The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29162.
A tale of two halves: the right hand side fell to me in quick time, but the left was more of a struggle, with the delightful 18A SHAKESPEARE an important breakthrough. The theme announced in 6A BEAR ARMS was a help towards the end.
| ACROSS | ||
| 4 | SHIVER |
Suffer with cold and perish? I’ve ripped coats (6)
|
| A hidden answer (‘coats’ – the idea must be that the phrase coats the answer) in ‘periSH I’VE Ripped’. | ||
| 6 | BEAR ARMS |
Roll up one’s sleeves, we hear, to show what all across answers do here (4,4)
|
| Sounds like (‘we hear’) BARE ARMS (‘roll up ones sleeves’). The arms are highlighted in the grid, and in the answers. | ||
| 9 | ERODES |
In love, disheartened debutante frets (6)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of DE (‘disheartened DebutantE‘) in EROS (‘love’). | ||
| 10 | GLANCE AT |
Can get excited about article in El Pais review, briefly (6,2)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of LA (Spanish feminine definite ‘article in El Pais’) in GNCEAT, an anagram (‘excited’) of ‘can get’. | ||
| 11 | BLADE RUNNER |
Dystopian tale of British boy and drug trafficker (5,6)
|
| A charade of B (‘British’) plus LAD (‘boy’) plus E (‘drug’) plus RUNNER (‘drug trafficker’), for the Ridley Scott film based on Philip K Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. | ||
| 15 | TRIFLES |
More than one sweet model flirts round earl (7)
|
| An envelope (’round’) of E (‘earl’) in TRIFLS, an anagram (‘model’) of ‘flirts’. | ||
| 17 | TEEPEES |
Tents go into river (7)
|
| An envelope (‘into’) of PEE (‘go’) in TEES (‘river’). | ||
| 18 | SHAKESPEARE |
Will fruit put in drinks finish in lemonade? (11)
|
| An envelope (‘put in’) of PEAR (‘fruit’) in SHAKES (‘drinks’) plus E (‘finish in lemonadE‘). | ||
| 22 | EMBOWELS |
Emma’s mother leaves clutching broken elbow, showing guts once (8)
|
| An envelope (‘clutching’) of BOWEL, an anagram (‘broken’) of ‘elbow’ in ‘Em[ma]’s’ minus MA (‘mother leaves’), for an old version of disembowel. | ||
| 23 | LEGATE |
Emissary behind hosts, for example (6)
|
| An envelope (‘hosts’) of EG (‘for example’) in LATE (‘behind’). | ||
| 24 | COLTRANE |
Jazz legend smashed on claret (8)
|
| .An anagram (‘smashed’) of ‘on claret’ | ||
| 25 | TAXERS |
Those wanting money wrong to invest in variable rates (6)
|
| An envelope (‘to invest in’) of X (‘wrong’) in TAERS, an anagram (‘variable’) of ‘rates’. Without the crossers, my first thought was EXTRAS as, for example, optional items when buying a new car. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SERENE |
Blissful Frenchman after draining Sancerre (6)
|
| A charade of SE (‘draining SancerrE‘) plus René’ (‘Frenchman’). | ||
| 2 | HEEL-AND-TOE |
Way of walking dog adult noted barking (4-3-3)
|
| A charade of HEEL (‘dog’, term of abuse) plus A (‘adult’) plus NDTOE, an anagram (‘barking’) of ‘noted’. | ||
| 3 | DRY NURSE |
Nanny off the booze before noon sure to get in a state (3,5)
|
| A charade of DRY (‘off the booze’) plus N (‘noon’) plus URSE, an anagram (‘to get in a state’) of ‘sure’. | ||
| 4 | SHERBETS |
This lady ventures to secure recipe for fruity drinks (8)
|
| An envelope (‘to secure’) of R (‘recipe’) in SHE (‘that lady’) plus BETS (‘ventures’). | ||
| 5 | ISOBARIC |
One thus about to tour Italian port dealing with marks on a map (8)
|
