Comments on: Guardian 24,643 – Gordius

By: Brendan

Brendan — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:25:02 +0000

I too am Irish and not really offended by the Paddy clue. IMHO Crosswords occupy a different ‘space’ than real life and for the sake of a good clue they often take liberties or play with reality. I cannot extrapolate from the clue that either Gordius or the Guardian have any anti-Irish feelings. Maybe I am only saying this because I got brogue and most everything else, except belgian.

By: mark

mark — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:41:09 +0000

Can I, with little euphemism, invite Gordius to run into my fist.
Thanks for nothing the Guardian too – the lack of clue for 15A sent me even further off track and made the whole thing a waste of the limited ‘me’ time I had today.
Vague clues spoil the pleasure of answers as you’re never sure you’ve got the bleddy thing.
Sort it out Grauniad!

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:38:39 +0000

” go to the bathroom” is indeed a coomon phrase in Americe, but I’ve never heard “cover one’s feet” used here.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:21:46 +0000

JamieC: Although we usually say that someone comes ‘from [a place]‘, this isn’t a historic dative – cf Italian, where is is normal to say ‘sono di Roma” (I am of Rome) rather than ‘sono da Roma’ (I am from Rome) ‘. We talk about ‘John of Gaunt”, ‘Men of Kent’ (is that you, Smutchin?) and ‘England’s finest’.

By: muck

muck — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:16:51 +0000

I stand corrected on the spelling of Ghent/Gent/Gand, which I have driven past many times! It is very confusing driving through Belgium as the road signs aren’t bilingual: you are expected to know for example that Liege, in French-speaking Wallonia, is signed only as Luik when you are in Flemish-speaking Flanders.

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:25:55 +0000

sorry, expected to know

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:24:48 +0000

Gent may seem fair if you happen to know it. But now try to be sensible. Almost every overseas place name is spelt in a way which is different from that which is used here. Are we to be expected to them all? There are so many, what on earth is fair about using any of them? This sounds like specific knowledge not general knowledge.

Funny how people refuse to accept specific knowledge as not being general knowledge, until something comes up which they don’t know, and who will be the first to cry foul then? You may think that, I could not possibly comment.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:21:09 +0000

Unfortunately I agree with some of the more negative comments posted above. Although there were some nice, clever clues here, for me completion just required too much guesswork and “Googling” due to vague cluing.

Didn’t like gaolbreak to indicate an anag of gaol. I know this sort of thing is used often and I spotted it early but for me it doesn’t work.

Wasn’t keen on 19ac with “starts to” clueing t

Favourite clue for me was the cd for “no change”

By: JamieC

JamieC — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:17:28 +0000

Geoff – I think where the apostrophe jars is where “of” is being used in the dative rather than genitive sense (i.e. in the sense of “from” rather than “belonging to”). So you could say “London’s skyline”, but you could never turn The Taylor of Gloucester into Gloucester’s Taylor (not only stylistically – it would actually mean something different).

By: Geoff

Geoff — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:03:28 +0000

JamieC: As you point out, the old English genitive case is now usually limited to animate nouns – we would most commonly say ‘the man’s jacket’ but ‘the jacket of the book’. But it is not unknown even in contemporary English to use ‘apostrophe s’ in other contexts, particularly with place names, where there is perhaps a suggestion of personification for poetic effect, eg England’s Glory