Comments on: Financial Times 14,203 by Bradman

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 15:44:14 +0000

Bravo! Yes, 13A was a good one too. Cleverly worded.

By: ernie

ernie — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 08:17:30 +0000

Thanks,Pete.

I was able to complete this one.

My favourite clue was 13A.

By: Pete Maclean

Pete Maclean — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 11:57:50 +0000

Hi Sil. I think I should have put something in the blog about this. Current usage seems to have HETEROSIS only in the meaning you cite. I had to do some digging to discover this definition in the 1913 edition of Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary:

Heterosis noun [ New Latin , from Greek ... alteration, from ... other, different.] (Rhet.) A figure of speech by which one form of a noun, verb, or pronoun, and the like, is used for another, as in the sentence: “What is life to such as me?” Aytoun.

Further study seems to suggest that this figure-of-speech meaning was suddenly dropped when the new meaning was coined in 1914.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:39:25 +0000

Thanks, Pete.
I like Bradman crosswords too.

But I am puzzled by HETEROSIS.
Chambers tells me it is ‘cross fertilization’ (like in Genetics).
Or: “the increased size and vigour (relative to its parents) often found in a hybrid”.
Figure of speech?