We like to think of ourselves, along with all you good readers, as a happy, puzzling crew, especially when it comes to matters of words; veritable comrades in clues!
The comradeship may have been stretched a bit thin at 9ac in The Demon when we had to disqualify a few entries because of the misspelling COMARADERIE. For ‘Friendship’ you needed CAMARADERIE, coming from the French camarade, the same base as for comrade. Collins says the word means ‘the spirit of familiarity and trust existing between friends’. But how can we trust our own language which keeps an ‘a’ in one instance and makes it an ‘o’ in another?
Roald Amundsen named an area of Antarctica Dronning Maud Land or ‘Queen MAUD Land’ (Demon 44ac). This area has been Norwegian territory since 1939. Most of you got this answer correct, but do you know how a once English princess came to have a Norwegian Antarctic territory named after her?
Maud of Wales was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Her father, the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, was married to Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Maud married her first cousin, second son of Alexandra’s brother, Prince Carl of Denmark. Carl became King of Norway when Norway ended its 100-year union with Sweden and offered their throne to Carl. He accepted and became Haakon VII.
Clue 69ac was ‘Forgivable’ – well it was if you had VENIAL as the answer. In the Roman Catholic Church venial sins are opposed to mortal ones, which can result in eternal punishment if not repented. GENIAL and MENIAL were not acceptable as alternatives.
‘Twilight-feeding’ was a clue to a word describing animals that prowl at dawn and dusk. The domestic cat and dog are among them and this is the reason we are now encouraged to keep our domestic pets inside as the sun sets. CREPUSCULAR creatures may also be active on a night with a full moon; perhaps this is where the idea of the werewolf came from. The word has nothing to do with creeping but comes from the Latin meaning twilight. An unfamiliar word to many of you, so various incorrect spellings appeared in entries.
Believe it or not a FROG (not FRUG or FRIG) is a ‘Spiky floral-arrangement holder’. Why this handy florists block is called a frog remains a mystery but they seem to have been around for a few hundred years.
We had a query on ZEALAND for ‘Copenhagen’s area’ at 66dn but the Collins, Oxford and Britannica all use this spelling and not ZEELAND, as suggested.
When it comes to amour we look to the French for the right words – not to mention the champagne! Fiancé and fiancée retain their markers for gender, something we English speakers are not used to. The answer to Goliathon clue 1ac ‘Bride-to-be’ therefore was FIANCEE and not FIANCCE, as a few of you had.
For 38dn CARP or HARP seemed like possible answers to some of you, but we did not agree. You needed BARB for ‘Caustic remark’ to make 54ac correct as ‘Monitors, keeps TABS on’.
GLUM was the answer for ‘Depressed’ at 234ac. Many puzzlers wrote GRIM, but cheer up we decided to accept both.
There was more merrymaking at 39ac with the ‘Festive occasion’ or GALA. For some, I suspect the good times must go on for a long time, as we spotted SAGA a couple of times.
SHIH TZU translates as ‘lion dog’, though pussy cat might be more apt! These cute tiny pooches came from Tibet and have a history going back to ancient times. While the pups are now at home in the West their name remains foreign and we spotted a few misspellings at 78ac in the Bigcash.
Finally, a couple of you were stung at 12dn where ‘Bee farm’ was APIARY and not AVIARY. Now I’ll buzz off!
Recent Comments