Hi Bryan….I couldn`t agree with you more about the Dutch and I am woefully embarrassed in any European country by my lack of the native language. Before we finally retired, we used to run a holiday cottage and had many Dutch guests (mainly Antique Dealers) who were, without exception, delightful in all respects. My lunchtime pinta with Rufus lasted precisely 20 minutes at my slowest sipping speed (this is about a hundredth as fast as Rightback`s quaffing rate) so I shall sneak off to the pub for a pre-prandial pinta….whilst the chefette watches Strictly..
Anne Widdecombe in a Tutu…I DON`T BELIEVE IT!

This is just a bit of trivia for fun about something that recently bothered me slightly.
On August 9 I had thought I was quoting a remark of Clive Dunn’s from Dad’s Army which I thought was ‘Not many people know that’.

A number of people kindly took the trouble to respond and assured me this was wrong e.g.
“muck says:
August 9th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
tupu@23: ‘Not many people know that’ isn’t from Dad’s Army. I thought it was Michael Caine, but see this (hyperlink to article re Peter Sellars)”.

I then tried to check on Google and got nowhere.
A friend confirmed my recollection but thought it was ‘Not many people know that story’.
I then found and wrote to the Dad’s Army Appreciation Society with my recollected ‘quote’ and received the following reply on 23 August.

“Hello,

Yes you are correct Corporal Jones did say this, the episode escapes me at the moment.

Tony Pritchard
Dad’s Army Appreciation Society”

I suspect my friend may be right about the wording – he is going to check – and Jonesy may not have said it often, but it is a relief if he said it at all since my memory on the matter was worryingly clear!

The moral for myself and other aging ‘false memory syndromers’ seems to be ‘don’t give up quite yet’. Of course, the D’s A App. Soc’s memory may be worse than mine is!.

Very nice

And hi K’s D

I’d just like to draw your attention to my last comment in response to yours on the original thread:

“# Eileen says:
August 5th, 2010 at 7:50 pm

“I blame Eileen for starting us all off on it.”

Hands up – you’re quite right, K’s D. This discussion has been rumbling away for quite a while now and I’ve been resisting commenting. I just wish I’d continued resisting!

You’re quite right that this is not the right place but I’ve nothing further to add to my comment 18, I think. [I shall continue to write 'cluing'. ]”

I agree with your last sentence – let’s just stop argueing!

Very nice. Please forgive the following ‘juvenile’ but affectionate extravaganza in celebration of the hare you started!

There once was a young lady’s dad
Who developed a very sad fad.
He got hooked on pursuing
the spelling of ‘clueing’
Until he and his friends all went mad.

You say clueing, I say cluing … let’s call the whole thing off.

I have been looking at the OED on line. It offers no help with clu(e)ing but notes that the root word was originally ‘clew’ – which would have made life easer.

There seems to be no simple general rule

1. for rue it gives only rueing.
2. for imbue it gives only (in passing) imbuing.
3. for blue it gives both blueing and bluing.
On balance I think I’m with sidey – but with friends like me …..!

A poke round on-line dictionaries only produces three with cluing, all American, the same three also give clueing as do two UK ones.

Oh, both Opera and Firefox’s British English dictionaries only give cluing.

Hurrah – thanks for a bit of support!

See comments on the Independent puzzle on August 5th, which sparked Kathryn’s Dad’s comment here:

http://fifteensquared.net/2010/08/05/independent-7427punk/#comments

Most [I think] solvers seem to prefer ‘clueing’ – to me it just looks wrong – but I can live with it, because the verb ‘to clue’, I think, has been coined by crossword solvers! . Chambers, alone of my dictionaries, gives it as a verb but with no spellings for its gerund / participle.