Posted by chatmeister on February 17th, 2009
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March 7th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Thank you, Will, that’s a very useful answer to my question.
Problem solved.
Of course, I’ve noticed all these references to cricket in the puzzles I tried to solve so far. But indeed, cricket’s not my cup of tea (and will never be, I fear).
March 7th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I’ve a lot of respect for anyone who does crosswords in a second language. And I’m watching cricket right now…
March 7th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Well, what can I say?
Thank you for these uplifting words.
Although I discovered English crosswords only ten months ago or so, I had ample experience with it in Holland. I have been writing Dutch clues for as long as I can remember – and that’s a very long time. I had them on all kinds of loose papers. Purely by accident I found out about Crossword Compiler, the perfect solution to put these clues in a database.
But then one thing led to another, and now I’m doing English crosswords.
And I am writing clues as well, which is great fun.
(As you may have noticed at Paul’s Cryptica site)
And luckily, I have an English girlfriend who is into it even more than I am. By the way, she’s also not really a cricketer …
March 7th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
A good point well made, Will.(in addition…..#99) I’m in my mid 40′s and despite growing up in England and being schooled here, my grasp of English grammar is very poor. When I was younger, late teens, early 20′s, I spent long periods in France and Germany but due to not fully grasping English grammar I struggled to learn the languages cos I didn’t understand the meaning of the English grammar in the text books I was using. As a teenager I was Cryptic curious but they made no sense to me whatsoever. I am quite sure had we the ability then to share knowledge that we have now, the web, I’d have started solving in my early teens and paid more attention in English classes instead of finding them boring and often bunking off.I also have difficulty spelling but fortunately I know which words I struggle with , while solving I often leave a lot of blank squares within words, if I have no dictionary.Despite this I still complete a lot puzzles and continue to learn.I’d be cheating myself if I didn’t look things up and ask basic questions .
March 7th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Yes – I think my comment must have been edited – I let a little bit of frustration out. But my basic point is that I for example have lots to learn and don’t know all the words in any crossword. So I’m happy to use dictionaries and Wikipedia and Google as I go.
March 7th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
I wonder why it was edited?
March 7th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
If I might suggest to our esteemed moderator…… If for some perfectly valid reason some parts of a comment are edited (or deleted) could you put, say, a short row of asterisks? I don’t keep copies of what I have written, and to quote Derek, “I don’t have the world’s best memory or even a smooth running recall of what I do remember”. Some indicator would serve to jog my memory & prevent me from transgressing in future.
Sil: I must say how much I admire people like yourself whose first language is not English attempting cryptic crosswords. It’s hard enough when one is in a different country, given that some compilers refer to local places & celebrities, though fortunately, not too often.
Here in Queensland we are about to be hit by a massive Cat.5 cyclone, expected to affect most of the Qld coast. As if we haven’t had enough disasters this year, though with such vast amounts of rain we are spared the horrors of the Victorian bushfires.
March 7th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Take care, good luck.
March 7th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Hi Bella .I hope your hatches are well and truly batoned. I don’t know if you read Wills comments before they were edited, I can’t remember well enough to quote them, but I didn’t even notice a bit of frustration.
I like the asterisk connection!
A win today at Brisbane road.Good luck with the weather.
March 8th, 2009 at 12:21 am
Derek/98 – there’s no logical reason why any slang shouldn’t be used – the dictionaries have plenty of “regionalisms”. The attraction of CRS is just the apparent “meaning distance” between ordinary words like “china” and “mate” – perfect material for puzzling clues, unless used too often – possibly true for this example.
March 8th, 2009 at 1:44 am
#108: batoned or battened?
March 8th, 2009 at 1:50 am
I believe the Whitsunday islands are **battened** down, with holidaying guests prepared to brave it out. We don’t expect fierce weather in Brisbane for a couple of days but this morning the clouds are gathering.
Glad you like the asterisk idea!
March 8th, 2009 at 2:07 am
Rishi,I hope the Bay of Bengal is calm and there are no tiffs in the air.
While writing #108, I wondered whether it was batoned, battened,batend(see #103 “difficulty with spelling”)and lots of other combinations.I await enlightenment.
March 8th, 2009 at 2:27 am
Cheers Bella!
