Comments on: Guardian 25,337 / Crucible

By: Geoff

Geoff — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 22:39:18 +0000

How about ‘the oysters are ready to eat’?

Just admit defeat!

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:34:10 +0000

Geoff – is a cooked chicked an animate object?

By: Geoff

Geoff — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:25:25 +0000

It’s perfectly possible to say, when Sunday lunch is ready: ‘The chicken is ready to eat’. In context (and so many cryptic clues rely on phraseology taken out of context) this would be interpreted as ‘the chicken is ready to be eaten’. So the construction doesn’t only work with inanimate subjects.

By: Robi

Robi — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:19:47 +0000

Geoff @60; basically, females don’t fertilise anything; it’s only the males.

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:07:30 +0000

Geoff, I hesitate to return to this issue, but it seems to me that in all the examples you quote the subject of the verb is an inanimate thing. The implied passive construction therefore gives rise to no ambiguity because nobody would imagine that a house could occupy, or a car could drive.

The situation is different if the verb subject is animate. If I am told that my grandson is ‘ready to eat’ I go and get his tea ready, I do not imagine that he is being offered up for cannibalism. There is a real distinction between the two constructions. Given that fertlisation is an active process involving an animate female I believe that Robi has a point.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 11:47:36 +0000

Robi: You can say ‘the dinner is ready to eat’, ‘the suit is ready to wear’, ‘the latter is ready to post’, ‘the car is ready to drive’, ‘the house is ready to occupy’ etc etc. This is a construction that can be employed with any transitive verb and gives it an unusual passive sense. Why not ‘the female is ready to fertilise’?

By: Robi

Robi — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 06:09:10 +0000

Hi tupu @46 . Last comment on this. When you say: ‘If a female is ready to fertilise,’ that is the nub of the discussion. A female is never ready to fertilise and there is no object to the verb because it can’t happen. I would submit, therefore, that this expression cannot be turned around to ‘she is ready to be fertilised.’

Anyway, another day another puzzle – let’s see what today’s brings if I have time to look at it.

By: rob in wolves

rob in wolves — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:36:30 +0000

looking for themed clues would I be right to say that coq au vin is no spring chicken

By: Carrots

Carrots — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:42:54 +0000

I`m ashamed to admit that I failed to finish this by quite a margin. Eileen`s helpful blog had me fired up with self-reproach, but the foregoing posts have put me firmly in my place. I shall remember Wolfie`s (@55) “I do like a good Gerundive though” for as long as I don`t discover what it means.

I always sensed Tupu was a bit of a rascal at heart and his confessions delight.

Maybe it will be the pleb`s turn tomorrow….where I can, once again, be a Flash Harry

By: tupu

tupu — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:00:01 +0000

Hi Wolfie
Thanks again!
I met C.P.Snow only once. I went into a room where he was sitting, and he said ‘I’m Snow’. I recognised him and replied ‘I know’ and added ‘I’m tupu’ (more or less) but conversation did not blossom!
I never met Leavis, but did once drop a horse chestnut into a half-open umbrella he was holding behind his back in the market square. I suppose I was hoping for a Newtonian apple moment for him as it bounced off his head when he next opened the thing. Perhaps fortunately, it stayed dry but I would like to think it gave him food for thought eventually.