A fun challenge with a good mix of constructions – I particularly liked 5ac, 10ac, 13ac, 19ac, 4dn, and 5dn. Thanks to Anto
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CHAMBER |
Hard slant’s adopted in assembly (7)
|
| definition: CHAMBER can refer to a place where an assembly may meet, or to the assembly itself
CAMBER=”slant” adopting H (Hard) |
||
| 5 | CAJOLED |
Seduced by bum with dated expression (7)
|
| sounds like (“expression” indicating speech): ‘cadge old’
to ‘cadge’ = to beg [for] = to “bum”; and ‘old’=”dated” |
||
| 9 | PYLON |
Central shipyard allows owner to build tower (5)
|
| central letters from shi-PY-ard al-LO-ws ow-N-er typo correct – thanks to FrankieG | ||
| 10 | PANORAMIC |
Roam around in alarm, taking everything in (9)
|
| anagram/”around” of (Roam)*, in PANIC=”alarm” | ||
| 11 | HAIRSPRAY |
A solution for stiff locks (9)
|
| cryptic definition
“solution” can be read as meaning ‘liquid mixture’, rather than ‘answer to a problem’ and “locks” in the sense of hair, rather than e.g. door locks |
||
| 12 | SENSE |
Reason poles are found in a place like York? (5)
|
| N+S (North and South poles), inside SEE=cathedral city=”a place like York” | ||
| 13 | PLUSH |
Rich people like us seldom have starters (5)
|
| definition: PLUSH=luxurious, rich
starting letters of P-eople L-ike U-s S-eldom H-ave |
||
| 15 | ALL BLACKS |
Rugby side required to score 147? (3,6)
|
| the New Zealand rugby union team are known as the All Blacks
in snooker, a score of 147 is the ‘maximum break’ possible at a single visit to the table, and requires that the player pots the black ball as much as possible i.e. potting ALL BLACKS rather than pinks, blues, etc |
||
| 18 | SHEERNESS |
Difficulty getting to the top for unqualified head (9)
|
| definition: a sheer or nearly vertical slope would make travelling upwards more difficult
SHEER=pure, complete, “unqualified” + NESS=”head” |
||
| 19 | MOOBS |
Low rubbish describing heavy fellow’s chest (5)
|
| MOO=”Low” [of a cow] + BS (bullshit, “rubbish”) | ||
| 21 | NICHE |
Manicheism provides a comfortable place to be (5)
|
| hidden in [Ma]-NICHE-[ism] | ||
| 23 | BAR OF SOAP |
Cleaner gets sick pensioner to eat nothing (3,2,4)
|
| BARFS=”gets sick” + OAP (old age pensioner); around O=”nothing” | ||
| 25 | TOUCH BASE |
Move stand, then reconnect (5,4)
|
| TOUCH=affect with emotion=”Move” + BASE=platform/support=”stand” | ||
| 26 |
Message William expects to be partially rejected (5)
|
|
| hidden (partially) and reversed (rejected) in [Wil]-LIAM E-[xpects] | ||
| 27 | MAE WEST |
Teams we organised are best, some say (3,4)
|
| definition: ‘Mae West’ as rhyming slang for “best”
anagram/”organised’ of (Teams we)* |
||
| 28 | MISHEAR |
Erroneously pick up note by quiet listener (7)
|
| MI (as in do-re-mi)=”note” + SH=shush=”quiet” + EAR=”listener” | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | COP SHOP |
Nick manages to acquire skip… (3,4)
|
| definition: “Nick” as slang for a police station
COPS=slang for obtains=”manages to acquire” + HOP=”skip” |
||
| 2 | AT LEISURE |
… free, when retail use has been reviewed (2,7)
|
| anagram/”when… reviewed” of (retail use)* | ||
| 3 | BONUS |
Working in transport to get extra income (5)
|
| ON=”Working” in BUS=”transport” | ||
| 4 | REPORTAGE |
Fulminate about common idea brought up in dispatches (9)
|
| RAGE=”Fulminate”, around TROPE=”common idea” reversed/”brought up” | ||
| 5 | CANNY |
Prudent to move medical facility out of food processing plant (5)
|
| ER (emergency room, “medical facility”) taken out of CANN-ER-Y=”food processing plant” | ||
| 6 | JERUSALEM |
Occasional jade auction held in strange city (9)
|
| occasional letters from J-ad-E, plus SALE+”auction” in RUM=”strange” | ||
| 7 | LEMON |
French journal removes depleted database – it’s a dud (5)
|
| definition: ‘lemon’ is slang for an unsatisfactory product e.g. a poor quality second hand car
