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Oh I see. I get the point re the Y now. I guess the setters just had to try to be consistent as tricky for solvers to know for sure which is which. Perhaps using a different answer in 16a would have been a safer option

I have that same ambiguity too.

Although to be fair to the setters, and in the cold light of day, that y in 16a is acting as a vowel according to the chambers pronunciation guide.

Sounded very consonanty to me after a couple of glasses of wine last night, but maybe it's ok.

Certainly an interesting idea, and not nearly as difficult as it at first seemed. A small point: the third sentence of the rubric should begin “In half the clues a word or phrase in the definition…”

I intend to resolve the 22D ambiguity by noting that only one of the possible answers is a noun. I'm not convinced that prepsitions, conjunctions etc. can be pluralised except in sentences like "ands have only got one vowel". Which, in the entire history of the universe, has never before been uttered.

I surrender! I cannot get into this at all.
For example, I cannot see what "Scots" is doing in 1a, but I assume it is a CE correction. And for 36a, which i think is an &lit, I do not see why the answer I have is plural, as the singular seems more appropriate to me.

gitto - look up "on" in brb for your 1a problem.

Sorry, I think 1a is a normal clue, but why Scots?

I know a nursery rhyme that uses the plural form in 22D. And Chambers gives it as a noun. So I still have an ambiguity there.
Otherwise, a brilliant puzzle. Lots of nice penny drop moments after initial bafflement.

Thanks cockie, I was just being lazy!!

deeside - yes, agreed. was being lazy when reading brb! hope either possibility will be acceptable, not least because mine - with an e - is in the post.