Comments on: Guardian 24553 (Sat 22 Nov)/Shed – New arrival?

By: mhl

mhl — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:40:25 +0000

Thanks for commenting on this, Shed, and congratulations! We found the puzzle was testing but very enjoyable, and I think most of the commenters and bloggers here appreciate it when setters include a Nina…

By: Stephen Saunders

Stephen Saunders — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:06:52 +0000

I’m writing belatedly, having only just discovered this site. This was an excellent puzzle, and I completely disagree with the ‘self indulgent’ insult. Those who wish to stick with crosswords which employ ‘words in common usage’ have plenty of choice to go at and can thereby save themselves the expense of a decent dictionary or the doubtless Herculean effort required to use it.

‘Aeriated’ in the sense given here for ‘aerated’ should definitely be listed somewhere – my wife and I use the word regularly. We grew up in the West Country and the northern Home Counties respectively.

Loved the PRADA clue, and sorry about Mr Kaye – I had Klee, as intended.

By: Shed

Shed — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:59:29 +0000

Rightback: no, Shed is an old nickname dating back to long before I moved to Sheffield. Thanks for the clouds.

Paul (not Paul): I guess I’ll have to settle for ‘some of the people some of the time’ – I did try to make the clues for the more obscure words fairly gentle. I accept that (as Rightback pointed out) there was more than one plausible unravelling of a couple of the anagrams – but I felt I’d given enough for people to narrow them down to two or three possibles which could quite easily be verified. I’m more upset to learn of Otis Kaye (whom I had never heard of), as that really is a valid alternative to KLEE for 24dn, and I hate clues with more than one valid solution.

By: Paul (not Paul)

Paul (not Paul) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:55:31 +0000

Frankly, you can keep your self-indulgent Ninas and supply us with a good crossword with words in common usage, as far as I’m concerned.

I’m happy to have one or two unfamilar words or usages but this crossword was extremely unsatisfactory as it required far too much external referencing (for me). In particular, some of the obscure words were not tightly clued to allow them to be guessed and then looked up.

By: rightback

rightback — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:09:05 +0000

Thanks very much, Shed, and congratulations by proxy on the bambino.

(South Yorkshire-wise, I don’t suppose “Shed” is anything to do with “outskirts of Sheffield”, is it?)

By: Eileen

Eileen — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:43:23 +0000

Thank you, Shed. I was hoping you would let us into the secret. Renewed congratulations. And thanks for a great puzzle. More new words learned.

By: Shed

Shed — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:56:36 +0000

Incidentally, ‘aerated’ to mean ‘upset, agitated’ is still quite common around here – and generally pronounced ‘aeriated’. But this is South Yorkshire.

By: Shed

Shed — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:51:40 +0000

Thanks to rightback and all who commented. In case anyone’s still looking at this blog, Daniel Michael Peck is my partner’s nephew, born earlier this year.

By: beermagnet

beermagnet — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 06:20:41 +0000

Eileen, it seems your experience is similar to mine, my mother (now in her 80s) and my grandmother both said aer-i-ated, but this is in Surrey. Now you mention the Midlands I can imagine Pam Ayers saying it.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:41:18 +0000

Beermagnet: it was actually only my grandmother who used that expression, when I was a child [a long time ago]. Since then, I’ve always thought it was an idiosyncratic word of hers [she had several] or Midland dialect, at least.

I was really very surprised to see that meaning of ‘aerated’ in the crossword. As I’ve said, it’s not in my Collins or SOED.