March 8th, 2009 at 2:32 am
For which you have to sit under the bodhi tree.
March 8th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Sil/97: {century = ton} is OK because they have a common meaning – 100 of something. {female = loud} isn’t, because all they share is how they’re abbreviated. Thinking of a similar example, we’d all criticise {bow (body gesture) = bough (tree branch)} if it was used without a “sounds like” indicator. So IF you could devise an “abbreviated like” indicator, {female = loud} would be a new idea, but fair.
March 8th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Peter, you don’t have to convince me (any more).
I agree with you, ton % …. (or dare I say, century % )
However, there’s is sill something lurking in the back of my mind. If words should share a common meaning, is this then acceptable: {sec = min} ? (time-sharing)
On the other hand, this discussion is probably going to far now.
Maybe we should give it a rest (for a long while).
March 8th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Sil/116 – it’s hard to find precise rules to cover all cases consistently, but I don’t think sec = min is OK just because they’re time periods – one is 60 times longer than the other. (I’m sure you wouldn’t want “ton = dozen” …) Something like “short time” in the clue could mean either, but it seems a fair def for both. (Ignoring the idea that “yr” is a “short time” too because it’s a short word for a period of time (yr = year).
March 8th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Steven – one battens down the hatches.
Interesting similarity of words, though, with some intriguing possibilities for crossword setters – “baton” and “batten” are [almost?] homophones and both could be defined as “rod”…
March 8th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Thanks Smutching; Batten House for an ageing rock star!
March 8th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Hamish is being a real nuisance. All those tourists battened down for nothing as the cyclone still heads south without making landfall. If anyone wants to track it go to http://www.bom.com.au for weather in Aus. I have friends & relatives who are now in the direct path. In nautical terms does anyone know what a “batten” is as applied to hatches?
March 9th, 2009 at 1:10 am
Sorry that should be http://www.bom.gov.au
March 9th, 2009 at 8:46 am
A batten is just a strip of wood. “Batten down the hatches” has me imagining people nailing the batten to the main structure of the ship either side of a hatch, but I suspect the real-life version is something more like this kind of door latch.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:14 am
“‘Tell me, Jack, just how would you explain the term battened down?’
A piercing look showed Jack that although this was almost past believing he was not in fact being made game of, and he replied, “First I should say that we talk very loosely about hatches, often meaning hatchways and even ladderways – ‘he came up the fore hatch’ – which of course ain’t hatches at all. The real hatches are the things that cover the hatchways: gratings and close-hatches. Now as you know very well, when a great deal of water comes aboard either from the sea of the sky or both, we cover those real hatches with tarpaulins.”
“I believe I have seen it done,” said Stephen.
“Not above five thousand times,” said Jack inwardly, and aloud “And if it also comes on to blow and rain uncommon hard, we take battens, stout laths of wood, that fit against the coaming, the raised rim of the hatchway, and so pin the tarpaulin down drum tight. Some people do it by nailing the batten to the deck, but it is a sad, sloppy, unseamanlike way of carrying on, and we have cleats.”
[Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove, or, Clarissa Oakes, pp.124-5]
March 9th, 2009 at 9:16 am
I should have looked it up but at the original time of asking it was but an idle thought. Hamish is probably going to petr out in the next few days anyway. Downgraded from a 5 to a 4, soon to be a 3.
March 9th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
I am struck by the number of mathematicians making comments; I wonder what the distibution of types of people doing the Guardian Crossword is.
Why is fifteensquared abbreviated 15/2 and not 15^2?
I wonder if my next comment will get through?
March 9th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Your next one made my rss reader, but I can’t see it here.
Yeah, I was kinda wondering why not 15^2 too. It may be the programmer in me saying that, but, there is good reason why programming languages adopted that notation.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
why not 15²
March 9th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Excellent, yes, indeed, Bella, but I don’t know how to get the little 2 raised up there – how did you do it?
March 10th, 2009 at 1:18 am
In Windows, on your keyboard type 2 then hold down ALT while typing 0178. (I’m not sure what it is in Mac, maybe Option.) You’ll find all the keyboard shortcuts here – http://home.earthlink.net/~awinkelried/keyboard_shortcuts.html
March 10th, 2009 at 8:41 am
I should have said you need to use the keypad on the right of your keyboard. Not sure how it works on laptops without one! Anybody?
