PVPCWC 69 RESULTS
vinit
themselves). I’ve disregarded the votes on own clues to remove the
disadvantage arising out of subjective factors ranging from over self-
criticism to abstention out of modesty. Initials of the author and the
scores are indicated after the clue.My comments are V:
OVERALL COMMENTS
> In general, a good word with lots of possibilities. This
round involved quite a bit of genetic engineering. I'm
guessing #6 is the professional clue. –TL
> I’ll go for 2 as the pro’s, despite the fact that Mr.
Whitney was dead before Nebraska was born. (LW)
V: I chose the word for its possibilities. Many were realised but the
‘green’ approach was missing. So my submission as part of the ongoing
worldwide movement-
Expert in green energy production (8)
1. Begin first off to reform originally radical design (8)-TL-3.67
1) Is "originally" commonly used to clue "nee"? I fancy it would have
stumped me in a real puzzle.
1) Of all the clues I've written for the various CWC's, this so far is
my personal favorite - so if it doesn't rank highly, Iguess it'll just
prove how chintzy my other ones are. ;-) –TL
1) "To reform" doesn't quite work for me as an anagram indicator in
this context; it seems to be the wrong tense. I don't like the
unindicated abbreviation R, and the surface reading seems unnatural.
But "originally" = NEE is interesting, and the
noun/verb switch on "design" is nice. 5th place
V: Tony is being too self-critical. It is fairly good
clue,structurally sound but not so impressive surface reading.
2. Eli Whitney, for example, was always found around Nebraska,
clutching his invention (8)-BW-7.13
2) This clue would be tops if Eli Whitney had actually hung out in
Nebraska. But as best I can determine, he did not. Still jolly good.
2) A bit of a contorted surface, plus I'm on the fence on the use of
nested containers since they're a bit messy. In a roundabout way, GIN
and ENGINEER are cognate (GIN being a shortened form of ENGINE), but
few people realize this so no deduction there. -TL
2) Not bad, but the double insertion is complicated and state
abbreviations are cliche. Also, I don't like the way the cryptic
part can't be understood ("his"?) without the straight definition
providing context. 4th place, 55%.
V: Must be my limited knowledge. The word play leads to
Engineer quite easily but how fair is the equation Engineer=Inventor?
3. Adjust one half of reindeer gene? (8)-MB-7.33
3) A plausible surface, just slightly contrived. Tied for second with
#6. -TL
3) My clue. I still like it among the best, but I won't vote on it
this time and will rank the other clues from 1st to 7th as if there
were only 7.
V: Quite compact and nice clue.
4. Gene, in mutating, starts to engender remarkable effect (8)-LW-9.33
4) A nice use of "effect" as a verb. I've given it first place as its
surface feels the least contrived of all my fellow entrants, even
though the partial acrostic seems like a bit
of an afterthought. -TL
4) 1st place, P (prenormalized) score 100%. Perfect surface and
perfect construction
V: LW clues are always fun particularly the underplay on the
definition part. A deserving winner in my opinion.
5. Guide the course of spirits entombed within, originally called in
room with many deaths (8)-SB-1.75
5) It's somewhat oblique (and a bit depressing) to call the ER a
"room with many deaths". Like #2, this clue uses a nested container
which I'm not entirely keen on. -TL
5) Kudos for defining NEE as "originally called" and making it fit in
the surface, but that's about the only thing I like. The clue is
long, the surface reading not all that great, the double insertion is
complicated. Worst, while it may be true that many deaths occur in an
ER, its defining characteristic is that many others are prevented.
(Also, the Rightpondian contingent won't recognize the word at all,
unless they receive television broadcasts there.)
6th place, P score 20%.
V: I tend to agree with criticisms.
6. Designer gene in dancing queen (8)-MI-7.25
6) Appealing, if not quite sensible, surface
6) 2nd/3rd place tie, P score 80%. "ER" is cliche, but the
construction is fine, the surface is halfway reasonable,
and I like the rhyme too.
V: Surface is the issue.
7. For example someone expert enough to have free rein with gene
splicing (8)-PM-0
7) "Splicing" is a rather tenuous anagrind, although as such its use
with two fodder pieces ("A with B splicing") seems better than with a
single fodder word or phrase. But even granting that, "free" would be
a superfluous indicator. The definition also is too long-winded: Since
an engineer is a type of expert (and not the other way around), "for
example" is unnecessary, plus "enough" makes the definition unfairly
difficult to figure out. You could get away with "an expert". As with
#2 and #5, my view on nested containers is lukewarm
at best. Last place. -TL
7) Not a properly constructed clue. 7th and last place, P score 0%.
V: Besides the surface weakness, redundancy of ‘for example’ is a
major drawback.
8. Bring about presentation of motor to Her Majesty (8)-PRO-6.3
8) A peculiar surface, plus the wordplay is weak given that 8) ENGINE
is the root word in ENGINEER. I'm undecided on "presentation of" as a
link. –TL
8) 2nd/3rd place tie, P score 80%, and my pick for the pro.
