Comments on: Guardian 24,629 (Sat 21 Feb)/Araucaria – Georgia off my mind

By: rightback

rightback — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:52:42 +0000

Toned down? Shouldn’t think so, I’m sure we’ll be back to bedlam before long!

Thanks for the clarifications on this puzzle, especially ‘chump chops’, ‘padrone’ (mea culpa) and the various classics lessons.

By: Colin H

Colin H — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:08:07 +0000

Only took 22 minutes to do this one, which is a personal best for me. I did notice that it was markedly easier than his usual Saturday offerings – d’you think he’s been asked to tone them down after that frankly bonkers offering involving Cassius and Caesar a few weeks ago?

By: Ralph G

Ralph G — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:27:51 +0000

The two ??? in 15 above (printed OK in Greek in the submission space) are CHORTOS AND KEPOS. Sorry about that.

By: Ralph G

Ralph G — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:23:39 +0000

6a20d : GARTH. Delayed note: off-piste possibly and a bit long.
It would be nice to link this and the related GARDEN to the HORT in horticulture, Latin for garden. As the basic meaning here is ‘enclosure’ what about YARD, orchARD, and jARDin?
OK, seriously. There is an IE root GHAR ‘seize, enclose’ which has taken two paths. In the Greco-Latin path we have ?????? and hortus, both with original meanings of ‘enclosure’. The Greek ?????? came to mean ‘food’ in classical Greek and has given way to the unrelated ????? in modern Greek. The Latin ‘hortus’ has given us not only HORTICULTURE but also COHORT, originally an enclosure for a company of soldiers.
From the Germanic path we have GARTEN of course as in ‘kindergarten’ and English GARDEN. A Frankish form GART is credited with Eng. GARTH and YARD, which has retained the garden connection in American usage eg “When roses last in the door-yard bloomed”. The Frankish form GART gave rise also to GARDIN in Old North French and JARDIN in modern French, in turn the source of It. GIARDINO, Sp. JARDIN, Port. JARDIM.
There are cognates in all the Germanic/Scandinavian languages plus GARTH in Welsh, GORT in Irish, and GOROD (town) in Russian, eg Novgorod.
The first element in ORCHARD is variously given as wORT (plant) or the Latin hORTus, but there is a consensus that the second element was GARD with a later substitution of CH for TG.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:47:39 +0000

I can’t remember anyone else trying to persuade me of either the silliness or the intellectual worth of ‘a crossword’. Could its real value fall somewhere in between?

I admire the inquisitive nature you advertise, but your point seems slightly adrift of the one I’m making. I was somewhat surprised to see someone asking why C = ‘about’ just the other day, which (apparent) lack of extremely basic understanding is easily remedied – so long as people don’t mind doing just a very little preparatory work.

By: smutchin

smutchin — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:38:13 +0000

Paul – you make a perfectly fair and valid point – after all, a crossword is just a silly word game rather than the intellectual literary endeavour that some would have you believe it is – but speaking for myself, I like to know the significance. I would find it frustrating to go through life knowing that “take” in a crossword clue indicated the letter R without knowing why.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:27:59 +0000

I think I’m trying to say that in actual fact you don’t need any scholarship at all to know the indicator. That’s why I offered up late lamented Ruth’s great book as a starter for those who’d arm themselves without too much effort in the battle of wits.

Apologies to ‘Stiofain’ and ‘Steven’ if I’ve allowed myself to become confused.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 17:15:42 +0000

Belatedly, Geoff [comment 5 - I've been out all afternoon]: it’s rather like your ‘aries’, isn’t it? ‘Lar[es] fits much more easily into crosswords than Penates [though that would be a good one to clue as a solution.]

What a lot of Latin scholarship in the comments today!

By: Geoff

Geoff — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 15:32:18 +0000

As Ralph points out, R is a standard, albeit rather archaic, abbreviation for the Latin imperative ‘recipe’, which is customarily translated as ‘take’. The prefix ‘re-’, implying ‘back’ or ‘again’, is only misleading because ‘take’ is the word that we would use in English in this context – ‘withdraw (from storage)’ is probably a more literal translation.

By: stiofain_x

stiofain_x — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 15:19:35 +0000

aha
thanks Smut and Ralph I was aware or the standard R for recipe just didnt know it was latin for take.
Mea Culpa
Stiofain