Listen With Others

Last January, Apt gave us an extract from The Merchant of Venice and asked us to fix examples of hypercorrection. This week we had some clashes to identify, then doodle a line through and finally highlight what was represented.

The clues were relatively straightforward despite having clashes lurking. Once again, foreign solvers may have been confused, this time by 4dn Amateur conducted Jones in choral singing (4) for ALED, referring to the Welsh Aled Jones, he of The Snowman fame.

Apt seems to like alternate hiddens. 7dn Periodically inspected airshow bears less traces of upheaval? (8) gave ISOBASES — (a)I(r)S(h)O(w) B(e)A(r)S (l)E(s)S) — and the slightly sneakier 29ac Regularly ruin a beurre noir that’s primarily not spoiled by heating (7) for UNBURNT — (r)U(i)N (a) B(e)U(r)R(e) + N(oir) + T(hat).

Finally, we had the thirteen clashes, and it was evident that that the clash where one letter was filled in as hinted at by the other was the O/I at 20ac/dn with the O becoming an eye. The remaining across clashes gave LNTEKALAGTTH and the downs PUKLICUQNGAE. Doodling the letters initially gave get tall thank and quick ape lung before ending up as Talk at length and A quick plunge. Tracing those letters out in the grid revealed what looked to me like an eagle!

Looking for the ten cells which required highlighting, it took a few minutes to see RABBIT in the top row and DUCK in the bottom. These were of course defined by the two phrases just revealed by the clashes. Whether we were expected to see the illusion before these two words, I don’t know, but I needed to google it to reveal Wiki’s German original, Kaninchen und Ente.

Thanks for a splendid construction, Apt, with not too much artwork required. Nice title too.