Crossword Help Forum
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The answer to the clue must have a letter removed, wherever it occurs, before entry. Word length is definition. Wordplay gives entry.
1a:
Theses about distinctive characteristics of race (7)

It's a fairly common word but not one I've seen pluralised before - anag 'sheet' + [extra] 'o'.

sorry - anag 'theses' - don't know why I thought it was 'sheet' (and then missed its 's').

Isn’t it an anagram of “theses” plus the O?

Hi, Jogamel. Just a simple anagram, leading to 'distinctive characteristics of race'. You have the word there to anagram, with one letter needed. It's more common in the singular, the way of thinking of a particular group, people, organisation...

Thank you.. I didn’t know that word was pluralised like that.
. Now 2d.
Part of limb’s too short. Problem! (5)

Part of your leg with last letter missing, requiring an extra N for definition

A really enjoyable puzzle this, and more so for me as it's the first one in ages I've (more or less) managed to finish before the end of Saturday. I got the whole RHS column of edge letters before tumbling to what the quotation was.
However, still struggling with parsings for two clues:
12 ac. OK with the definition, but can't see the wordplay
29 dn. Wordplay yields a six-letter word, which 'limitlessly' becomes four letters. First of these four should then be E, but the only word I can make from the four letters plus the edge letter is the name of a chemical compound.
Thanks in advance!

Doh! just realised that 29 dn. has *six* letters, not five - so all is explained for this one!

It's an obscure word ending in '...otum' in 29.