8) "ER" is cliche, but I like the way the concatenation indicator
"presentation of... to" goes with "Her Majesty
V: The PRO CLUE. I have no clue to his/her identity. The clue
appeared in a Crossword in Economic Times (India) which has tie-up
with Daily Mail. It is a good clue.
LW is invited to moderate the PVPCWC 70.
Bye
Vinit
Brian Westley
>2. Eli Whitney, for example, was always found around Nebraska,
>clutching his invention (8)-BW-7.13
> V: Must be my limited knowledge. The word play leads to
>Engineer quite easily but how fair is the equation Engineer=Inventor?
Eli Whitney graduated Yale in 1792 as an engineer.
(But yes, Nebraska wasn't a state until long after his death.
I also should've realized that GIN is related to ENGINEER)
---
Merlyn LeRoy
Tony Le
> this context; it seems to be the wrong tense. I don't like the
> unindicated abbreviation R, and the surface reading seems unnatural.
> But "originally" = NEE is interesting, and the
> noun/verb switch on "design" is nice. 5th place
> V: Tony is being too self-critical. It is fairly good
> clue,structurally sound but not so impressive surface reading.
I've pretty certain I've seen both originally = NEE and radical = R in pro
cryptics before, though I'd have to dig through my puzzle books to find
them. Then again, they might be Americanisms. I'm sure if I'd replaced
"radical" with "Republican" I'd've gotten some flack. ;-)
Tony
Mark Brader
> I've disregarded the votes on own clues to remove the
You have no business discarding votes. Now please present the
correct scores with all the votes counted. I would also have
appreciated it if my comments had not been mangled.
--
Mark Brader | "Must undefined behavior obey *all* the laws of physics,
m...@vex.net | or is the restriction limited to time travel?"
Toronto | --Heather Downs
Rodders
"Mark Brader" <m...@vex.net> wrote in message
news:VMqdnXmMpcaVPb_W...@vex.net...
I agree, you should not remove votes. What is the point in people taking the
time to vote if you are going to remove them.
Rodders
Peter T. Daniels
I think in the past the setters have specified whether one may or may
not vote on one's own entry. If vinit did not do so, then vinit has no
business making an ex post facto decree.
But I couldn't figure out vinit's formatting of the entries and
comments anyway.
Rodders
>
> But I couldn't figure out vinit's formatting of the entries and
> comments anyway.
Ha, that Peter is about the first time I have agreed with you in years :-)
Rodders
Pete Maclean
>> splicing (8)-PM-0
I thought I had come up with a rather good clue here and was taken aback by
the zero score it received.
One commenter said that it is "not a properly constructed clue". Can
someone please elucidate this for me? I do not see it at all.
Two people wrote that "for example" is unnecessary and a drawback. I find
this curious because, to my mind, it is essential. Without "for example"
the clue defines specifically a genetic engineer and something is needed to
indicate that this is to be generalized to simply an engineer.
I had seen "splicing" as a good anagrind because I was considering its
meaning in context. But that's the point, isn't it, one must consider its
meaning out of context. So I now agree that it is a rather tenuous
anagrind -- or even a downright poor one.
Pete
Mark Brader
>>> 7. For example someone expert enough to have free rein with gene
>>> splicing (8)-PM-0
> One commenter said that it is "not a properly constructed clue". Can
> someone please elucidate this for me? I do not see it at all.
You said it yourself: "semi-&lit". There ain't no such animal.
And it's particularly bad when most of the words relate only to the
straight definition.
--
Mark Brader | "I had never thought of Jesus as being
m...@vex.net | a variety of grape plant, but
Toronto | if you put it that way..." --Jan Sand
vinit
Ok Mark if that is what you want. It actually changes only a few
score. LW got 8,10,10 and didn't vote on his own clue. The revised
scores look like.
TL : 3.75 (3,4,4,4)
BW:7.13 (9,4,10,5.5)
MB:7.25(6,8,8,7)
LW:7 (8,10,10)
MI : 7.25 (8,8,5,8)
PM : 2.5 (10,0,0,0)
PRO: 6.3 (5,2,10,8)
Congrats Marks. Mark Brader is invited to host the PVPCWC 70 as it was
his point of order. Apologies for mangling of comments.
LW is requested to vote on his own clue next time. My apologies to him
too.It is giving a very Floridian flavour.
Happy ?
bye
Vinit
Peter Biddlecombe
> Pete Maclean:
>
> >>> 7. For example someone expert enough to have free rein with gene
> >>> splicing (8)-PM-0
> > One commenter said that it is "not a properly constructed clue". Can
> > someone please elucidate this for me? I do not see it at all.
>
> You said it yourself: "semi-&lit". There ain't no such animal.
Try a Google search for "semi-&lit". You'll find plenty of examples
in
well-respected puzzles. Both Don Manley and Ximenes describe this
clue type in their books and describe it as "equally sound" or similar
(as compared to a "pure" &lit, though X calls it an "offshoot type"
rather than "semi-&lit".
