Comments on: Guardian 24,601 – Rover

By: smutchin

smutchin — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:21:33 +0000

I think the reason Chambers is favoured over COED and Collins is because it gives lots more variant spellings and obscure words of the kind that are so loved by “advanced” setters and solvers (the kind that mean I find Azed more of a chore than a bit of fun). Collins includes a lot more proper names than the other two.

Chambers Crossword Dictionary (essentially a glorified thesaurus) and Brewers Dictionary of Phrase & Fable are also useful references.

By: Geoff Moss

Geoff Moss — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:20:16 +0000

Derek
Re comment #26 “It rather gives the lie to the idea that any one dictionary should be regareded as the bible.”

Chambers is the ‘bible’ for certain crosswords (mainly barred-grid) but not all. Most of the ‘blocked-grid ‘dailies’ use COED or Collins as a reference.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:55:23 +0000

re 9ac I recall from childhood reading of wartime novels that a morse code machine operator’s distinctive style or ‘signature’ was known as his (or her) ‘fist’- so I’d taken this as signature = autograph. On the other hand I was slightly less confident that ‘make a sign’ (rather than just ‘sign’) = autograph.

By: muck

muck — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:44:59 +0000

Derek: If you go to Wikipedia and search ‘Colour vision’ or ‘Colour blind’ you will find most of what I know. End of annoying people more interested in crosswords.

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:35:11 +0000

Ta. I’ll search.

By: muck

muck — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:13:45 +0000

Derek: There was a BBC Horizon TV program, many years ago, which had a pretty good explanation of how ‘colour-blind’ people, generally males who lack the 570nmm or 540nm cones, experience colours.

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:31:30 +0000

Umm, Muck? Why, given that I am severely green deficient do I a) think I see green at the same intensity as other colours; and b) it is my favourite colour. None of my opticians ever managed to explain that!

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:02:54 +0000

I like the way you gentlemen had to refer to Collins to get “str”. It rather gives the lie to the idea that any one dictionary should be regareded as the bible. Too much reliance on any dictionary is a concept I struggle with due to some appalling howlers when it comes to technical words (see PI a while back).

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:58:23 +0000

Except Muck (nice post btw), that the idea of 4 primaries corresponds to neither artistic nor optical definitions, both of which say only 3 for differing reasons. It makes more sense in some respects to have 4, but flies in the face of accepted definitions, which also happen to be mutually exclusive and therefore a good excuse for an argument. I knew his one would run, that was the whole point of starting it!

Also, admitting 4 would be very awkward for either the artistic view or the optical view as the 4th colour does not work in the same way as the other 3 in either case. Both of those views define what is a primary by the way they act, which may well be unfortunate, but is the way things are.

And in case anyone is wondering, the frequency responses in the eye are indeed somewhat spread. But, unless it’s hidden away in some scientific paper, you won’t too many people using that to claim 4 primaries due the “doesn’t work the same” problem.

By: Ralph G

Ralph G — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:10:51 +0000

No explanation all day and two come along simultaneously.