Comments on: Guardian Cryptic crossword No 25,487, by Arachne

By: Huw Powell

Huw Powell — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 00:06:58 +0000

My only problem with the ellipses at 10/11 is that the combined surface doesn’t actually make an sense at all. It was as I realized that that I popped 11, since on its own it doesn’t make sense unless you read at as a.m. So it’s a little less elegant that it could have been, but perhaps the ungrammatical part was intentional to prod us along a bit?

Anyway, thanks for the blog Stella, and Arachne for the puzzle and for dropping by. Congratulations, by the way!

By: Paul B

Paul B — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 17:45:38 +0000

That true otter: Afrit’s Injunction to a T!

By: otter

otter — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 14:26:35 +0000

Paul, message 53:
the surface is irrelevant [...] The ONLY reading that counts in terms of grammar for a clue is the cryptic one
I agree. My point was that in this case, the word can be read in two different ways, one of which makes sense in terms of the wordplay, the other of which makes grammatical sense in the surface reading. After all, if a surface reading doesn’t make grammatical sense, a solver would be more or less directed to how the wordplay works; it’s all part of the misdirection. So while grammatical sense of the surface reading isn’t strictly relevant, it’s an important part of a good crossword.

Robi, messages passim:
You seem to be saying that because a term has one clearly defined meaning in your field, it cannot have other meanings outside of that field. I and others have demonstrated from dictionary citations that it has (and still does have) another valid meaning outside of that field. This is the case with many words.

And to the point which someone raised about ‘bio-’ and ‘zoo-’: I think (although am not an expert in Greek) that ‘bios’ refers to any life, whereas ‘zoon’ (?) refers only to animal life; hence biology is the study of all life, while zoology is the study of animal life. I guess those philosophers who use ‘bio-’ to refer only to living humanly have done what was done to ‘biotechnology’: taken a term and given it a very specific, new meaning.

By: JollySwagman

JollySwagman — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:36:59 +0000

@PeterJohnN #69 “I’m dismayed that you have still not understood that MARSEILLES is not an English pronunciation”

Not so – it doesn’t affect the clue, but the traditional English pronunciation is MARSAILS and it is only since the war that MARSAY has been gaining ground.

The same thing happened to Lyon(s) before that. The spelt and sometimes sounded S on the end of French place names has evolved over time in France – we (until recently) hung on to how it was when we picked it up over 1000 years ago. A bit like “Americanisms” which turn out to be archaic English English which they have held on to.

After all for Paris we still say PARISS – not PAREE – and they call Dover Douvres and get to Londres by sailing up the Tamise.

By: Arachne

Arachne — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 20:37:05 +0000

Far too late, but I wanted to back up PeterJohnN@69 over Marseilles(s) – it was all about the different spellings
xx

By: stumped

stumped — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 10:00:14 +0000

Great puzzle Arachne and very nice blog Stella.

Found this much more to my taste than the ‘fiery’ one under Anarche recently in the Indy.

Many laugh out loud moments.

Managed to get non-numerical use of number in 7d.

5d will surely show up in Alan Connor’s Monday Blog. Why is it rude? We’re not putting skirts on piano legs any more.

Last in 25a, kept thinking of ‘packets’ and ‘quanta’. Thanks for the clarification PeterJohnN.

Favourite clue 6d, simply brilliant.

By: PeterJohnN

PeterJohnN — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 09:07:45 +0000

Stella, re 25a (LIGHT BREEZE), you still haven’t included the origin of the phrase “small wavelets” in 25a as per my comment @ 13, viz. Force 2 on the Beaufort scale.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 01:29:22 +0000

No. ‘House’ really is the plural usage: element A and element B house the answer. As I said, it functions in the singular too, where ‘houses’ is selected.

By: PeterJohnN

PeterJohnN — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:56:43 +0000

Stella, re 14a. I don’t suppose anyone will read this because it’s so late, but I’ve just returned from a funeral and subsequent wake (not a sad affair, more of a celebration). I’m dismayed that you have still not understood that MARSEILLES is not an English pronunciation, but an English spelling. MARSEILLE is the French spelling, and MARR SAY is the French pronunciation. See my entries @ 8 & 34. Can’t believe you’ve never heard of Andrew Marr! He’s on BBC radio and TV news programmes every day!

Arachne @ 36 See your point about the plural (and Paul B’s @ 16). Please back me up re MARSEILLES!

Paul B @ 53 & 54. You were right the first time, but didn’t realise it! Sorry! See above!

By: Arachne

Arachne — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 23:56:03 +0000

jvector@66 – spot on