Comments on: Independent 7639 by Klingsor

By: NealH

NealH — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:12:02 +0000

But some of us don’t drive. Or go to Wales very often. Stick with French – I’ve got an A level in that.

By: anax

anax — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:58:09 +0000

Allan_C @11
It’s unlikely… but IMHO ‘araf’ (slow) should be fair game. Anyone who’s driven in Wales will have seen it many times painted on the road in front of them, along with the English translation. Sometimes knowledge should be based on observation.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:19:43 +0000

Bore da.

Just wait till some compiler starts using Welsh words.

Hwyl fawr!

By: eimi

eimi — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:06:27 +0000

You’re quite right, flashling – expect a fiendish Tees crossword soon based exclusively on Swedish words. But seriously, I’d suggest that basic French is much fairer than Latin as it is more universally part of our education system. Just be grateful that Klingsor didn’t resort to Czech.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 22:32:15 +0000

‘Paraply’ of course. Come on now.

By: flashling

flashling — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:05:32 +0000

As you say NMS quite easy but Eimi often does that to soften us up. Regarding foreign languages, it’s fair game for some well known stuff, but how many of us know say the swedish for umbrella? Mind you our visitors from India etc don’t seem to have a problem. My bete noir is Latin having never done it.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:47:02 +0000

We should probably migrate to the General Discussion part of the site, but if Gaufrid will permit …

Like eimi, I’m interested in other opinions on this as well, but can I have one last comment on this issue here? Radler’s right, cryptic solvers should be expected to have a basic knowledge of a wide variety of subject areas – five miles wide and one foot deep and all that.

But once you’ve done a couple of years of French at school and learned that été was summer, are you likely to remember that two decades later when you get interested in cryptics? Unless you continue to improve your French, probably not. On the other hand, you’ll have heard of a HIGGS BOSON or of TITANIA because you’ll have read the science correspondent’s report in the Indy or have discovered that Shakespeare was quite interesting all along.

And of course, yes, you always get two goes at a cryptic clue. Although in my case sometimes, I could do with a further two.

Anyway, bonne soirée.

By: Radler

Radler — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 16:46:32 +0000

On foreign language words (KD @2 & eimi @3) – surely a similar point could be made about other subject matters, such as Shakespearean characters or particle physics. Not everybody will have learnt any French (or Shakespeare, or physics) but a good proportion of solvers will be able to recall the basics. (And a cryptic clue does normally provide two ways of getting to the answer, so fortunately it’s not necessary to know everything.)

By: scchua

scchua — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:42:08 +0000

PS. You have to go back to the 78rpm era to get records made of SHELLAC – tough but brittle. Later replaced by vinyl for the 45s and 33 1/3s. Just in case you’re interested!

By: scchua

scchua — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:37:43 +0000

Thanks nmsindy for the blog and Klingsor for an enjoyable puzzle.

Got all the answers (even those with the Fr references), in reasonable time; but got stuck with the parsing for the last one in, 21D AIRY. Got “cheerful” = AIRY, and thought of “dangerous” = hairy, but went up blind alleys trying to connect the two. Had heard of Bow Street Runners, but didn’t connect it to this Bow. Duh!

Favourites were 24A ARCHETYPE, 8D DYSENTERY, and 17D SHELLAC.