Answers with a double letter were entered with that letter also doubled at the end, on the principle of FIDDLE-D-D.
Across
1 CROSSLIGHT; cross + light
9 IRATE; (p)irate
11 HAAR; a in har(d)
13 POSE; S in Poe
14 GRAVEL; l for s in Graves
15 PRIMS; rim in PS
17 EALE; hidden
19 ARM; ar(U)m
20 PIPAL; pip a L
23 SAGA; hidden a lit.
24 YELP; l in yep
26 SOLA; s O LA
28 POLO; pol(I)o
29 PRAMS; r in pams
30 TOY; To(r)y
32 CALF; initial letters
34 SIEVE; i.e. for a in save
35 MIOSIS; mi OS is
36 MEIN; me in
37 URCHIN; U(A)R C hin
38 PIEZO; pie z(er)o
39 BRENT GOOSE; R in bent + goose
Down
1 CIPPUS; pic(k) (rev.) + pus(h)
2 OASIS; as in 0 is
3 STEMMA; stem ma
4 LIGURE; 1g in lure
5 IHRAM; h(e)r in I am
6 HAVE; a v in he
7 SALLAL; all in sal
8 SAXE; X in anag.
10 ESSAYS; ess ay s
12 REAPS; a in reps
16 APPAYS; a P pays
18 MARRAM; ram (rev.) + ram
21 IMPRIMIS; I’m prim is
22 LOOSEN; se(a) in loon
25 MALIC; hidden
27 LOOS; s(ch)ool (rev.)
30 THING; thin g
31 BEE; comp. anag.
32 CLUB; L in cub
33 FOHN; H in fon
This isn’t an astonishingly good puzzle, but it isn’t so bad either. I certainly wouldn’t submit anything like it these days, but I wouldn’t rule out the idea as a component of something else – it has a nice ‘literal’ feel to it. As a number of solvers at the time pointed out, there is a hint to the gimmick in that the title is usually spelled ‘fiddle-de-dee’. I did attempt some joke at the time quoting the line from Ruddigore that goes: “To shirk the task is fiddle-de-dee” hinting that you couldn’t escape from solving the puzzle. On reflection, it’s more interesting to wonder what on earth Gilbert meant in the first place.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Comments