Comments on: Guardian 24, 557 set by Logodaedalus

By: Ralph G

Ralph G — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:10:48 +0000

Footnote on agnomen=nickname. In Collins but not in Chambers’ 10th ed. Readers of Walter Scott would know it from Waverley xvii 74 “Small pale features, from which he derived his agnomen of Bean, or white” [the bean being presumably the Faba vulgaris, with a mainly white flower, and not the red-flowered runner bean most of us grow in the garden].

By: smutchin

smutchin — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:34:57 +0000

Re my earlier comment on amaretto – that comes from when I was a sub editor on a food magazine a few years ago. I’m sure it was in our house style guide. But on the other hand, I’m sure amaretto is widely used to describe a biscuit singularly, and I can’t argue with that. In any case, I liked the clue for its amusing surface.

By: stiofain_x

stiofain_x — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:55:15 +0000

I enjoyed this one and also learnt a few new words and loved the surface reading in 10 down.
Re todays countdown I had manliest latrines and entrails then spotted terminals but wouldnt have got tramlines without yesterdays anagram.
stiofain

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:34:45 +0000

Sorry – meant ‘labyrinth’, of course. I’m just on my way out.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:33:50 +0000

Dave: I’ve so far neglected to reply to the rest of your Comment 10:

An agnomen, being an ‘added-on’ name, can also be a nickname. Logodaedalus [a pseudonym I've long admired] comes from the Greek word ‘logos’ – ‘word’ and Daedalus, the mythical cunning craftsman, who devised the Labytinth for king Minos of Crete and, less successfully, wings for himself and his son Icarus to escape from said king, and so means ‘cunning engineer of words’, or similar, which could well apply specifically to anagrams, of which this clue is one, so I reckon that our setter is being literal rather than conceited.

By: Brian Harris

Brian Harris — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:06:25 +0000

Found a few of today’s solutions rather obscure, hence this wasn’t a favourite. “Person-to-person” calls are way before my time, for example….

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:58:36 +0000

Ralph G: thanks for that. That's pretty much my feeling, too. The derivation of 'impute' is through French from the Latin 'imputare', meaning [Lewis and Short] 'to enter into the account, to reckon, attribute as a merit or a fault to oneself or another'. I think 'open to accusation' in Chambers squeezes in on the coat-tails of the other definitions but, since it's there, we have to hand it to Logodaedalus. [Muck; I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'd got 'manliest' and I don't know whether it makes it worse or better that I thought I'd done quite well.]

By: muck

muck — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:42:00 +0000

Eileen, I just watched Countdown too, and did get tramlines/terminals, remembering it from yesterday’s cryptic. Sad, but thanks for the blog.

By: Ralph G

Ralph G — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:26:54 +0000

Eileen: I’m not sure imputable has come back into currency as used of a person. The OED has an example of that use from 1726, but the other four examples relate to imputable actions. The _verb_ impute in the sense of accuse is given as obsolete. I reckon the “open to accusation” in Chambers clears the setter of any imputable error but it may not be a good guide to current practice. Some modern citations would be persuasive. Derivation, by the way, is from the French “bring into account” so it probably started off as referring to actions rather than persons.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:13:15 +0000

I know this is not really allowed but I’m taking a liberty since I’m ‘in the chair’ today. I’ve just watched ‘Countdown’ [yes] and, following yesterday’s highly-praised tramlines / terminals anagram clue, those two 9-letter words appeared [not guessed by the contestants, though - and I didn't spot them, either1]