| An envelope (‘to tour’) of BARI (‘Italian port’) in I (‘one’) plus SO (‘thus’) plus C (circa, ‘about’). | ||
| 7 | RUED |
Felt sorry about wine drinking you reported (4)
|
| An envelope (‘drinking’) of U (‘you reported’) in RED (‘wine’). | ||
| 8 | SETH |
21’s replacement placed on horse (4)
|
| A charade of SET (‘placed’) plus H (‘horse’). According to Genesis 4:25, Seth was born to Eve after the death of Abel, and Eve declared that he was the replacement for her murdered son. | ||
| 12 | UNSNARLING |
Straightening out urchin’s jacket, speaking with menace (10)
|
| A charade of UN (‘UrchiN‘s jacket’) plus SNARLING (‘speaking with menace’). | ||
| 13 | DELAWARE |
Peckham wide boy knowing where Dover is (8)
|
| A charade of DEL (Del Boy, Derek Trotter, character in Only Fools and Horses, ‘Peckham wide boy’) plus AWARE (‘knowing”); Dover is the Delaware state capital.. | ||
| 14 | AS LEVELS |
Idiot penning the French verb on the Spanish exams (2,6)
|
| An envelope (‘penning’) of LE (‘the French’) plus V (‘verb’) plus EL (‘the Spanish’) in ASS (‘idiot’). | ||
| 16 | LAST WORD |
Fat entertaining couple after start of spat? This ends the argument (4,4)
|
| An envelope (‘entertaining’) of S (‘start of Spat’) plus TWO (‘couple’) in LARD (‘fat’). | ||
| 19 | PREFAB |
Building has heavy metal casing on hollow fascia (6)
|
| An envelope (‘casing’) of RE (‘on’) plus FA (‘hollow FasciA‘) in PB (chemical symbol, lead, ‘heavy metal’). | ||
| 20 | MERC |
Trader knocking 50% off car (4)
|
| MERC[hant] (‘trader’) minus the last four letters (‘knocking 50% off’), for the common abbreviation for Mercedes Benz. | ||
| 21 | ABEL |
President has left the First Lady’s child (4)
|
| A charade of ABE (Lincoln, ‘President’) plus L (‘left’), the ‘First Lady’ being Eve. |
Delightful! Nothing came in the first pass until at least halfway down, then suddenly most of the left popped in. Fortunately I got 8ac quite early, which helped (except where it didn’t). Thanks to both the super-ingenious setter and splendidly colorful blogger!
Hey! I learnt another English river! I’ll put it in my list.
I got some help online about Peckham boys, but why wide?
I was a bit flummoxed by dog/heel. And never heard of AS-levels.
An enjoyable experience, as usual from Picaroon, and a nice theme. Thank you, and to PeterO.
Thanks for the blog PeterO, for the parsing of 13 down in particular, Del has appeared before, but I keep forgetting…had put “Extras” as well, in the “wanting money” regard, mind generally goes to “Taxman”, not “Taxer”
Thank you to Picaroon for the puzzle
For me the left hand side went in quickly and I guessed the theme from those answers, although with RIFLES, BOW and TEEPEES I thought the answer to 6ac might have been WILD WEST. GDU @2, wide boy is a British term for an edgy wheeler dealer. I loved your parsing of SERENE, once I clocked what you did there. The theme helped me with loi, GLANCE AT. Favourites were DELAWARE, SHAKESPEARE and COLTRANE.
Ta Picaroon & PeterO.
One of my all time favourites, I couldn’t resist this gem.
https://youtu.be/NoAzpa1x7jU?si=8PpBU3A2ER0SJWzB
Thanks Alan C
Thanks, Picaroon PeterO!
Enjoyed solving the puzzle and reading the blog.
SERENE
Only after reading AlanC@4’s comment, I realised that the two ‘acute’s in the blog were intentional. 🙂
Earlier I thought it was some error (not grave in any case).
EMBOWELS
The ‘showing’ was underlined inadvertently, I think.
HEEL-AND-TOE
I considered dog=(to) HEEL.
