German in crosswords (Solution No. 3,294)

Tobi goes back to Germany this week, so I’ll take the opportunity post on another German theme; or more particularly, why we don’t see so much German in American crosswords (straight or cryptic).

From my experience, French appears to be the foreign language most often used in clues and answers; this is especially so in cryptic cluing.  I think that’s because French gives you so many convenient digraphs to splice into a charade clue, like “le,” “la,” and ”de.”  Spanish runs second, with Italian and German neck and neck for third.  It’s not surprising that French and Spanish are common: they’re the foreign languages most often studied in America (I’m equally awful in both).

The German I’ve seen in puzzles is mostly numbers (“eine” and “drei” give you useful letters to cross) and articles.  Those wonderful assembled nouns (around the dinner table a coupla nights ago we were talking about “kummerspeck”–literally “grief bacon”–which means overeating when one feels sad) are often too long for constructors to use, but maybe a half dozen of them could be the theme words in a Friday Wall Street Journal puzzle.

Solution and annotation to The Nation puzzle No. 3,288 below the fold.

Legend: "*" anagram; "~" sounds like; "<" letters reversed; "( )" letters inserted; "_" or lower case: letters deleted; "†" explicit in the clue, “^” first or last letter or letters, “{“ relocated letter or letters; “§” heteronym, “¶“ letter bank

Across

1a	*GRAVITYS RAINBOW	*WRITING SAY BRAVO (anagram indicated by “experimental”) Exclamation point because “experimental writing” is also used as the definition.
9a	<A|WARD<	<DRAW (“elicit”) + A (†)< (reversal indicated by “stepping back”)
10a	SIGH | *TSEER	SIGH (“sound of disappointment”) + *TREES (anagram indicated by “misshapen”)
11a	ST(EEL B)ANDS	STANDS (“bears”) containing (“eating”) EELS (“fish”) + ^B^irds (first letter indicated by “initially”)
12a	O(HI)O	OO (“circles”) containing (“around”) HI (“Hawaii”)
14a	PAN | ZER_	PAN (“search for gold”) + ZER_o_ (“nothing,” omission of last letter indicated by “almost”)
15a, 18a	DO | BERMAN PINS | CHER	DO (“act”) + BERMAN (“comedian Shelley”) + PINS (“outwrestles”) + CHER (“Oscar winner”)
19a	UN | IS | ON_	UN (“in France, one”) + IS (†) + ON_e (†, omission of last letter indicated by “not quite”)
22a	_VOTE_	de_VOTE_es (hidden word indicated by “in the center”)
24a	*BREADCRUMB	*EARDRUM BBC (anagram indicated by “damaging”)
26a	TAILSPINS
27a	LATHE_	LATHE_r_ (“soap,” omission of last letter indicated by “trims the end off”)
28a	LETTERS OF CREDIT	*DIRECT Inverted clue: the letters of the word “credit” anagram into “direct.”

Down

1d	*GEAR|S UP	SUP (“have dinner”) following (“after”) *RAGE (anagram indicated by “uncontrolled”)
2d	*AGAMEMNON	*AMONG MEN (anagram indicated by “psycho”)
3d	*INDULGENCE	*CLUE ENDING
4d	Y|*ES MAN	*NAMES (anagram indicated by “nasty”) following (“pursuing”) everybody^Y^ (last letter indicated by “ultimately”)
5d	_RIGADOON	_b_RIGADOON (“Lerner and Lowe musical,” omission of first letter indicated by “starting late”)
6d	_INTO	_p_INTO (“horse,” omission of first letter indicated by “headless”)
7d	~BEECH	~BEACH (“strand,” homonym indicated by “reportedly”)
8d	WART | OR | N	WART (“imperfection”) + OR (†) + ^N^ightmares (first letter indicated by “the start of”)
13d	*VERNACULAR	*CAR VAN RULE (anagram indicated by “violate”)
16d	*MISQUOTED	*TO ME SQUID (anagram indicated by “is disgusting”)
17d	NE(AR M | I)SS	I (“one”) following (“under”) ARM (†) contained in (“cutting”) NESS (“Eliot”) This is a hard but rewarding one to parse out.  A bend in the rules Hex won’t make, but Hot and Trazom will.
18d	*PIVOTAL	*VITAL OP (anagram indicated by “disruption of”)
20d	NO | BLEST	NO (“vote [cross reference to 22a] against”) + BLEST (“heavenly”)
21d	M | ASS | IF	M (“male”) + ASS (“donkey”) + IF (“provided”)
23d	_TA INT_	da_TA INT_egration (hidden word indicated by “to hide”)
25d	~ISLE	~AISLE (“passage,” homonym indicated by “listening to”)