (already written); X. mentions this lest he be accused of plagiarism!