As with Geoff, I’d never heard of AS Levels, although I’ve heard of A level exams. I couldn’t quite make the connection between erodes and frets, but I figured it had to be that, given the theme. i enjoyed COLTRANE, and the misdirection in DELAWARE; I took ages to stop thinking of the English town.
Thanks to Picaroon for a good workout, and peterO for the blog. Theme didn’t really help except to confirm that I had the right answers. I didn’t know about Dover the state capital and had to look it up to check. Wasted time trying to make an anagram of ADULT NOTED for 2d. I suppose if there are wet nurses there must be dry ones too, but that was new as was EMBOWELS.
Thank you PeterO for your clearly illustrated blog. Needed your help with GLANCE AT.
I had the sense of TAXER as per these Urban dictionary examples of taxed: to have something taken from you without your permission or consent, and without the intention to be returned.
Hey, I just taxed John’s wallet and he didn’t even notice!
Man, I was gone for a second and someone taxed my calculator!
I used to hear young people in Oz using tax in that sense but I must admit I’ve never heard anyone called a taxer.
I ‘got’ HEEL-AND-TOE first up, but it took me a while to twig to the fact that only the ‘noted’ was barking.
Loved the crossword.
gladys @9: I would imagine there are more dry nurses than wet ones these days. If a dry nurse is somewhat akin to a nanny, then there are certainly nannies and agencies that recruit them. I think I have only ever been aware of one mother who made use of a wet nurse.
paddymelon @10: I have long suspected that there is a team of giggling teenagers/twenty-somethings behind Urban Dictionary and they make things up as they go. Those two examples of the use of ‘tax’ sound remarkably unconvincing to me. The second, in particular, requires us to go back to a time when people both said ‘Man’ and used calculators!
One of Picaroon’s more accessible puzzles, I thought. The theme didn’t actually help me solve anything, but was useful confirmation. And SHAKESPEARE was worth the price of admission on its own.
Thanks to Picaroon and PeterO.
Took a while to get going, and only got BEAR ARMS at the end, so it didn’t really help.
Wasn’t sure about the AS LEVELS being (2, 6) – thought it was more (1, 1, 6).
GDU@2 – A wide boy is someone who is involved in dodgy deals, whic is a fair description of Del Boy.
Thanks Picaroon and PeterO
Me@12. Which. Must check posts before I sned them
Maybe not quite as much fun as usual from Picaroon. Felt a bit flat after Anto’s fun and games yesterday. Which is probably a relief to some 🙂
Cheers P&P
gif@11. LOL. But true.
Sorry Postmark@11.
PostMark@11
Agree that Urban Dictionary looks like an unauthentic source.
KVa@18 and Postmark@11. I can personally verify the source of tax -er/d..
From another source?
Favourite DRY NURSE.
paddymelon@19
Got it. You mean people in Oz are using the word ‘tax’ in the sense you have mentioned @11.
KVa. If I were in the US of A, I’d be invoking the 5th Amendment.
😉
While this proved a DNF for me (couldn’t get ERODES), I enjoyed it a lot. A clever theme, some first-rate surfaces (SHAKESPEARE being a stand-out), and one of the neatest misdirections I’ve seen for some time with DELAWARE.
Good case of “one man’s meat” etc – my view of the last two days is the exact opposite of that of Bodycheetah @15, but that doesn’t mean that either of us is wrong.
Thanks to Picaroon and PeterO.
DRY NURSE
A new anagrind, I believe. I liked it.
‘to get in a state’
I agree about splitting A.S. LEVELS, Crispy@11 – it’s an abbreviation for “Advanced Subsidiary” (had to look it up).
René only has one acute accent. Spent ages getting UNSNARLING. Liked TAXERS for the wrong = X which I hadn’t come across before.
Failed to solve 13d DELAWARE – I heard of Fools and Horses here via cryptic crosswords but I know nothing about it so I never heard of Del Boy. Also did not know that Dover is the capital of Delaware!
I did not understand the ref to the across answers in 6ac / bare arms = roll up one’s sleeves -> bear arms until I finished the puzzle and was then able to pick out all the weapons.