March 10th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Hi Bella. It’s a lengthy process, but: Start, All Programmes, Accessories,System Tools, Character Map. Find the superscript 2, then copy and paste.
March 10th, 2009 at 10:11 am
I should have checked my own tutorial website which is due for an update soon. On it I re-found this (for laptops): “Some letters on the right side of the keyboard have a small number on them. Hold down the Fn key (next to the Ctrl key) when pressing one of those keys and they will act as a number pad. To type special characters hold down the Alt key AND the Fn key and press the correct number sequence.”
I’ll get started on the update as soon as our HUGE Rock’n'Roll reunion is over next Sunday.
Monica: would love to meet you. See details http://www.doghousestudio.com.au (link top right).
March 10th, 2009 at 10:35 am
On my Sony Vaio, I just need to press the Num Lock key to get the numeric kepad whose numbers etc are located around jkl. Then, alt 0178 produces ², which seems to be a bit minute.
March 10th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Sorry, it’s ok when displayed as a comment but tiny when preparing it
March 10th, 2009 at 10:42 am
On any PC, you need Num Lk on to use the keypad numbers. If you have that set on a laptop then you don’t need to use the Fn key with the Alt key, but then you can’t type normal characters, sigh, clever design that.
March 10th, 2009 at 10:49 am
And typing & sup2 (without the space between the & and sup2) directly into the comment as you prepare it seems to work also²
March 10th, 2009 at 10:50 am
No, ignore last comment; it works when I do my own html page
March 10th, 2009 at 11:37 am
So are we on to 15²? ?
March 10th, 2009 at 11:51 am
152
I don’t think I got it to work … on hundred and fifty-two for me!!!
March 10th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Bella,
Not sure if you Rock n Roll reunion is for me, but, would love to catch up for a tea/coffee/wine/beer or whatever takes your fancy. Email me … my full name with . at our “can do” council … you’ll be able to work it out.
Then you can give me a remedial lesson on how to do the super text 2.
Monica
March 10th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Sorry … superscript 2
March 10th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Dave Ellison:Trying the same on my laptop but can only type *178 once numbers are locked?
March 10th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Steven,
Thank goodness … another luddite …. well maybe we don’t protest against techno stuff … just need one on one lessons …. I’m sure you’ve experienced the tutor (usually a friend), showing they’re exasperation, by rolling their eyes.
March 10th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
We are all individuals!
How many hours have I spent at this (Dell) keyboard and not noticed the blue numbers around UIP?!!! To get them to work I have to have Numberlock on and press ALT/number.
(I wonder how many people around the world have been playing with keyboards today!)
Bella, love rock music, but it’s too far for me to go. Have a great time.
March 10th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Hey, Monica, wait ’til you get to my age and your grandkids are patronisingly patient with you!
March 10th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
15 alt/num/lock/ …. still didn’t work ##$@%%% and I have a dell.
David, I don’t have kids thus will never have that humiliation of grandkids doing the deed, but my friends and their 8yo kids get the absolute pleasure.
Oz, just won the test against SA. Phew.
March 10th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Erm, Monica, as my grandkids would say, try:
1. Press and release number lock
2. Press and hold down Fn Key
3. Whilst still holding it down, press blue numbers on keys UIOP, etc.
4. Release Fn key
March 10th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Monica:My bug-bear with various people has been when I’ve asked them how to do something on a P.C. they press 3 or 4 keys in a flash THEN start showing you how to do something, assuming that you already know the basics.But never mind onward and upwards. Another dull one in London. Day that is!
March 10th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I’m actually usually not that bad … it just isn’t working … David I tried your instructions … not working either … Sooo I’m sticking with one hundred and fifty two … Or 15sq (no tricksy-ing functions there.
G’night
PS: Not so hot, still humid and still waiting to see of Cyclone Hamish has got any sting left in him … he fortunately tracked parallel to the coast without coming too close to cause any real damage, just storm surges … but altho he may be weakening we’ll have to wait and see. Cyclone Hamish was compared to Hurricane Katrina … so you can imagine the worry to myself and Bella …