Curiously, both give examples with religion-related context:
X: What a bishop may have had before getting a crook (7) = PREBEND
(A prebend being a stipend for a cleric of lower rank than a bishop,
so the full clue is a better def. than "what a bishop may have had".
Wordplay: PRE=before, BEND=a crook
M: Denomination that spreads abroad "Christ doeth much" (9,6)
= METHODIST CHURCH - Here the "denomination" def isn't
significantly added to but you can read the whole clue as the def.
(Wordplay: anag. of "Christ doeth much")
Mark Iredell
> LW got 8,10,10 and didn't vote on his own clue.
> LW:7 (8,10,10)
The PVPCWC tradition would have been to average it then over 3 votes,
giving LW 9.33.
> It is giving a very Floridian flavour.
I have to hand it to Vinit for getting through PVPCWC without
software, ankle deep in chad.
Mark Brader
> > > I've disregarded the votes on own clues to remove the
> > > disadvantage arising out of subjective factors ...
Mark Brader:
> > You have no business discarding votes. Now please present the
> > correct scores with all the votes counted...
> > --
Vinit D.W.:
> Ok Mark if that is what you want. It actually changes only a few
> score. LW got 8,10,10 and didn't vote on his own clue. The revised
> scores look like.
>
> TL : 3.75 (3,4,4,4)
> BW:7.13 (9,4,10,5.5)
> MB:7.25(6,8,8,7)
> LW:7 (8,10,10)
> MI : 7.25 (8,8,5,8)
> PM : 2.5 (10,0,0,0)
> PRO: 6.3 (5,2,10,8)
Sorry, but this doesn't make sense. In the ballot posting you said
the now usual normalization of votes onto a 0 to 100 scale would apply.
If these numbers have simply been normalized onto 0 to 10 scale instead,
then Luciano's score should be 9.33, and he still wins.
But the votes for each entrant listed in an arbitrary order, suggesting
that they are in the order of the ballots received, and yet none of the
lists has a 0 in the first position. This in turn suggests that
Luciano's ballot was the first received and has been wrongly normalized
onto a scale of 3 to 10 instead of 0 to 10.
If this conjecture is correct and there are no other problems, then
the correct table of scores (still using the 0 to 10 scale and the
above format for the consistency's sake, but sorting the results
this time) is:
LW: 9.33 (8, 10, 10)
MI: 7.04 (7.14, 8, 5, 8)
BW: 7.02 (8.57, 4, 10, 5.5)
MB: 6.82 (4.29, 8, 8, 7)
PRO: 5.71 (2.86, 2, 10, 8)
TL: 3.00 (0, 4, 4, 4)
PM: 2.50 (10, 0, 0, 0)
> Congrats Marks. Mark Brader is invited to host the PVPCWC 70 as it was
> his point of order.
And the congratulations and the hosting offer are seen to be out of order.
Unless I've misinterpreted or there were other errors, of course.
> Apologies for mangling of comments.
Thanks. And thanks for running the contest.
--
Mark Brader "One should never listen to oneself.
Toronto I mean, who are one to judge?"
m...@vex.net -- Barry Etheridge
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Mark Brader
> But the votes for each entrant listed in an arbitrary order, suggesting
> that they are in the order of the ballots received, and yet none of the
> lists has a 0 in the first position. This in turn suggests that
> Luciano's ballot was the first received and has been wrongly normalized
> onto a scale of 3 to 10 instead of 0 to 10.
Whoops, my conjecture can't be right either. I was tacitly assuming
there were only 4 voters. But there are 4 votes shown for my entry
and I also didn't vote on my own clue this time. Yet if there were
at least 5 voters, it is odd that there aren't any clues with more than
4 votes shown -- it looks as though something else is wrong somehow.
What's going on, please?
Vinit, if you've been having trouble with this, I'm willing to take over
the vote tabulation -- just email me the raw ballots as you received them
and I'll process them. If you like.
--
Mark Brader "If the right people don't have power...
Toronto the wrong people get it... ordinary voters!"
m...@vex.net -- Lynn & Jay: YES, PRIME MINISTER
vinit
REALLY SORRY. DID THE TASK IN HURRY. YOU DIDN'T VOTE FOR OWN CLUE.
JUST TOOK THE ''7' AT END OF YOUR COMMENTS AS SCORE. BUT EXCEPT
THAT...NO OTHER ERROR. IS THERE ACTUALLY A SOFTWARE FOR THIS ?
LW STAYS WINNER.
BYE
VINIT
Mark Brader
> REALLY SORRY. DID THE TASK IN HURRY. YOU DIDN'T VOTE FOR OWN CLUE.
> JUST TOOK THE ''7' AT END OF YOUR COMMENTS AS SCORE. BUT EXCEPT
> THAT...NO OTHER ERROR.
Thanks for checking.
> IS THERE ACTUALLY A SOFTWARE FOR THIS ?
Sure, I wrote it. Under the assumption you would have a UNIX-like
environment, of course -- in particular, a command line where you
can run awk and similar utilities.
> LW STAYS WINNER.
Good.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "If you wish so, we write your consummations
m...@vex.net | on your bill." --Swiss hotel services handbook