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I've seen some quite decent clues over the weekend, but this one definitely falls into my 'Ugly' classification.

Crack in ground, by the sound of it (4)


PS Even though this clue is from a current puzzle, I have no compunction in naming and shaming it - it's from today's Telegraph.

Feel free to add any clues worthy of admiration or sighs of desperation or moans of exasperation.

I don't know, maybe it's where I'm from (aren't most homophones?), but I say them the same.

Brendan, that's why I don't like many of these clues. There's often an assumption that the words are pronounced the same. In many, many cases (sometimes involving a whole country and much of the adjoining one!), they are not. I wouldn't mind if we got the odd 'for some' thrown in occasionally.

Got it, I see what you mean, especially regarding the 'for some' addition. For example, even though I wasn't, but both my parents were born in Ireland, and they would never have pronounced them the same.

Thanks, Brendan. I don't think there will ever be 100% agreement on some of the homophones - or 'homophones' as I sometimes call them!

I never use homophones in my puzzles, since one person's garazh is another's garij (in fact the same person's, given that I use both interchangeably), but I have a degree of sympathy for the setter if the pronunciations given by Chambers are the same and thus there is some form of independent verification. In this instance they are not the same...

Actually Malone, I feel a bit of a hypocrite. Do you recall a week or so ago someone asked for help with a clue that read something like "Excitement(?) that April's ending" and you correctly answered 'Mania', and I posted within 5 minutes how absolutely awful I thought the clue was, and is.

It was a bit embarrassing actually because I had just posted, moments before, that I very rarely, if ever, criticize a clue or setter.

That's right, Brendan - I remember that now! Although I'm sometimes reluctant to criticise setters, I feel no guilt whatsoever if it's because of a dodgy homophone. At the time of your first post, saying you rarely criticise clues, you probably meant 'proper' clues! That's what I thought at the time and still think now.

Asetter, thanks for that. I wish more setters would follow your example and dispense with homophones

I take your point about the pronunciations given in Chambers - I had to accept that last year when 'earn' and 'urn' cropped up. Those would never have the same sounds for me, but I looked at the pronunciation indicators in Chambers and saw that the clue was reasonably fair.

That is exactly what I meant, Malone, thanks.

In addition to yourself, I also remember Elle posting in response that she assumed I was referring only to homophones and that we've all done it.