Thanks, both.
I enjoyed this, and agree that SHAKESPEARE was the stand out clue – that bottom southeast corner going in last.
For those who do Wordle/Statele this morning’s state was Delaware, so I had Dover in tbe forefront of my mind, when I’d stopped thinking of SE for the south east – although US state capitals is something I deliberately learnt as I got fed up with feeling ignorant.
Thank you to PeterO and Picaroon.
Enjoyed this.
Dover came a little easier because of one of those random pub quiz facts – there are only 4 US states whose capitals start with the same letter as the state itself (Indiana, Oklahoma City, Honolulu and Dover).
“Bear arms” was my FOI but there being so many arms it did not help much in the solving, though it contributed very much to the pleasure, which is already pretty high when doing a Picaroon.
Nick @28: indeed you’re right re Rene.
I don’t think it will come as a surprise that I entirely agree with NeilH’s comment @25 (apart from not getting ERODES 😉 ).
As well as SHAKESPEARE and the wonderful DELAWARE, I had ticks for the amusing 22ac EMBOWELS (curious that it has the same meaning as ‘disembowels’), 24ac COLTRANE, 1dn SERENE, 3dn DRY NURSE and 14dn AS LEVELS – all of which painted amusing pictures.
I also liked the cleverly linked 21dn ABEL and 8dn SETH.
6dn was my last one in! Once I spotted all the arms as I went through in order, as always, I forgot to go back to it. (Picaroon often keeps his theme word back until well into the down clues.)
Many thanks to Picaroon for lots of fun and to PeterO for the blog.
Couldn’t parse 2d and wasted a lot of time trying to anagram ‘adult noted’.
A fun puzzle. I wonder if anyone would have spotted the arms in the across answers without that for 6?
HEEL AND TOE is one way of walking, toe and then the heel is the other way, the soldiers here in France use the first way and the gendarmes the second way when on parade.
Thank you Picaroon and PeterO.
I see that at least Eileen spotted the arms!
I forgot to mention that the police also use the toe and heel way of walking when on parade.
BEAR ARMS was my last one in, so it was of no help whatsoever. I had GLANCED UP for a long time as I had not parsed it properly, just GLANCEd AT it really. I did not know what I was looking for in SHAKESPEARE, but I wrote PEAR in as Ihad the P and was going through various drinks and was even wondering if there was a lemonade called Shakespeare when I read the clue again. I now have a sore arse and heels.
Thanks both
I also spelt ABEL as ABLE which did not help.
For a long time I thought the architect of Glasgow School of Art had a French connection, until saw his name in writing.
Crispy @14… “Must check posts before I sned them” LOL.
AC @27 As far as AS LEVELS go, I can remember the days when I did a Physics A level and a separate Physics S level. In those days a S level was of a higher standard (probably first year uni standard) than an A level. I’d never heard of an AS level and had to google it to make sure it was a real thing. It seems that it’s subsidiary to an A level. I don’t have a problem with the enumeration as most references seem to be AS rather than A.S.
No real problems with this and the theme helped more with confirmation than discovery. SHAKESPEARE was good.
First time I’ve seen model as an anagrind which held me up.
Liked the theme – and it helped with my last two.
Thanks both
Shiv was unknown to me, and generally the theme didn’t help.
Like others, I thought SHAKESPEARE was a great clue.
Nice to get BEAR ARMS early on and therefore have plenty of means of checking the accuracy of the across clues, though like others didn’t know Shiv. Liked the clever misdirection for both SHAKESPEARE and DELAWARE. Last one in was ERODES, looked at it for some while, as Frets didn’t seem a particularly apt synonym. Thanks Picaroon and Peter O…
I failed to understand how “frets” is a definition for “erodes”, but Chambers has it, so okay.
DRY NURSE was new to me, but since there are wet nurses it seems logical that there also be dry nurses.
I am delighted to learn that note only is EMBOWELS a word, it means the same as “disembowels”. Compare also flammable/inflammable.
