Comments on: Guardian 25,531, by Araucaria

By: Mr DNA

Mr DNA — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:19:46 +0000

Robi @16

Shoreham parish does, in fact, appear on the top Google hit you linked, it’s just disguised there as ‘New Shoreham’.

By: tupu

tupu — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 08:26:42 +0000

My son tells me that the reverse of the key dictum is known as putting Descartes before the …!

By: sidey

sidey — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:37:59 +0000

Shoreham was a Parliamentary Constituency in Sussex, the town is Shoreham-by-Sea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoreham-by-Sea

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:00:31 +0000

PS Thanks, Robi, for the Cartesian Wells – loved it! I feel now that I can share that I looked up SHIREHAM for 1dn.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:53:09 +0000

Bless you, tupu, for so amusingly bringing us back to earth and apologies to all for my part in the digression [I didn't start it!] – but you all know me when I get the bit between my pedantic teeth! [Andreas @17 'octopodes' IS right! !]

By: tupu

tupu — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:29:43 +0000

Octopus is a cat with only one life left. There is only one of them and its chances of survival for any length of time are clearly very slim, so the question of its plural (let alone its singular) is not really a worry. Indeed it may be dead – octogon for short – by the time this hits the blog.

By: chas

chas — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:16:12 +0000

Thanks to Stella for the blog. I had been quite certain that THREAD was correct for 20 but had been quite unable to parse it

I was held up for a long time on 15d until I realised that 13 could be IMAGINATIVE instead of IMAGINATION which I had initially put in. Now that I look again at the clue I still think that IMAGINATION is a valid answer.

My lack of maritime knowledge let me down on 22 because I could remember gybe (which is almost what is wanted) but no other relevant word.

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:58:07 +0000

Eileen@15, yes, you are quite correct, my mistake.

By: Robi

Robi — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:56:42 +0000

……… or even Andreas61 @17……..

By: Robi

Robi — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:53:56 +0000

Andreas @61; just to stoke the fire…….

‘Some authorities find that octopi is an objectionable hypercorrection, feeling that the form arose from the incorrect assumption that “octopus” is a Latin form. However, “octopus” is a Scientific Latin word, while the Latinized spelling of the Greek word is “octopous.” The word came into English via Neo-Latin rather than directly from Greek. Perhaps reflecting the amount of scientific literature that was written in Neo-Latin, the Latinate plural remains more common than the original Greek one: The British National Corpus has 29 instances of “octopuses”, 11 of “octopi”, and 4 of “octopodes”.’ (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopi)