Comments on: Guardian 24,535 (Sat 1 Nov)/Araucaria – The Neville you know

By: Ralph G

Ralph G — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:01:05 +0000

PS: “bore the meaning ‘grotesque’” (above) is a bit strong. Fuller story: in about 1550 excavations of ancient Rome unearthed bizarre artefacts which were termed ‘grottesche’ (for sure; semble neologism from ‘grotta, cave’) and ‘antiche’,f.pl., (I surmise). English collectors/traders adopted the latter term in the forms ANTIKE, ANTICKE and (later?) ANTIC, using the term to mean ‘bizarre’. ‘Grotesque’ is recorded in 1643 but the Italian term ‘grottesche’ was current in objets d’art circles earlier.
Further quotation from Robinson Crusoe: [MAN Friday] “coming towards me … making ANTIC gestures”.
Do we now need to watch out for ANTIC as an anagram indicator?

By: Ralph G

Ralph G — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:52:44 +0000

17. Yes, thankyou, Araucaria’s my favourite setter and ..(for Eileen)
aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus – at times even the excellent Homer nods.
I hope ANTIC survives as a distinct word with a distinct meaning and a distinct etymology (from the Italian at a time when ANTICO bore the meaning ‘grotesque’).
Other words I might spring to the defence of would be DISINTERESTED (understandably) and INCHOATE (idiosyncratically).

By: rightback

rightback — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:38:48 +0000

Thanks to you both for the antic/antique research, especially the quotations! It’s my strong suspicion that the reason for Araucaria equating ‘old’ with ‘antic’ is the large amount of overlap between ‘antic’ and ‘antique’ (especially, to quote Chambers, “ANTIC, also (obs) … ANTIQUE” and the instructions to “see also ANTIQUE” and “see also ANTIC”), which could quite easily lead even an experienced wordsmith to think that ‘antic’ can mean ‘antique’ in any sense. It took me several reads to convince myself otherwise. So I agree with Ralph’s final sentence that this is a (very subtle) mistake, but a forgivable one.

By: Ralph G

Ralph G — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:59:57 +0000

Geoff
Sorry for the unintended formality; a transcription error, copying up notes made off-line.
The Chambers 1998 reference is interesting. Perhaps the ‘of’ is a typographical error corrected in later printings. My copy (using capitals to represent bold print) reads:
“Obsolete forms ANTIC, ANTICKE and sometimes ANTIQUE” which makes better sense but only tells us that ANTIQUE was occasionally used as a spelling of ANTIC meaning ‘grotesque’.
With all respect to Webster’s, and thank you for the link, very useful to have, the somewhat obscure citation there is not very convincing,
What we do not have AS YET is any evidence from an English source reasonably accessible to Guardian solvers that ANTIC is an obsolete spelling for ANTIQUE, which is what the clue requires, unless I’m missing something (standard hazard on this site).

By: Geoff Moss

Geoff Moss — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:21:59 +0000

Ralph

Only my late mother has ever called me by my full name!

Normally, Chambers indicates alternative spellings by using ‘or’ in the headword. However this is not always the case, for example in the 11th Ed. it has “antique (and sometimes written antick, now obs.)”.

The entry for ‘antic’ in Chambers 1998 has the statement “obsolete forms of antick, anticke and sometimes antique”

Webster’s Dictionary also supported antic = antique, see:

http://machaut.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/WEBSTER.sh?WORD=antic

By: Ralph G

Ralph G — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:29:16 +0000

15d ANTIC and comment 5: it never occurred to me before that “see also” in Chambers might point to a synonym, as you would expect that relationship to be dealt with in the entry. Could Geoffrey Moss or another come up with a more convincing example of ‘see also’ indicating a synonym? ‘Antique’ is not used as a synonym for ANTIC in its well-established meaning of ‘grotesque’ (see Shorter OED). The most likely encounter with ANTIC for most people would be Aldous Huxley’s ‘Antic Hay’ (a quote from Marlowe: “my men … shall with their goat-feet dance the antic hay”); Hamlet I v 172 ‘to put an antic disposition on’; or Richard II III 2 162 ‘and there the antic(k) sits’.
In Chambers “See” on its own seems to be used to draw attention to an entry where omitted derivation details can be found, or to an entry (of different meaning) sharing the same derivation. Does the Chambers editor explain the use of ‘see, see also’ anywhere?

By: rightback

rightback — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 07:18:40 +0000

I meant my original, flawed, explanation! (But perhaps you knew that – it’s Monday morning and any form of irony is likely to go over my head until at least Wednesday.)

By: Eileen

Eileen — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 23:39:07 +0000

N E VILLE for ‘a town in northeast France’?

I think Araucaria can be a bit more ‘obscure’ than that!

By: rightback

rightback — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:28:36 +0000

Thanks for the corrections and clarifications. Having not had chance to solve this puzzle until Friday, I had to blog it extremely rapidly so I could get it ‘pre-published’ before going away for the weekend, so apologies for the errors. I did think ‘Neville’ was a bit obscure, even for Araucaria!

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:44:05 +0000

22d Halifax is not just a “place” in Nova Scotia – it is the provincial capital.

13 ac Pigmy: I am afraid I didn’t get this on my “whizz” through, Eileen – it was the last one I got!