Comments on: Guardian 25,019 – Gordius

By: crosser

crosser — Wed, 26 May 2010 08:05:29 +0000

Thank you, Mike (@36), for your explanation – and your patience!

By: mike

mike — Tue, 25 May 2010 23:03:13 +0000

Weight is a force, so a vector as it has size and a direction. Mass is a scalar, as it has magnitude only. Kg is a mass unit, Newton is a force unit. In old money there was once the Pound for mass, and Pound Weight for force, that being the force exerted by gravity on a mass of one pound. Sorry to be pedantic but 30-odd years as a Physics teacher means I get unreasonably cross about mass/weight confusion. Don’t get me started on labels in shops….

By: Scarpia

Scarpia — Tue, 25 May 2010 22:52:02 +0000

cholecyst.
Forgive my ‘gall’ ,you are quite right,’slaw’ is salad and ‘cole’ is cabbage, but ‘slaw’ is often used in the vernacular to mean ‘coleslaw’(not an exact definition of cabbage I admit).
I don’t know if this quite justifies it’s use in the clue – but I, for one, can cut a bit of slack for a setter if it leads to a good clue.

By: Davy

Davy — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:46:01 +0000

Thanks Uncle Yap,

A nice puzzle from Gordius today and it’s good to see that he’s getting less criticicm than previously. A lot of good clues with TRITONES being my particular favourite. Yes the puzzle was considerably easier than yesterday’s Rufus but there were one ot two clues that required extra thought such as SAWHORSES and DIETETICS.
Gordius is definitely improving. I wish I could say the same about Rover.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:11:52 +0000

Thanks for the blog, Uncle Yap.

I really enjoyed this. An after dinner solve for me, unusually.

Colin @4 – There is no such thing as an English Parliament at the moment – unfortunately, in my opinion…

I do groan every time there is a U/non U reference in a crossword.

In 11 down, (June) Brown and (Barbara) Windsor are in the same soap, of course….

P.S. I’d appreciate some feedback to my post in the Chatroomblog @276. Thanks.

By: cholecyst

cholecyst — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:45:43 +0000

Whoops, I meant Scarpia.

By: cholecyst

cholecyst — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:44:49 +0000

Scarpi: Yes I know. But Chambers doesn’t give SLAW = CABBAGE.

By: Scarpia

Scarpia — Tue, 25 May 2010 17:21:57 +0000

Chambers gives ‘cabbage salad’ for slaw.

By: tupu

tupu — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:55:10 +0000

As Bill and Cholecyst say, it was Ross and Mitford (I encountered them in her book Noblesse Oblige, 1956) who brought the U/non-U distinction into the limelight. My recollection is that the main focus was on language use (especially u-words and non-u words for the same thing) and the thesis was quite subtle and not merely snobbish. The argument was that as other means of distinguishing the classes were waning, the u-people constantly tried to mark themselves off from non-u aspiring middle class by having their own distinctive words for things. Examples of the time were (U-first)
Die, Pass on
Napkin, Serviette
Lavatory or Loo, Toilet
This would be followed by non-u adoption of the words in question and then the u-folk would have to find new ones. So the scene was always changing.

By: crosser

crosser — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:50:37 +0000

Thank you, Uncle Yap. Just two points.
I thought an ounce was a unit of weight, not mass (3d) but I don’t really know much about it, not being scientifically minded.
One little quibble : “boil slaw” and “Boyle’s law” are not homophones, since the “s” is different (unvoiced in the first, voiced in the second) but I’m afraid that is nit-picking!
It was a really good puzzle and I enjoyed it, particularly 20ac.