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There is no superfluous word in 10d. There is no 10a

Sorry typo.

I obviously meant 10d as the superfluous words were only in down clues.

Many thanks to you both. Since you confirmed it was not in 10d I looked again and found it, not too far away!

One of the things that has been puzzling me is why the letters are like silent movie actors. In silent movies the actors lips move so presumably they aren't silent at all, but their words aren't recorded except as subtitles. A more accurate and more intelligible hint would have been "like title's first word."

Taking the same liberties as the setter I was able to come up with such a range of candidates (6 or 7 in one clue) that I could form different words from those in the quote. Seems rather a hit-or-miss 'system'.

Hi Dryden, I think that a more accurate hint might have been, "Silent letters, pseudo-silent letters, letters the setter believes to be silent but are not, letters that may be silent due to mispronunciation."

I'm not talking about regional accents, simply about what letters are intended to be pronounced. When making an assessment of this puzzle it might be all too easy to allow latitude to the setter on grounds of regional pronunciation. Except that the puzzle features in a national newspaper.

A possible saving grace is that (it seems) everyone was able to complete the puzzle without needing to indulge the setter's whimsical letter choices, and found an easier route via google. Though if it is the only route to solving the puzzle, then the google route attracts criticism of a different kind. But without such a short cut being in place, I don't think this puzzle would have been fit for publication.

It would be interesting to know if anybody managed to find the quotation from the silent letters as the setter intended rather than resorting to Google.

Hello to everyone. I've been doing the Listener for donkeys and have even won the prize a few times. Been to the site as a guest and finally succumbed to signing up. I agree with comments made in previous threads (eg meursault) about 'the other site', and think that a little bit of discussion without giving too much away is fine. I hope to be able to make positive contributions in the future.

I would never criticise a setter because the work that must go into it is amazing. Some are obviously more amazing than others.

In answer to Smithsax, once I had the 'll' of 11 across and married it with the 'movie' of the title then Googled the quotation it was fairly plain sailing. It made all the silence irrelevant.

There. So that was my inaugural speech.

Hi Marky, good to hear your point of view. I hope you contribute more.

So far this year I think the standard of Listener puzzles has been very high, and I think I've said so more than once.

If I were to say every week "Nice puzzle : thank you, setter", then the worth of those words would diminish, so I try to refrain from that. Equally, I've attempted to reduce my criticism of puzzles which I'm less happy about. And I won't say anything more about this one.

In reply to smithsax, I for one found the quotation by getting the silent letters first. I got 11a fairly early one (though I thought it was going to be Halloween at first) and searched for quotes online but there were so many and I was sure the word "listen" was involved. Only towards the end did I realize I had the wrong anagram.

I have heard a version of this saying before and I think it was at an Oscars ceremony. In fact that would be my only complaint - that we are looking for a quotation that exists in different forms.

I was in the same boat after completing grid using wrong anagram. I guess to be fair preamble states 'a version' and lists word lengths so not too difficult to find the correct one once using the correct anagram