LE MON-DE is a “French journal”, minus DE (D-atabas-E depleted of its inside letters) |
||
| 8 | DICKENS |
Writer talked about devil (7)
|
| double definition: Charles Dickens the writer, or a euphemism for “devil” e.g. ‘what the dickens?’ | ||
| 14 | HORSESHOE |
Ripped up shores with tool that’s used to protect mounts (9)
|
| anagram/”Ripped up” of (shores)*, plus HOE=”tool” | ||
| 16 | LASER BEAM |
Tool for cutting plank supporting small part of raised concrete (5,4)
|
| BEAM=”plank [of wood]”, after S (small) put into a reversal/”raised” of REAL=”concrete” | ||
| 17 | CHOCOLATE |
Check on old company behind confectionery (9)
|
| CH (short for “check”) + O (old) + CO (Company) + LATE=”behind” | ||
| 18 | SANCTUM |
Amount political party initially tucked inside secret location (7)
|
| ANC (African National Congress, “political party”) + initial letter of T-ucked; all inside SUM=”Account” | ||
| 20 | SUPPLER |
Provider, when I will have gone, becomes more flexible (7)
|
| SUPPL-I-ER=”Provider” with the I removed | ||
| 22 | CHUTE |
Trough offering shelter in church (5)
|
| HUT=”shelter” in CE (Church of England) | ||
| 23 | BEAUT |
Wager about gold in Australia, is outstanding (5)
|
| definition: Australian slang for ‘excellent’
BET=”Wager” around AU (chemical symbol for “gold”) |
||
| 24 | FEEDS |
Regularly offer eldest some meals (5)
|
| definition: ‘feed’ can be used as a noun meaning ‘meal’
regular letters taken from o-F-f-E-r E-l-D-e-S-t |
Really good puzzle with favourites COP SHOP, CANNY, JERUSALEM, SHEERNESS and MAE WEST.
Ta Anto & manehi.
I particularly liked CAJOLED MOOBS TOUCH BASE and SHEERNESS ( my LOI). HAIRSPRAY seemed a bit out of sync with the rest of this puzzle.
Thanks Anto and manehi
Thanks, manehi, for several explanations. For me, this started out very easy, but I then ground to less than a snails place for the last half. I knew that was the maximum score, but I didn’t know you had to use just the black balls.
Thanks, also, Anto
For once I really enjoyed an Anto, with favourites CANNY, PANORAMIC and MOOBS, plus my little chickadee. Nice to see snooker getting a mention. I remember seeing a perfect break of 147 during the last world snooker championships at the Crucible in Sheffield. Just one quibble, using a plank as a BEAM is worthy of O’Reilly in Fawlty Towers.
never heard of “Mae West” being rhyming slang for ‘best’, maybe its very region specific?
TV’s favourite cruciverbalist, MORSE, appears as a Nina in the 4th down column.
I loved this, lots of fun clues – probably a lot of English slang that others will find unhelpful – MAE WEST for best, COP SHOP, MOOBS.
Thanks to manehi and Anto.
I generally struggle to get on Anto’s wavelength, and today was no exception; but this is a fine puzzle, and the clues I didn’t succeed in parsing manehi explained convincingly. Given my fondness for excruciating homophones, I am amused that I failed to parse the very clever CAJOLED.
Blaise @4 – while “Orrally” does indeed try using a piece of four-by-two (or whatever) instead of an RSJ, a more respectable reference is Matthew chapter 7: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”
Thanks to Anto and manehi
Top marks for SENSE, MOOBS, BAR OF SOAP, and SANCTUM
Nice to see all this positivity before the seemingly inevitable Anto bashing starts 🙂
Cheers A&M
I thought I knew most of the Cockney rhyming slang likely to turn up in crosswords but I don’t recall seeing MAE WEST before although lady is a popular answer defined as a lifejacket.
Very pleased to note that after more than a week somebody at The Guardian has reset the default print scale so that I no longer have to customise each time to fill an A4 sheet and then remember to adjust it back before printing at other website.
As a Londoner (though not a Cockney) I have never in my life met Mae West as rhyming slang for best.
