Crossword Help Forum
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The device is “x’s y” - what was originally ‘x’ is now ‘y’ in a word.

The relevant word is a synonym for pet, in the sense of neck.

Gitto, have you tried Qat on the Quinapalus site? you can search for more than one wild card in the 'Triangle.' section. Do you have the def and wordplay or would you like a hint?

Gitto - there seems to be a bit of a blind spot in some online dictionaries for this particular word.

If you use lie in the sense of a tall (X) the wordplay is straightforward…

Ref my previous post about 17a I got the substitution the wrong way round - sorry.

Gitto - there seems to be a bit of a blind spot in some online dictionaries for this particular word.

If you use lie in the sense of a tall (X) the wordplay is straightforward…

Planks, Gitto and HW7 thank you. I finally get it.

Planks @82, what do you mean by the triangle section - I have never used quinapulus.

Gitto - Google Quinapalus - then choose 'Qat' this gives various search options. Scroll down to 'find a word with an extra letter' (or something like that, and the example given is '/Triangle.' The full stop is for the wild card. Click on Try it, substitute your known letters for Triangle plus a full stop for each unknown letter. You can then search various dictionaries. If's nor foolproof but I often find it helpful. Hope this helps (and makes some sort of sense!)

I think I am about to fall at the final hurdle - I have filled the grid, got the writers, untangled the substituted letters and found what I assume is the shape I am looking for. Try as I might, no amount of grid staring is revealing any quotation segments. Could somebody tell me, is one of the three writers relatively modern and from 'across the pond'?

Planks, I've tried that, are my 11 hopefully correct letters correct?