Comments on: Guardian 24,747 – Shed

By: Neil

Neil — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:28:47 +0000

Back from the pub quiz. We won, again. I last commented @ 35 and there, vowed not to comment further until the morrow (or later). It’s so very tempting, but thank you all and G’night for now.

By: IanN14

IanN14 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:04:23 +0000

Derek, you’re priceless.
Don’t go changing…

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:59:38 +0000

Yeah, good night out thanks.

People keep missing that my original post said I know anything goes. I didn’t say LSP was wrong, just that it’s sad that it’s no longer automatically LSD.

Common sense can have many flavours. All I was trying to say is that decimal is only easier in some respects, in many others it isn’t. And what you lose in addition and subtraction simplicity is NOT the big deal the supporters would have you believe. It isn’t. Generations found LSD a piece of wee. The arguments against are thus over stated.

Interestingly, since we dropped Roman numerals, 10 isn’t related to having 10 digits. If you assign one physical digit per numeric digit, having 10 fingers leads to counting in base 11, not base 10. You close your hands for zero carry one on 11.

By: Dagnabit

Dagnabit — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:48:53 +0000

Also re: 17ac, it’s too bad Shed couldn’t have found room for the more common spelling, “feldspar”–that way, he could have satisfied both camps!

By: liz

liz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:20:26 +0000

re 17ac. The clever thing about this clue that it tricks you into thinking it should be LSD because the phrase seems to suggest that you read it as a whole. But individually L, S and P are correct abbreviations for pounds, shillings and pence, as Shed pointed out. Dare I say, once the penny dropped, it made me smile. (I do predate decimailisation, but as a relatively new arrival in this country in the late 60s, had an awful time working out money sums. Much easier with dollars and cents.)

By: IanN14

IanN14 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:15:46 +0000

gerardus@39
Yes, we’re all agreed there’s no such thing as lsp, but as Shed says, this is crypticland.

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:05:29 +0000

Also – Lysergic acid di-ethyl-a-mide in other alternative wording… LSD.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:01:02 +0000

I mean I’d have, of course – I really must get used to using the preview facility!

By: gerardus

gerardus — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:59:05 +0000

I agree with Derek. Lsd is standard for pounds shillings and pence, for those who lived before decimalisation. There is no such thing as Lsp. d stands for denarius.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:58:37 +0000

PS Neil

Sorry, I somehow missed your first paragraph:

‘May the school at the bridge of the king flourish!’ is fine by me. I’ve been asked a couple of times recently to come up with Latin tags and I’ve had been quite pleased with this one.