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pigale

7th July 2016, 13:23
Mountainous area needs a knotted rope to attain spectacle (5,5)
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pigale

7th July 2016, 13:24
Slight addition

Mountainous area needs a previously knotted rope to attain spectacle (5,5)
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ginge

7th July 2016, 15:25
Hi Les, would you please confirm I've parsed your clue correctly as (assuming I have it correct) neither abbreviation appears in my edition of Chambers (11th) and would be new to me.

Maybe trial by jury: Definition by Example (though I would have thought it would have to be capitalised as such).
Spend time embracing: Container of "sap era"
Will allow loved ones to attend Borstal: V.O. = Visiting Order ?
With youth offender: + Y.O. ?

Cheers mate.
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tatters

7th July 2016, 16:46
Show patience over a soapy mess? [5,5]
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aristophanes

7th July 2016, 16:49
Sicilian capo's family an outlet for histrionics (sometimes it's a lot of patter) (5,5)
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pigale

7th July 2016, 17:42
London hotel operator endlessly procures light comedy (5,5)
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stevea6000

7th July 2016, 18:27
Patience, say, a virtue? O no, it sounds like you work differently (5,5)
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stevea6000

7th July 2016, 19:10
Deftly prove a story idea? Not tried at trial by jury, for example (5,5)
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fieryjack

7th July 2016, 20:08
Yes! A poor museum can provide entertainment (5, 5)
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les40

7th July 2016, 20:25
Hi Ginge,

Spot on with the parse ginge, however, personally, my anomaly with Definition by example clues is, should we lose the capital letter of a pronoun when starting a sentence with 'Maybe' , 'Perhaps' or 'For instance' to qualify it as a DBE and then following with the DBE as I've done and if it interferes with the smooth surface read, should we have poetic licence and hope that the solver can spot the (accidental) misdirection. Or, is it more fair to start with a double capitalised sentence like this: Maybe Trial by jury...
It would be good to hear some feedback on this from others. Marty may pitch in with his view on the fairness as he's been pretty clued up in the past with the DBE rules.

Concerning the abbreviations, V.O (Visiting Order) & Y.O (Youth Offender)
I was at work when I compiled this clue and did really think that these would be recognised, as in my line of work I hear these terms banded about regularly, however, I've just got home and checked in Chambers 12th and you're correct, they are nowhere to be found, so maybe I jumped the gun and it should be omitted from the vote.
On that note, I first learnt about qualifying abbreviations a few years ago when I first started compiling (Pre Joint Effort) when I was still green and got 'Big Dave' to edit one of my first grids and he sent a clue back because I'd used 'Vodka' for 'V' because I was taught that any capitalised pronoun could be used to denote a capital letter - How wrong was I?
Which leads me to another slight anomaly. If a crossword preamble does not state that a certain dictionary is the primary source (ie, Chambers) then where are we with the hard and fast rules of abbreviations because, as you may know, if one enters an abbreviation into Google, it will come up with many (sometimes hundreds of) possibilities that would seem viable but don't appear in Chambers.
Opinions welcome




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