Comments on: Inquisitor 1142: Jeffrey by Loda

By: Mike Laws

Mike Laws — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 12:25:58 +0000

Thanks for doing the honours on ‘mispronounced’, Phi.

As far as the equivalence of fought/fort and caught/court is concerned, I received a somewhat less than laid-back comment from a Mr MacDonald on the subject, and managed to appease him as follows:

Short of banning a large number of homophonic possibilities available to crossword setters, the most practical recourse is to apply (as defined in Chambers) “Received Pronunciation n the particular pronunciation of British English which is generally regarded as being least regionally limited, most socially acceptable, and is considered the standard.”

The indexes in ODQs since the 2nd edition have become increasingly inadequate. I suppose it’s just something we’ll all have to put up with.

Most important, though, is the enjoyment of the puzzle, and I found this one great fun.

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 09:52:04 +0000

Phi – thanks. I’d considered ‘mis’ + ‘pronoun’ but stumbled over ‘ced(e)’, so I’m glad that that’s cleared that up.

Hi(hoba) – I think the FORT/KEEP link is via ‘stronghold’: fort is defined as ‘a small fortress’, ‘fortress’ is one of the definitions of stronghold, and ‘stronghold’ is one of the definitions of keep.

By: Hi of Hihoba

Hi of Hihoba — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 07:52:40 +0000

Excellent crossword. Inquisitors are always enjoyable when they raise a smile! I struggled with “mispronounced” for a long time, and came to the same conclusion as Phi. I never did manage to explain the wordplay in HART, so thanks for that HolyGhost!
I found the quotation from the opposite end – I looked up “speller I know of” in askoxford.com and it came up immediately.
I found two slight problems with the mis-spellings. In fought=fort=keep I couldn’t find a link in Chambers between fort and keep (they actually mean different things), and quires is a legitimate spelling of choirs – “In quires and places where they sing”. Neither was enough to put me off though.

By: Phi

Phi — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 07:05:34 +0000

4d – it seems to be ‘Mis’ (hear possibly Eliza) + pronoun (What’s-Her-Name say) + ced(e) (mostly hand over) though I can’t say I worked it out for myself at the time.