KateE @43 – new to me too, and gives an extra layer of meaning to Succession’s Shiv Roy!
Jacob @ 45, also valuable/invaluable — not quite synonyms, but pretty close.
Thanks for the blog, HEEL-AND-TOE was a neat clue , another nuclear theme, perhaps I would find them less tiresome if they were not quite so frequent. BLADE RUNNER is the film title but I suppose a film can tell a tale.
AS LEVELS , always written like this, were very important for about 10 years. Students took exams in the Lower Sixth that counted for half their A-Level grade, their AS grades were extremely useful as a guide to progress and very helpful for universities assessing UCAS applications. They were loved by students , parents , teachers and universities so Gove cancelled them. Current AS levels are a stand alone qualification that cannot be used as part of an A-level.
[ AlanC@33 , your Number 1 yesterday is noted , I was Number 1 in the FT so it is now 30-1 .
Without your repeat offences I think you would be leading, it shows that crime does not pay. ]
I got BEAR ARMS fairly early on but didn’t find it much help, apart from confirmation of the answers (not including the unknown SHIV).
As well as SHAKESPEARE, I liked GLANCE AT for the definition, TRIPLES for the model flirting, HEEL-AND-TOE for the dog walking, and DELAWARE for the ‘wrong’ Dover.
Thanks Picaroon and PeterO.
As Robi@50 I got BEAR ARMS early and this theme was a help. Missed PREFAB due to my continued inability to spot when “on” is not just a filler and suggests RE.
Over too soon though.
Thanks both
I fretted a while about frets meaning ERODES, thinking a fretsaw does more than erode. Apparently one fret is derived from Germanic cf German fressen, but fretwork etc. from French.
Long time lurker, first time poster. In an attempt to quantify the difficulty of setters and individual puzzles I have loaded three years of times from my guardian app. It is not exactly science for lots of reasons, but it may help me assess my fading mental powers and/or the relative severity of any day’s offering. Picaroon, for example, normally takes me a bit longer than my average for all setters, although not a lot. This puzzle was on his easier side, with my time today 67% of the average for his puzzles. Thanks to Picaroon and PeterO
[Roz @49: 🙂 ]
Fretting is an important cause of corrosion and fatigue with respect to surfaces under load and repeated relative motion such as in the presence of vibration. Frets = ERODES is pretty accurate, at least for this engineer who spent a few years in the field of Tribology.
Solved 4a then reading 6a “…what all across answers do here”, decided to deliberately leave it till last, as a special treat
So, loi 6a BEAR ARMS and then play spot-the-weapons. This was fun.
Thanks AlanC@5 for the BLADE RUNNER link. One of my all time favourites, too.
Thanks P&PO
And an excellent first post too @BirdFossil. Any chance of seeing your full list in difficulty order (min requirement 10 puzzles?)
I saw the theme quite early, which actually helped me solve 6A, and then used the theme to solve LEGATE and GLANCE AT…. Which was nice…
AlanC @4
My entry for 1D SERENE would have been clearer if the software I was using had understood the format I attempted I have now cleared it up (and removed the extraneous accent, Nick @28).
KVa @7
… likewise removed, the inclusion of ‘showing’ in the definition for 22A EMBOWELS. The rule of grammar is now restored, with ‘guts’ taken as a verb.
I found this quite challenging. On a first read through I couldn’t spot anything obvious. Then I clicked with BLADE RUNNER and began to pick up speed, and managed all but three. I didn’t spot a theme. Very ingenious….I accidentally pressed a button on my PC, not sure which, and the word “and” appeared in one square for every completed answer. Very odd. Has anyone else had this issue? Anyway, I moved over to my iPad and all was fine. With thanks to Picaroon and PeterO.
Thanks Picaroon and PeterO
LOI was BEAR ARMS, so no help on the rest!
I got DELAWARE straight away, but wondered what overseas solvers might make of, though US solvers had an advantage.
AlanC@54, perhaps you should arrest yourself. I see from Frankie@56 that you put a Blade Runner link.A wild guess says it is the final android speech. If so I must point out that the shoulder of Orion does not exist, just an optical effect for the constellation viewed from Earth.
