Comments on: Financial Times 14,005 by Cinephile

By: Ilippu

Ilippu — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:39:40 +0000

22dn…. i thought it was a typo of ‘odd’ and would give a great surface…

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:14:31 +0000

Apparently a consistent use of it/it’s only became important when ’tis went out of fashion. Before then if there was a possibility of confusion you would just use ’tis instead.

By: scchua

scchua — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:51:03 +0000

Thanks for the research, PeeDee. (I recall in school much was made of the distinction and you paid for making the error with marks deleted and/or lines.)

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:36:44 +0000

scchua – I’ve been reading around the subject and it appears the modern distiction between its and it’s was not consistently adopted until the 19th century, so I suppose that the clue is OK as Cinephile states the word(s) are ‘old’.

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:13:11 +0000

Thank you MikeC and scchua, fixed now. I need to do some more proof reading before hitting the submit button.

By: scchua

scchua — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:56:30 +0000

Thanks PeeDee and Cinephile.
Not too difficult, but enjoyable. Didn’t spot the European connection, I guess because the solving went smoothly without much pause. Also was surprised by SCHISM pronounciation, but it’s there in the dicts. including the English ones (something like the pronounciation for “schedule”?).
I think 9,20 GERMAN MEASLES didn’t come out as you intended.
Only question is 22D MANTIS, where one has to add an apostrophe into the clue to make TIS=IT IS=IT’S=ITS.

By: MikeC

MikeC — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:40:07 +0000

Thanks PeeDee and Cinephile. Agree with all your comments above. Small typo in 5d – should be RAM with P (tail of sheep). Just to show we’re awake!

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:39:00 +0000

I missed the Europeans theme, thanks for pointing it out.

By: Wanderer

Wanderer — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:34:36 +0000

Thanks PeeDee. Not the hardest as you say, but great fun. I was also surprised by schism pronounced as cism, never come across that before.

I admired the device of starting all the split answers with a European nationality — German, French, Scotch, English, Spanish. Lovely touch which I only noticed near completion.