My best clues: CAJOLED and LASER BEAM.
https://cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk/slang/mae_west
https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/forget-the-cockneys-a-quick-guide-irish-rhyming-slang#:~:text=%E2%80%9CMae%20West%E2%80%9D%20%3D%20best%2C,Not%20the%20Mae%20West.%E2%80%9D
Ignore the link@13
I must be the only one who had Beast for BEAUT. Auusie gold =AS (Aussie dollar) and outstandinf as in it’s a beast. Oh well. I did like the pun of CAJOLED.
I usually don’t have any problems with Anto’s, but there were quite a few speed bumps today. My ignorance of snooker and rhyming slang held me up. Haven’t heard of “barfs”. I know of “men boobs”, but not the more etymologically efficient “moobs”. Didin’t know ER for emergency room, nor that “check” could be abbreviated to “ch”. I got JE from occasional letters from “jade”, but thought it a bit loose. But all in all, I found this enjoyable, thank you Anto.
I was unaware that we owned the copyright for BEAUT!
Thanks for the blog, manehi.
Like DaveEllison@3, this started off well, but I also ground to a halt around way through. After a lot of jumping around I finally found my second wind. I’d never heard of MOOBS (at 62 I’m still keeping them at bay), but it was easy to work out. I thought MAE WEST was rhyming slang for breast rather than best. Fits better with the subject, certainly. Anyway, I thought the puzzle was jolly good. With thanks to Anto and manehi.
[manehi – typo – shi-PY-yard]
PS and the inflatable life jacket of course…
I enjoyed that. Nice to see a sport I know something about, instead of the endless cricket, and PLUSH was fun. Failed to parse CAJOLED, but I have no complaints about the clue. HAIRSPRAY is a solution that’s more likely to give you stiff hair than to cure it – and I suppose the “for” in the clue can be read that way.
As for beams and planks: NeilH@8 quotes the King James Bible, but modern versions often translate the big thing in the eye as a plank…
Returning to MAE WEST, this is the entry from wiki: “During World War II, Allied aircrews called their yellow inflatable, vest-like life preserver jackets “Mae Wests” partly from rhyming slang for “breasts” and “life vests” and partly because of the resemblance to her torso. A “Mae West” is also a type of round parachute malfunction (partial inversion) which contorts the shape of the canopy into the appearance of an extraordinarily large brassiere.”.
Tim C @ 15
Please be assured you’re not alone on the Beast/Beaut front.
Found the bottom half considerably more gettable than the top this morning. Needed Manehi to explain the parsing of CAJOLED and DICKENS. Wasn’t entirely convinced by the clarity of HAIRSPRAY or SHEERNESS. LOI was MOOBS, a new one, or even two, for me. Nice stuff throughout…
Thanks Anto and manehi
GDU @ 16 Ch = CHECK is from chess notation.
Oh Stambridge @22, I’m not the only one to hang my head in shame then… you beaut, you little ripper. 🙂
…and perhaps a double sporting knowledge for ALL BLACKS might have been a trifle unfair for the unsporty/unsporting within our ranks…
[manehi – typo – SUM=”Account”]
Lots of cleverness to enjoy here. I needed the parsing of CAJOLED even though it could be nothing else. Nice to see MOOBS, metaphorically at least.
Thanks manehi and Anto.
Also, one of these days I will remember that words ending in -NESS are frequently clued by “head”.
Quite tough. Failed 19ac MOOBS.
I did not parse 5ac, 15ac (I know zilch about snooker), 18ac apart from NESS=head, 18d apart from ANC = political party.
New for me MAE WEST = best; CAMBER (for 1d).
Favourite: LEMON.
Thanks, both.
Reasonably pleasant, though I was rendered supercilious (only in its literal meaning of course!) when I noted the lax use of occasional to give the J and E, from “jade” in the JERUSALEM clue though fair enough I guess…..
Many thanks
I found this tough but enjoyed it when I finally solved a clue or two. Had to reveal MAE WEST and MOOBS but once revealed I vaguely remembered hearing both at some point. Thanks Anto and manehi especially for the parsing.
I wondered at the awkward construction of 20d. Why not simply ‘when I’m gone’?
Another who knew MAE WEST as the lifejacket, but not the rhyming slang, and didn’t much like the JadE device. CAJOLED, CHAMBER, PANORAMIC and SANCTUM were good.
poc@33
SUPPLER
So as to make it work for both the surface and the cryptic part.
Something to reflect both ‘When I am gone’ and ‘when I is gone’.
Watched a few Pot Blacks back in the day but 147 meant zilch, so a biff. Rage around reverse trope was neat, among other nice ones, ta both.