Full moon tonight, a supermoon , the biggest of the year and in modern parlance a blue moon.
Pretty rare combination, may you have clear skies, the best things in life are free.
[Roz @62
I amuse myself by reading the synopses of Sky History programmes called Ancient Aliens, The synopsis generally ends with a question to which the answer is invariably “no” (today’s is “Could these ancient relics have been hidden by extraterrestrials?) A particularly egregious one last week was “Could so many cultures by obsessed with the Orion constellation because ancient aliens came from there?”]
[ Muffin I remember the one about the 3 main pyramids being built to line up with Orion’s belt . Using proper motion of the stars it is easy to see the belt had a different shape then. I love your idea that the answer to the questions they pose is always no. ]
[The one about the pyramids seemed a wasted opportunity to actually scientifically test one of these strange ideas – if the pyramids represented Orion’s belt, then it surely predicts that there should have been significant structures at sites equivalent to the other stars in the constellation?]
[Roz@65, muffin@64 This seems to be a corollary of Betteridge’s Law of Headlines (Robin Ince describes it here). My favourite one for calling out such nonsense is “JustSaysInMice” which is a Twitter feed devoted to noting that all the newspaper reports about cancer cures, life-extending treatments and weight-loss methods are only from studies in mice, not humans.]
[Thanks for that, Jack – very interesting.
btw you can get away with “octopuses”, but it’s “octopodes” rather than “octopi”.
I only ever look at the Daily Mail in the barber’s, but they seem to be on a mission to classify all substances into either causing or curing cancer…]
Roz @62: well done, indeed the ‘Tears in Rain’ monologue. I’m in Koh Phangan and hoping to go to the Full Moon party tomorrow night with my one and only sprog.
[ AlanC@69 , it is a great scene and I resisted mentioning – attack ships on fire – which is just about plausible . Your Special Branch missions are always somewhere wonderful , no doubt with a golf course . I want to catch the moonset on Friday morning while swimming in the exotic Irish Sea. }
[ Jack and Muffin, I see all the papers when I pick up my Guardian. The day will come when the Mail headline is – Fresh air causes cancer – and the Express has – Fresh air cures cancer . ]
Falstaff was shocked at the idea that he should be “embowled”, but it didn’t mean “disemboweled”: it was another, older meaning of the word that meant “buried”, put in the bowels of the Earth.
A few questions for us (AS levels, for instance, and the wide boy). And then the realization that MERC to Brits is a much fancier car than a MERC might be to us USers who thought first of a Mercury!
Thanks Picaroon for the fun. I was afraid that Monk in the FT had drained all my grey matter but I had enough left to complete this little gem except for DELAWARE. (I had no idea about “Peckham wide boy” and I only thought of the British Dover even though I live in the US and had to memorize all the state capitals in 3rd grade.) In any event I enjoyed this with TEEPEES, LEGATE, COLTRANE, TAXERS, and SERENE being favourites. Thanks PeterO for the blog.
As ever, the theme totally eluded me to the extent that BEAR ARMS was my last in. Another fine puzzle by Picaroon.
I suppose, not realising that Robbie COLTRANE’s surname was his stage name, after the real Jazz musician John COLTRANE, I was perplexed to figure out how Robbie could have figured in the Jazz scene. In the end I looked him up and twigged! Ah well, an excusable mistake since my knowledge of Jazz is minuscule!
I was beaten by SHAKESPEARE here – I guessed from the start that Will was the def. but I kept thinking of ‘will’ as in ‘testament’ – also the odd prince of that moniker. The Bard just wouldn’t come to me! And ironic, seeing as a few days ago we saw a delightful Am-Dram performance of one of the Comedies in which our son was acting. Me stupid!
I wondered if EMBOWELS was a word but then I recalled something I read in Simon Singh’s The Code Book, in which there’s a contemporary account of an Elizabethan execution in which the hapless victims were “bowell’d alive and seeing” – all part of the process of hanging drawing and quartering. Yikes!
