Mephisto 2993

[Hagen]

Can anyone offer a hint as to how the wordplay for 16 across works? The clue is Inquire?! (6)

The answer is obvious from the crossers, and is a synonym for INQUIRE. But the only possible wordplay I can come up with is so far-fetched as to make the most libertarian Guardian setters look uber-Ximenean, and that can't be right!

[Lie-in King]

What's the pattern of crossers you have, Hagen?

[Hagen]

QUA_RE for which there's one possible fill, and as I say that is a synonym of the one-word clue so almost certainly is the answer. I just don't get the (presumably &lit) wordplay.

[Lie-in King]

Hmm - I can see (but am unsure how to type it out!) -

Quaere (inquire) - 'ae' (Scot. "one"; 'i') for 'i' in 'quire'

[TheFrogman]

It's a double def - QUAERE is an interjection meaning 'inquire' but also a variant spelling of 'query', one term for a question mark. So 'Inquire' and '?' are the two defs, and the '!' suggests something a little unusual is going on.

[Lie-in King]

Ah, I should've looked it up, I didn't know it was also "query" :-)

[Hagen]

That's the basis I was working on, but there doesn't seem to be enough information to indicate the AE for I substitution. Even if we take the QM to signify "for one" (in the sense that a QM indicates "for example" in clues) the thing expands to
In quire for one! (6)
and unless AE somehow equates to an ! it doesn't work.

I'm probably being thick...

[Hagen]

Sorry I was typing while the previous two answers appeared. I see it now, thanks.

[Hagen]

PS are you the Frogman who used to write the excellent and informative Azed blog? If so, belated regrets that you decided/were persuaded to close it down.

[TheFrogman]

Thank you - yes, I am he. I'm glad you found the blog interesting - I enjoyed doing it (and learned a lot myself in the process), but after six years of completing the puzzle, fully parsing the solutions and publishing the blog within a tight timescale every Sunday morning I felt it was best to make a clean break before it became a chore (particularly when I was on holiday). It was rather nice to go for about six months last year without doing a single puzzle!

[Hagen]

Thank you in turn for all the work you put in. You certainly deserved the break!