Comments on: Guardian 24,231 (Sat 10 Nov)/Araucaria – Blyton rock

By: John Dean

John Dean — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:48:24 +0000

Re ‘aged’: Another way of “qualifying” it would be in a compound like ‘middle-aged’

By: Robin Gilbert

Robin Gilbert — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 10:33:58 +0000

I have long been familiar with the proverb "Little pitchers have long ears", a favourite saying of my father's, and a quick search on Google suggests that "Little pitchers have big ears" may be the American version, though obviously better suited to a Blyton theme.

By: rightback

rightback — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:49:08 +0000

That makes sense – thanks!

By: Geoff

Geoff — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:43:00 +0000

Sorry for not explaining properly! This is nothing to do with ‘qualifications’ in the GSCE sense. ‘Unqualified’ means (in this context) that the word AGED is not qualified with another word. For example, an adverb (eg ‘badly’) can be said to ‘qualify’ a verb (eg ‘explain’ – as in ‘explain badly’). If the word AGED appears with a number (ie is ‘qualified’ with a number) it doesn’t mean ‘old’ in an absolute sense – someone who is aged 6 is not exactly ‘old’. But if you describe someone as ‘aged’ without specifying the number of years, it suggests they are rather ancient.
Does that make any more sense?

I agree with Barbara in general, but ‘psaltress’ is an ancient word, which nobody is ever likely to use these days even on the exceedingly rare occasion of finding a woman playing a psaltery.

By: rightback

rightback — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 22:20:06 +0000

I agree with Geoff – ‘psaltress’ is lovely. Most of the other examples you give are pretty horrible though (‘sculptress’ perhaps excepted). Conversely I can’t stand ‘actor’ used to mean ‘actress’, as used by Araucaria a couple of weeks ago, while ‘assistant referee’ will never enter my vocabulary (and thank goodness is just too long to appear in a 15×15 crossword).

I also second the ‘eh?’ above – how does ‘aged’ (polysyllabic or otherwise) mean ‘unqualified’?

By: Barbara

Barbara — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 22:05:32 +0000

Re: 13. Psaltress
This word annoys me, as do a lot of other words that end in ess to indicate a female person.
In particular I object to editress, poetess, doctress, sculptress, paintress, benefactresss, authoress, etc. At least in the theater world, the players all refer to themselves as “actors”, regardless of gender. Let the rest of the world follow suit.

By: Re explanation for 9ac

Re explanation for 9ac — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 18:43:33 +0000

…. eh???

By: Geoff

Geoff — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 11:22:30 +0000

9ac: AGED ‘unqualified’ is the word on its own – pronounced as two syllables – rather than ‘aged 21′ or whatever, where the word is pronounced as a monosyllable, oddly.

13ac: PSALTRESS is a lovely word, which I hadn’t come across before, but worked out from the clue and checked in the dictionary. Interestingly, Chambers only gives the word for a female psaltery player. What is the male equivalent – a psalterer? Or was it a very girly instrument?

I also found the top half more difficult, and EUTERPE had me stuck for a while because I couldn’t work out the conceit of the clue with its surreal surface.