Globe and Mail Cryptic 20180110

Wednesday January 10, 2018

Difficulty: medium-easy

Skipping obvious ones; definitions underlined.

Across

22. Drinks and a sandwich
Round [double def]: A round of drinks. Also, mostly British usage for the slices of bread used to make a sandwich (I think).

25. His bank account is often misleading
Angler [cryptic]: Not so sure about this one... an angler can be a schemer or scammer, so he's likely not to keep proper accounts?


Down

1. Make an offer for a boat
Tender [double def]: a tender can be a small service boat, or a dinghy attached to a yacht.

14. Utterly pompous
Orotund [cryptic]: I suppose the "utterly" part means spoken, and orotund means a pompous or bombastic style of speech. I like the quote at the Online Etymology Dictionary:

The odd thing about the word is that its only currency, at least in its non-technical sense, is among those who should most abhor it, the people of sufficient education to realize its bad formation; it is at once a monstrosity in its form & a pedantry in its use. [Fowler]

Globe and Mail Cryptic 20180109

Tuesday January 9, 2018

Difficulty: medium-hard

DNF. Missed 8A, 5D, 18D

Skipping obvious ones; definitions underlined.

Across

8. Inventor's fate is to produce one thing after another!
Train of events [anagram]: I'm not too familiar with this phrase. And I missed the anagram.

11. A household word in France
Menage [cryptic]: menage mean household in French

19. A word of questionable value
Interrogative [cryptic]: Had interrogation for this, which threw me off for 18D

21. They should be allowed to be themselves, we're told
Bygones [cryptic]: Missed it, but I like it. Let bygones be bygones.

Down

18. Unused grounds
Dregs [double def?]: This was not clear to me. I guess dregs can mean remnants (unused?), but to me it's not usual to call (coffee) grounds "dregs", unless it might mean the bits left in the bottom of a poured cup of coffee.