Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Have a look at the full entry under the headword FERMENT in Chambers

Thanks for that. I hadn't got as far as looking for 7-letter words to put on the front of -escible! Luckily it didn't affect my solution. Has anyone worked out the message yet? It looks like a very tedious job to do.

Concentrate on the grid fill first. There are obviously problems doing that, but you should be able to make a start, and hopefully the penny will drop. The message really relates to what you have to submit.

I think you've not read my previous posts. I finished the gridfill a couple of hours ago. It doesn't appear to be vital to know the message but it would be nice, as with "liable to wither" to understand fully what is going on.

Meursault thank you for your generous hint. All finished now but I can't understand the problems with the final step. It seems quite clear to me.

Barretter - sorry, no hadn't read earlier stuff properly, but with the grid filled, you should be able to put the clues with extra letters into normal clue order, and get the message, just two words, by my reckoning.

Tomorrow, I think! Thanks to everybody for all your help.

Escuan, I hope you're right ! The problem with ambiguity that Dryden was remarking on earlier - the preamble requires the 'modern, scientific way', which I believe is alphabetic, and the instruction suggests another way. If you've chosen the latter, then there are again 2, possibly 3, cases of a choice needing made. Most of the representations in the latter group aren't very modern, but are accepted by modern science...

Barretter, yes - it's just SAN(E)D. It might well be glasspaper, but the verb to glass means something else.

Good God, I didn't know that. Could somebody tell me what "gratuitous" means?

Just answering your query from comment 17. Like Gem94, I don't read all your comments...