Welcome to 2015! Since I have way too much work to do before term restarts, obviously I will distract myself with a crossword...
To compensate for the loss of half of the clues, the editor has inserted (in an appropriate order) an extra letter in each of the remaining clues (most of which didn’t make much sense). One clued answer is a seldom used variant spelling given in Collins
- 14ac: AMNION [Q]: Man with no I
Qruptured a membrane (6): *(MAN NO I) - 15ac: ELEGY [J]:
Jon replaces Victor and Elizabeth in every song (5): EVERY - V(ictor) - ER (Elizabeth) + LEG (on) - 17ac: BODLE [C]: Coi
gn initially discovered in earthy clay (5): D(iscovered) in BOLE (earthy clay) - 20ac: GROATS [L]: Crushed grain about to be eaten by ca
lves (6): A(bout) in GROTS (caves) - 22ac: LOLLARD [H]: Lines are penned by s
hire layabout (7): LL (lines) A(re) in LORD (sire) - 26ac: EGIS [V]: Gi
ve wayward son protection (4): *(GIE) + S(one) - 37ac: MANX [T]:
The unknown language (4): MAN (he) + X (unknown) - 38ac: ROSCIAN [R]: Osric
ran off like a great actor (7): *(OSRIC AN) - 40ac: PRISSY [E]: Prim
eMinister finally is trapped by foreign spy (6): (ministe)R + IS in *(SPY) - 45ac: KYLOE [X]: Narrow passage concealing o
x, one of MacDonald’s cattle: KYLE (narrow passage) around O - 46ac: NOREEN [F]: Irish girl definitely not
free before November (6): NO (definitely not) + REE + N(ovember) - 48ac: OSTIARY [N]: Doorkeeper we
nt back into very large yard (7): RAIT (wet) reversed in OS (very large) Y(ard) - 2dn: UGLY [K]: Ill-natured guy
knew about inductance (4): *(GUY) around L (inductance) - 3dn: BAGDAD [Y]: Father is south of poke
ycity on the Tigris (6): DAD (father) under BAG (poke) - 4dn: EMYS [U]: Em
u’s devouring 150 terrapins (4): EMS around Y (150) - 5dn: CALLS [I]: Cit
ies entirely in constant sun (5): ALL (entirely) in C(onstant) S(un) - 8dn: TOOTLE [C]:
Cat let loose after ordinary drive (6): TO (at) + O(rdinary) + *(LET) - 11dn: EMENDS [W]: Chaps extremely dolourous following the end of Julie
Walters (6): MEN (chaps) + D(olorou)S after (juli)E - 21dn: T-REX [D]: Popular group tenor supported by
driver and former partner (4, two words): T(enor) + R(iver) + EX (former partner) - 25dn: BRER [B]: Branch initially exposed by
bright American relative (4): BR(anch) + E(xposed) + R(ight) - 28dn: ECOMAPS [M]: Interaction diagrams come out before spa
mis broadcast (7): *(COME) + *(SPA) - 29dn: TRAILER [O]: Doorkeeper taking in g
ood film extract (7): TILER (doorkeeper) around RA (god) - 33dn: ERINGO [A]: Earth
around old candied root (6): E(arth) RING (round) O(ld) - 34dn: OCTROI [S]: Du
sty fellow leaves Corfiot in a mess (6): *(CORFIOT) - F(ellow) - 37dn: MINYAN [P]: Many
pin up at least ten men (6): *(MANY IN) - 42dn: EKKA [Z]: Horse-drawn carriage accommodating two kings in eastern
zone (4): KK (two kings) in E(astern) A (one)
Fairly quickly it occurred to me to count the clues, and having done
that and noticed that there were 26 of them, it wasn’t too hard to
guess what was going on. It took a little while to drop the idea of
just using the
NATO Phonetic Alphabet,
but with .XY.E. in the grid that was pretty untenable, and then the natural
(second) interpretation of the crossword title “Shortness of Clues”
(Pólya:
Did you use all the data?)
came to light: the extra letters were the clues, in order, of the
missing entries.
- Q (6): QUEBEC
- J (7): JUSTICE
- G (4): GRAM
- L (4): LEFT
- H (4): HARD
- V (4): VERB
- T (5): TENSE
- R (5): ROMEO
- E (4): ECHO
- X (4): XRAY
- F (4): FINE
- N (5): NAIRI
- K (4): KAON
- Y (6): YANKEE
- U (7): UNIFORM
- I (5): INDIA
- C (7): CALORIE
- W (6): WEIGHT
- D (4): DELE
- B (4): BORN
- M (4): MASS
- O (6): OXYGEN
- A (4): ANNA
- S (5): SAINT
- P (5): PENNY
- Z (4): ZONE