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Glad you got there. A mutton is a long dash, the width of a letter em, and a nut is a short dash, the width of a letter en in printing. It’s worth remembering, as they crop up occasionally

I should add that this is pretty high-level stuff. 99% of solvers, probably more, would not know these terms.

Thanks Quisling. This forum is not only helpful but also educative. Learnt a lot after discussing with you all.

Please help me in parsing / solving this cryptic clue -
"Master trimmed plain watch pockets (5,3)"

Bump

I don’t much like it, but I think it must be an American phrase meaning to investigate thoroughly, gaining complete knowledge of. Five letter word for watch, as in a Boy ?????, pocketing a word for plain, frank, missing its final letter.

So, for avoidance of doubt, I’d go with SCOPE OUT

Thanks Quisling for revealing the answer. Even with your parsing, it would have been difficult for me to get confidence with the answer.

Quisling, I expect your answer may be correct - but if it is, it's one of the worst clues I've seen for quite some time! The surface reading is awful and the answer - if it's correct - really does seem a bit of a stretch.

I quite agree, Malone. The definition is sketchy, and the surface terrible. It’s only the plural pockets which almost forces the wordplay to be as I described. I find Bharat’s clues grimly fascinating, like a verbal car crash sometimes. I hope they’ll enlighten us on whether my speculation was correct!