But it’s Pickers so no likelihood of anything to complain about! Favourites? Too many to choose from. I’ll just mention DELAWARE – didn’t Del Boy and Rodney take their friends on a trip to somewhere in the Dover (Kent) area once? Super misdirection!
Thanks to Picaroon and Peter.
[John Coltrane’s A love supreme is one of the four jazz seminal albums I regularly play. (The others are Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, and Jorge Gilberto.)]
Pretty much all that I think of the puzzle and the blog has been said above, so I’ll just add my favourite (and LOI) LEGATE to the other fine clues mentioned. Many thank Picaroon and PeterO.
muffin@68
We’ve had the debate about the plural of octopus before. The Greek for foot is “pous”, plural “podes”; the Latin is “pes”, plural “pedes” so “octopus” fits with neither. I was convinced by the post that said that “octopus” is a post-Classical second declension Latin word derived from the Greek so the plural would be “octopi”. I’ll stick with “octopuses” should the need arise.
muffin @ 77 but which Miles? He made several seminal albums, after all.
For what it’s worth I’m with Paddymelon @10 on her use of taxed. Must just be an Oz 70’s thing.
Simon @80
The seminal album – Kind of blue!
Me@79
My 1993 Chambers gives “octopodes” as an alternative to “octopuses” and is firm in saying that “octopi” is wrong. I think that Chambers could be wrong. I looked to see what it gave as the plural of “platypus” but it only gives “platypuses”.
Thanks both,
The theme was useful in that it helped me get ‘teepees’.
Muffin@68. Are you trailing your coat? The ancient Greeks didn’t have the word ‘octopus’. It almost certainly came into English from scientific Latin in the 16th or 17th century, when the plural would have been ‘octopi’. ‘Octopodes’ is a later affectation.
I had some more thoughts on HEEL-AND-TOE. Not just a walking technique but also in motoring, a practice rather outdated today except perhaps in motorsport. My father showed me how to do it when I was learning to drive back in the ’60s; I used to try it in my first car, an old banger, but not with any great success. For manual gearboxes only.
What you did was put the heel of your right foot on the accelerator pedal and the toe on the brake, while keeping the left foot to operate the clutch. As you brake to take a bend and change down gear at the same time, you give a little blip on the throttle to speed up the engine before engaging the lower gear, hence getting a smoothed-out delivery of power whilst braking all the time.
Anyone else done this? Not really relevant to present-day motoring – and certainly not for me as I now have an EV…
Laccaria @85. I did an advanced/defensive driving course about 30 years ago. The instructors (all racing drivers) encouraged heel-and-toe, even in an automatic. Made no sense to me driving a Mitsubishi L300 work van (automatic).
Thanks PeterO, I can’t remember if you are one of the Transatlantickers who would have been in the line of Idalia’s fire, but hope all such are dealing with any disruption. BirdFossil@53 welcome and an interesting observation – I would be keen to see your stats too – I found this on Picaroon’s easier side too, except for the SE which I needed to sleep on.
[No blue moon here thanks to the inevitable cloud but AlanC hope you and your son had fun without somehow cramping each others’ style. Muffin if you have particular Jarrett and Gilberto recommendations please share them, not familiar with either.]
And thanks Picaroon, very enjoyable again.
Gazzh
Jarrett – Koln Concert
Gilberto – Getz/Gilberto (it’s the one with Astrud singing “Girl from Ipanema”)
A bit late, but on the subject of Blade Runner the most quoted line ‘attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion … tears in rain’ was not in the script but was ad-libbed by Rutger Hauer and approved by Ridley Scott.
Laccaria @85. My first car, an A35, had dodgy synchromesh. It was the only way to change down.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/octopus#Latin
the plural of octopus is octopodes
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Ancient_Greek_third_declension#Stop_consonants
the plural of pous is podes
…but…
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/octopus#English
‘octopus (plural octopuses or octopusses or octopi or octopodes or octopii) …
Usage notes
The plural octopi is hypercorrect, coming from the mistaken notion that the -us in oct?p?s is a Latin second declension ending.