KVa@13,14 – MAE WEST – !rish rhyming slang – would you Adam (and Eve) it? 🙂
https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/m5yiwoq has ‘Mae West n.1 – 1. a female breast. 1929, 2. a vest. 1940, 3. the best (thing). 2002′
It also has https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/p4ygyfy ‘Mae West n.2 – (US) a long cruller. 1966’…
…but that appears to be Diner Slang, in which Adam and Eve also appear: https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2005-July/052114.html
‘Adam and Eve on a raft — poached eggs on toast; wreck an Adam and Eve on a raft — scrambled eggs on toast’
I’ve not seen “occasional” for “either end of” rather than “every second letter of” before. Is that common? Seems loose to me.
Bobcat had this brilliant clue in the FT in July:
“Astound, scoring 147? (4)”
Thanks Anto. It was fun. Or “BEAUT” as Aussies are wont to say. I also liked (like) CHOCOLATE at 17d. Appreciative of your explanations for a couple of the clues I couldn’t parse, manehi.
I got rather stuck in the NE corner but persevered to complete the puzzle, which I greatly enjoyed.
I liked CAJOLED, the wordplay of BAR OF SOAP, LASER BEAM and SANCTUM, the surface for COP SHOP, the good charade to make CHOCOLATE. Mallimack @38, I would have preferred ‘occasionally’ but both occasionally and regularly could be used for every third letter, although in this case it only extends to two letters; could have used ‘limits of’, I guess.
Thanks Anto and manehi.
Thanks to Anto this was a bit of a tester but really enjoyable. puzzle
Favourites: PANORAMIC, REPORTAGE and SACTUM.
Thx to manehi for the blog and parsing of 23a
In defence of the J[ad]E in 6d JERUSALEM – I’ve occasionally seen “occasional” in wordplay meaning take every third letter. That’s what’s happening here.
It only looks loose or lax because it’s being done on a four letter word.
Robi@41 – Snap
Thanks to Anto for a lovely puzzle – nice balance of fun and challenge. Thanks also to manehi for the blog. I have an alternative parsing for CAJOLED – def as suggested is seduced but could bum=CAD and the old expression=JOLE. I had to look it up but Collins online has JOLE as an obsolete form of jowl.
Thank for the blog, good to see Anto appearing more often and this the best puzzle so far. Very friendly grid with every first letter checked. Many fine clues , I will pick out LEMON for the DE removal.
Occasional jade – my only quibble, it does work but very imprecise.
AlanC number 1 yet again , relentless form , now 33-14 , I am starting to worry. No bonus point for COP SHOP .
I hadn’t thought of cajoled as meaning seduced which rather spoiled the clue for me. As for MOOBS I’ve never heard that version of man boobs, nor do I want to!
Generally enjoyable puzzle, thanks.
Would someone mind explaining why “head” equates to “ness” in 18a?
Gumtree@48: a ness is a head(land), promontory or cape..
Thanks Anto and manehi
Good puzzle. I loved ALL BLACKS, but I am familiar with both sports.
I guessed that Mae West must be rhyming slang, so I Googled. There are different opinions, but the majority give it as Irish, and always used in a negative sense:
“How are you?”
“Not the Mae West, mate”.
I wouldn’t regard a laser BEAM as a tool – the tool would be the gadget that produces it.
Gumtree – ness equals head in a geographical sense.
For this one you have to be versed in the idiom, sporting, and slang expressions of several continents! Or at least, be able to reverse-engineer them.
Players need these for maximum clearance (3,6) – Vulcan 25th October 2021.
Thanks manehi, i thought this was excellent too, with some clever wordplay and good to see some more modern definitions, i wondered about HAIRSPRAY too though as someone with more hair on my 19A than my head i am not qualified to quibble, and now I think for = leading to works well and i suppose it need not be a solution in the strict scientific sense. Thanks Anto.
I can’t remember which way round it was, but I have seen a clue in which BAR OF SOAP was defined as “Rovers Return”, or vice versa.. Probably a Rufus!
Cobbler @ 45
I parsed cajoled the same way as you. Not as good as manehi’s parsing, but plausible.
nuntius@49 and muffin@50
Thank you.
muffin@54 yes it was Rufus and resurrected by Paul in his recent tribute – Bar of soap was the clue I think.
ALL BLACKS was brilliant – I will use a version of it in my quiz next week. I don’t see why “talked about” is in the DICKENS clue at 8d. Bunthorne just had “Writer’s devil” in his Dickens themed puzzle 22315 in 2001. And I agree about “occasional” – “empty jade” would have been better.
