Comments on: Guardian 25,253 / Araucaria

By: maarvarq

maarvarq — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 07:21:46 +0000

Another heaping of obscurity upon obscurity in both solutions and constructions, undoubtedly delighting the worshippers at the cult of Araucaria, but frustrating and painful to the rest of us.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:55:18 +0000

Duncan #34
” For me SHOO-IN is an everyday phrase; clearly it isn’t for others.”

Anyone with a reasonable interest in British politics will have heard the expression many times.
It is often combined with the phrases ‘safe seat’ and ‘parachute in’.

By: grandpuzzler

grandpuzzler — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:14:25 +0000

Thanks duncanshiell for the beautiful blog. The NW corner was the last in for me. Sadly, it was after reading your blog. After reading the comments regarding SHOO-IN, I checked my Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate: one that is a certain and easy winner (ca 1950). Obviously it took some time to get across the pond.

Cheers…

By: Jack Aubrey

Jack Aubrey — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:04:35 +0000

I don’t have the text with me to quote accurately, but in his commentary on Shakespeare, Johnson quotes the pedantic insistence of an earlier pseudo-scholar that someone must have been writing on Shakespeare’s part when he apparently got “moiety” by when describing one moiety as the larger. The hapless pedant says that “for the honour of Shakespeare” I will assume that he did not write this passage.

“And I will not assume it,” curtly thunders the contemptuous Doctor.

By: Geoff Anderson

Geoff Anderson — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:01:38 +0000

I remembered ‘moiety’ from my A-level Hamlet but I couldn’t have quoted the line, which I see is 90 in I:i ‘Against the which a moiety competent / Was gaged by our king.’ It was a legal term in Shakespeare’s usage and legal experts argue over whether it meant a half or a third, but ‘share’ is a simpler ‘translation’. It appears in other plays by Will and also in some sonnets.

By: Duncan Shiell

Duncan Shiell — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:36:45 +0000

Thanks for all the comments on the blog..

I am always fascinated by which words generate the most discussion in any crossword. For me SHOO-IN is an everyday phrase; clearly it isn’t for others.

Although I tend to the sciences and sports rather than the arts, science itself covers an enormous field. In my specialism of surveying sciences and cartography, I hope I am right in saying that MOIETY is not a regular feature.

Sorry about the appearance of 90 Across. Often I re-use existing blog formats and sometimes I don’t get the edits spot on. An Araucaria puzzle that genuinely got up to 90 Across would present an interesting blogging challenge.

Carrots @25 is right when he implies that it never rains on the golf course. By Scottish Borders standards, the temperature today was positively tropical, so any drizzle was warm.

By: tupu

tupu — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:26:44 +0000

Hi robi

Thanks. It’s very kind of you to bother! Yes I have seen that, and there is an example under ‘shoo’(4) from 1908 in the OED. Mostly, but not always, ‘shoo’ is used with ‘away’. I am however intrigued by the fact that glosses of ‘shoo-in’ regularly refer to ‘sure’ (and certain) and to ‘win’ without making any direct connection with the expression. OED gives ‘sho’ as ‘US Black pronunciation’ of ‘sure’ and the examples I quote in 29 are pretty standard. It also gives ‘sholy’ as ‘US. Black and Southern’ for ‘surely’ The intrusion of a ‘w’ sound between ‘shoo’ and ‘in’ would come very naturally (its a bit like the unwritten and wrongly inserted ‘r’ sound in ‘India (r)and Pakistan’ or ‘law (r)in England’) but I realise that in this case the written letter would be dropped while still being pronounced – which does not bode altogether well for my hunch!

By: Robi

Robi — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:15:08 +0000

tupu @29, I found this, which might help: “Shoo in” was originally a racetrack term, and was applied to a horse expected to easily win a race, and, by extension, to any contestant expected to win an easy victory. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first use of the term in print dates back to 1928. A “shoo in” was originally a horse that was expected to win a race, not by virtue of its speed or endurance, but because the race was fixed. The sardonic “subtext” of the original usage, now lost, was that the designated horse would win even if it were so lackadaisical in its performance that it simply wandered somehow up to the finish line and had to be “shooed in” to victory.

By: MikeC

MikeC — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:50:29 +0000

Carrots @25. Please refrain from suggesting improper images of radioactive golfers (!).
Seriously, though, this was a real tough one. Lots of different sorts of wordplay. 9a took a bit of spotting . . . (like the pocket hand kerchief?) I think this was one of those days where I didn’t get a good start and so took a while to build momentum – a bit like with the Nimrod and Anax puzzles we met in Derby. Enjoyable, nonetheless.
Thanks to both A and duncanshiell.

By: g larsen

g larsen — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:49:08 +0000

Thanks Duncan.

As you say, lots of typical (and delightful) Araucarian features, but I found this one much quicker than most (though I was one of those putting OCHE at 9d – it can be thought of as a crease, by analogy with cricket).

Remarkable how we all differ – I’m usually on Araucaria’s wavelength, while struggling with other setters (eg Rufus)who many of the mighty regulars on this blog clearly find easier.