The word is actually treated as a third declension noun in Latin.
The plural octopodes (Latin: octopodes) follows the Ancient Greek plural, (oktopodes).
The plural octopii is based on an incorrect attempt to pluralise the word based on an incorrect assumption of its origin, and is rare and widely considered to be nonstandard.
Sources differ on which plurals are acceptable:
Fowler’s Modern English Usage asserts that “the only acceptable plural in English is octopuses”, while
Merriam-Webster and other dictionaries accept octopi as a plural form.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists octopuses, octopi, and octopodes (the order reflecting decreasing frequency of use), stating that the last form is rare.
The online Oxford dictionary states that the standard plural is octopuses, that octopodes is still occasionally used, and that octopi is incorrect.
The term octopod (both octopods and octopodes can be found as the plural) is taken from the taxonomic order Octopoda but has no classical equivalent, and is not necessarily synonymous (it can encompass any member of that order).
The uncountable use of octopus is usually reserved for octopus flesh consumed for food (“He ate too much octopus last night.”).’
Darn it all to heck. I thought I’d edited all the accents out.
The plural octopi is hypercorrect, coming from the mistaken notion that the -us in octopus is a Latin second declension ending.
Now – is anybody going to read this? Highly unlikely – “porque ya es manana”, as I used to say to my younger son, when he was still awake after midnight.
Gazza @87
I live on Long Island, NY. We are occasionally hit by a hurricane or its tail end, but Idalia (now down to a tropical storm) is due to move out to sea in the direction of Bermuda, and have little or no effect here.
The Greeks seem to have used this word instead – polypous – many-footed rather than eight-footed. I wonder if the link will work…
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%BB%CF%8D%CF%80%CE%BF%CF%85%CF%82#Ancient_Greek
plural polypodes
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/polypus#Latin
polypus – plural polypi
…just about surviving in English as archaic…
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/polypus#English
polypus (plural polypi or polypuses)
1 – (hematology, pathology) – A cardiac thrombus usually found post-mortem.
2 – (archaic) – An octopus.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/platypus
Noun – platypus – (plural platypuses or platypus or (common, hypercorrect) platypi or (rare) platypodes)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hypercorrect
Adjective – hypercorrect – (linguistics) – Nonstandard because of a mistaken idea of standard usage.
And Gilberto wasn’t a George, Paul or Ringo – he was a John.
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…”
Luvvly Jubbly!
My only gripe is AS Levels, I would have thought the letter count should be 1,1,6 but I’m probably wrong
@11 tax as a verb ‘to steal’ very heavily used at my school in West Yorkshire
GeoffDownUnder @4 ‘Peckham wide boy’ is an indicator for a character in a long running British sitcom (Only Fools and Horses) with David Jason in the role of Del(boy).
Took a while, but the wonderful theme persuaded me to persist.
FrankieG @91 and passim. Thank you for your scholarship, which I for one have found interesting. Th conclusion seems to be that th safest and most common usage is ‘octopuses ‘, with which I would agree.
I don’t understand the point about third declension which seems to have nothing to do with the case.
Until someone does an extensive study of writing in Natural History, both in Latin and English, from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries we shan’t have a proper picture, but my suspicion is that ‘octopodes’ was invented by some grammarian in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and the usage taken up by people who love to appear scholarly and to correct others. There are still a lot of them about. (See also the ‘less’ ‘fewer’ debate.)
At risk of prolonging this Latin-plurals debate interminably (sorry!)
No-one seems to have mentioned words derived from the fourth declension, but they can pose another pitfall for pluralisers.
Examples are status, census, prospectus, hiatus, apparatus. Strictly speaking, you cannot have “stati, censi, prospecti, hiati, apparati. I suppose those words have cropped up often enough, but anyone even mildly pedantic will insist they’re wrong.
In Latin, the plural is unchanged but with a long u, e.g. stat?s etc. In English best is probably statuses etc.
Latin may be a dead language, but for those like me who struggled through mensa mensa mensam … at school, it can be fun to pull people up on it!