11ac Hairspray makes your locks stiffer.
15ac Although cricket baffles me, snooker is a total black box. Other than it’s played with balls on a table, I know nothing at all.
REPORTAGE was my LOI because I was stuck on “rave” for “fulminate.”
muffin@54 How does “Rover’s Return” = “Bar of Soap”?
Thanks to Anto and manehi.
muffin@54
I remember the other BAR OF SOAP clue. Can’t recall the exact words.
Valentine@59
The Rovers Return Inn is a fictional public house in the long-running British soap opera Coronation Street.
Bar of soap? (6,6)–Paul.
Very smooth from Anto, with too many favourites to mention. Like others, Mae West as rhyming slang was new to me, but the clue did not give any other options that I could see. And good to learn that ‘occasional’ can mean every third letter. Every day’s a school day! Thanks Andrew for parsing MW and CAJOLE, another one which escaped me, and the rest of your excellent blog.
Didn’t parse JERUSALEM and didn’t know MAE WEST was best.
BARF is to be sick i.e. vomit I think rather than “get sick” with the “get” there to help the clue construction.
Thanks Anto and manehi
Thanks Anto. This was tougher than I normally find Anto but I’m not complaining because the clues were excellent. My top picks were PANORAMIC, BAR OF SOAP, LEMON, and CHOCOLATE. I correctly guessed MAE WEST and ALL BLACKS (both seem to frequent crosswords these days) but I needed the blog to explain. Thanks manehi.
BAR OF SOAP
time the toffee@63
‘gets sick/vomits=BARFS’ looks all right to me.
tim the toffee*
Today’s learning: Dickens is a euphemism for devil.
[Roz @46: it’s going to be a long season, so don’t take your foot off… ]
[ AlanC@68 , it is actually a calendar season , ends on December 31st so you need to catch up quickly without committing further offences. Three strikes and administration. ]
Good puzzle with some nice ideas. I was thinking 1d was missing an indicator because I had copes for manages rather than cops for manages to acquire. The latter is perfectly fine.
I agree with those who think occasional jade to clue JE is a bit too loose. It’s done for the surface, of course. How about “Commercial free jade auction held in strange city” instead?
I’m not a big fan of CDs but HAIRSPRAY is great.
Thanks, Anto and manehi.
Almost universal praise for an Anto puzzle. Has he finally entered the good graces of this community?
And I thought manehi‘a blog was outstanding – every clue fully explained without any excess verbal prolixity. 😉
Thanks, Anto and manehi for an excellent start to the day.
Great puzzle with plenty of fun, definitely on the less challenging side.
MOOBS and BEAUT were my favourites
Thanks Anto and manehi
With respect KVa @65, BARF = vomit, the act or the product so produced, so I stick by my comment.
Brutal for me. 9 clues solved, and few of those were with several “checks”.
12a – SEE/cathedral city? This is beyond me.
18a – I can’t understand this; I must be reading it wrong. SHEER – should this meaning not be “qualified “:as opposed to “unqualified”?
26a – does “partially” always mean you’re looking for a hidden word?
6d – I struggled here with OCCASIONAL LETTERS – I thought this meant odd letters or even letters.
7d – is there any hint in the clue as to which letters are to be depleted?
Thanks both and I was royally entertained, even to the extent of burbling (apparently) in response to MAE WEST, ALL BLACKS, REPORTAGE – I could go on.
Not burbling in response to ‘sheer’=unqualified (just a bit circuitous for my taste (and it meant a DNF because I settled for ‘steepness’ (my bad because un-parsed))) nor to ‘part of’ as a (somewhat random) insertion indicator; but just a bit vinegar on my part because I (really) enjoyed the tussle.
Got them all eventually, but couldn’t parse some. LOI was SENSE; I knew York was a cathedral city but didn’t think of SEE.
New to me: NESS as a standalone word, MOOBS, OAP, Mae West as rhyming slang for anything other than ‘breast’.
I always thought BEAUT was (western) American slang. I like the proposed BEAST alternative.
Pleased with myself for getting ALL BLACKS; figured 147 must be the score for getting all of the black whatevers in some game. (Darts? Roulette? Go?)
I don’t have a problem with ‘occasional jade’. ‘Occasional’ is precisely that, at times, so there’s no necessity for it to mean ‘regular’.
I think it’s important to remember that one of Anto’s traits is quirkiness, so usages like this should be expected from time to time, or occasionally.
Simon @77,
I think the problem with using occasional in this way is that it’s a slippery slope. You’re right that it doesn’t mean regular, so in a longer word than jade, who’s to know which particular letters to take? I think calling this indication “loose” in 6d is fair.
Steffen @74
12a – SEE = diocese = cathedral city is common in crosswords. It often ends up being Ely because ELY is a common letter combination.
18a –SHEER in the sense of utter/unqualified, as in a phrase like “the sheer gall of it”
26a – I wouldn’t say always, but often, yes.
6d – It usually does mean odd/even letters. See the discussions above and below.
7d – Depleted can mean emptied, so it’s a pretty good indicator here.
For all these, see Collins online (my favourite free resource for checking definitions/synonyms).
phitonelly @78, I actually checked whether “Occasional jade auction” might refer to some random ordered subset of the letters in “jade auction”. If that had been what was intended, I would have considered it a perfectly sensible clue. “Occasional documentary” to mean DOME or DOUR would work for me. The only reason it doesn’t feel quite right here is because we’re only getting 2 letters in total, and they happen to be the first and last. I agree with copland @58 that “empty jade” would have been better, or even “jade bookends”.
Stefan @ 74
12a SEE is indeed a cathedral city (bishop‘s seat) – ELY is the favourite one in crosswords
18a SHEER as in ‘sheer stupidity’ and UNQUALIFIED as in ‘not an unqualified success’. I suppose you might say ‘It’s unqualified/ sheer idiocy’ maybe?
26a Crossword clues aren’t supposed to be in a secret code, so PARTIALLY should mean what it says, as indeed it does here.
6d … but unfortunately these days they increasingly are! Eg SHORT/BRIEFLY etc.meaning drop one letter from the end, usually of a word not in the clue. Here again Anto has used the actual meaning of OCCASIONAL and for a 4 letter word that is in the clue, so fair enough.
7d Sort of: as in DEPLETE, remove its content. Again, DATABASE is quoted in the clue so it’s easy to figure out what is actually meant. It’s these setters that use similar (codified or otherwise) manipulations of words not in the clue that I think should be strung from the nearest lamppost!
This was jolly good, though I don’t think anyone actually ever uses MAE WEST like that (in the same way no one really ever says “apples ‘n pears”). Liked ALL BLACKS and LASER BEAM, and thought REPORTAGE worthy of a mention in dispatches.
nuntius @49, I see the entry in Chambers, but I have been a voracious reader for 50+ years and have never, ever run across the word ‘ness’ in print. I have seen it in place names (Loch Ness, Inverness, Caithness), but I would have bet money that it isn’t a word on its own in modern English. My 1971 compact OED says that it survived in Middle English only in place names, from which the later use was perhaps reconstructed, so the Chambers etymology is over-simplified. The current OED can only manage two prose citations since William Morris in 1868.
It seems to me that it’s a word like ESNE, that only exists in crosswords these days. To be memorized and dragged out as needed, but always with a bit of an asterisk.
[ThemTates@83. Impressed that your compact OED has survived since 1971. My Skeats Etymological Dictionary is the only hard cover one I have left. Given to me as birthday present in 1973. I’ve tried to re-gift others in my possession but the secondhand bookshop said they would have to do what they recommended I do, that is put them in the paper recycling bin!]
Them Tates @83
\you could argue that Dungeness is also all one word, though the ness part does refer to a hesdland. Orford Ness is definitely two words, though.
Mandarin @82 – depends who you hang out with, I’ve heard “get up them apples” but I’ve worked in London factories and in and out of East End homes (Bow, Poplar, Bethnal Green) as a peripatetic tutor. It was probably one of the factory guys telling me to get back in the office and sort his pay out.
Interesting to find that rhyming slang is also an Irish thing. Most internet sources say that the Cockney version arose in London in the early 19th century, but nobody is sure how or why: but a few sites do note that this is also when there was an influx of Irish workers building canals and railways. Maybe it was Irish rhyming slang all along?
Gladys@87: I’ve never heard of Irish rhyming slang (and I’m irish) but a search turned up several sites attesting it, including MAE WEST as ‘best’.
me @85
..and there’s the very significant archeological site on Orkney, the Ness of Brodgar.
A struggle, but I made it. Didn’t parse CAJOLED, which made it my LOI.
WhiteDevil @90 I couldn’t parse CAJOLED either. I think my problem is that in American English “cajole” is pronounced “k’jole” with the second syllable accented — there’s nothing that sounds like “cadge” in it.