WoW: Hypocorism
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Salon 45
GAMES magazine is another indulgence of mine. This puzzle periodical, first appearing back in 1977, has given me untold inspiration and anguish, a bi/monthly that promised outre ideas, inventive formats, game-play history and talk of frontier software. Before the net, GAMES embodied the puzzle community.
I own about 120 of the 200 issues (and desperately seek to fill the gaps). The title is still around, though in shadow form, often reproducing old articles and puzzles.
This year, I tracked down three issues from the first year. And the earliest, Nov/Dec 1977, has a neat game we could well extend. If a logger comedian is Lumberjack Benny, and a typical governess is a Customary Poppins, then who are these people:
- Spectral Scientologist (7,6)
- Smoothie chemist (10,5)
- Clone actress (9,9)
- Nomadic Irish singer (7,8)
- Horn-blowing quickie (9,6)
- Undecided actress (7,6)
Blab your answers in the Comments. And set us your own examples, using byline and number. (And don’t forget to share the peaks and gullies of the week’s crossword landscape. Have a wordy week.)
Flak & North [BB436]
Working flak & north (sorry, back & forth), can you tackle the shiv & flake (which rhymes with give & take) of these ten pairs? In all cases, like the last two examples, you need to hunt down the correct rhymes in order to make two opposites.
(As per usual, feel free to provide you own, with name and byline for easier tracking.)
- sparrow & glide
- curse & nerdy
- wager & whiner
- static & teller
- ghoul & dorm
- tally & fridge
- jest & jerk
- blow & keep
- boy & guild
- thrive & heart
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB435 SOLUTION: Autumn/fall, boot/trunk, petrol/gas, tap/faucet, toilet/john, corn/maize, queue/line, café/diner, bucket/pail, lollies/candy, icing/frosting, chemist/drugstore
Googlology
Google has just launched a new toy, a search engine that leads you into the labyrinth of word origins. If you enter GOOGOL, say, followed by ETYMOLOGY, you’ll learn that a maths professor named Edward Kasner relied on his nine-year-old nephew to coin the number. Try it out.
You may find the answer to either conundrum:
What eight-letter word – first used in 1632 – owes its name to a logo?
What six-letter cooking term derives from the Sanskrit phrase, ‘he causes to be brought together’?
Any other etymology enigmas to chew?
And while you’re Googling, feel free to visit three Q-&-As I just completed, one about the future of crosswords, one on my bombsite called a desk, and about (to come) about Operation Phub. Maybe they all knew tomorrow is my birthday!
Ye Olde Obscurities
Just finished nosing through The Guardian Crossword Book (No 4) from 1973. A lot has changed in 40 years, though good clues don’t age. Like these gems:
London’s loss – I am off to the Pacific! = SOLOMON ISLANDS
Girl caught up in a tangle of vines = VIVIENNE
By the same token, there’s a glut of UK towns and Welsh resorts which have been culled in the contemporary grid. And a surplus of esoteric words you don’t find in everyday puzzles. Here below are just six words, with their meanings:
MISPRISION – deliberate concealment of a felony
PREBENDARY – canon who retains a cathedral’s stipend
TESSERA – mosaic tiles
ESTAMINET – shabby cafe or bistro
LIGHTSOME – buoyant
PINTADO – mottled petrel
(Be honest – how many did you confidently know? I was 4-and-a-half out of 6, with my half the cleric, flopping on the bird.) And let’s see who can match – or trump – the Guardian setters' own efforts of yore, by composing a clue with both wordplay and definition?
Have a crack – using your own byline – and I’ll reveal the real McCoys in a few days. (I’ll offer my share as well, to offset the original setters.)
PAW-PAW
Woozle. Munzie. Bouba. Kiki. Mankad. Pakapoo. Just some of the words you’ll meet face-to-face in Puzzles and Words 2, the sequel just hitting my porch yesterday. Packed with puzzles and 250 word stories, this is a summer must, the ideal means to animate car trips and beach lazes.
Look for a contest on the blog soon, where P&W2 may be yours to win, or ask your favourite book vendor to get supply, with the release date slated soon. At only $15, it’s giftable gold.
Meanwhile, a few brain-benders from the book to help pass Cup Day:
Six (and arguably seven) countries around the world become English words when their last letter is replaced by an E. How many can you name?
Each clue leads to a rhyming pair, where one word is an Ockerism. Chicken volume (CB), of course is Chook Book, while comical WW (FD) is Funny Dunny. Get crackin'.
a. muscly fool (SN)
b. menswear slug (DT)
c. warm mail worker (TP)
d. launder money (WD)
e. macho snack (RS)
f. great pedestrian (CW)
g. cowardly aunt? (YR)
h. dinkier-di Di? (RS)
Good luck on the gee-gees, cobbers.
Salon 44
The Cluetopia circus is shifting down a gear this week, if big tops can have transmissions. The media schedule is almost lackadaisical, these next few days. I’m chatting with Belinda Heggen today on 5AA Adelaide, around 3.35 AEDST. There’s no streaming – but there may be a podcast later.
Also keep your mouse finger poised for our own Em’s work, a linguistic delve into Operation Phub. Her expose is due to drop any day on The Shake. (A site worth checking anytime.) There’s also a top-5 booklist I concocted at Culture Street. What 5 would you pick?
As for the Cup, any wordplay tweaks – or hot tips – for these names? SUPER COOL may hold POOR CLUES, but I’m sure you can do some finer stuff.
SEA MOON
BROWN PANTHER
FIORENTE
FORETELLER
FAWKNER
IBICENCO
VEREMA
MASKED MARVEL
DEAR DEMI
TRES BLUE
RUSCELLO
Share your horse sense, or British crossword tips, here in the Salon forum.
Famous Shamus
I won’t lie. I was time-poor this week, flogging my non-fiction. Couple that with some haphazard behaviour from your lot, including some players neglecting to file a shortlist, others voting late, or two bodies mis-voting across the categories, and our week’s whodunit was more akin to a WTFunit.
Be hey. It was fun. And I persevered. I tallied and sorted, and the quality rose. While I did withdraw as DAme due to my entanglement in some old lace, I met my admin duties, reaching this point to declare our Storm’s book-winner. In the orthodox category, looking for the cream, the finalists went this way:
TODDLE: McKenney with the French Not-So-Quickstep? [Contemporary comedy from Watson, nabbing 5 points/2 votes.]
GRIT: Daring Tigger to barge in bouncing [Oh so Loroso this splendid deceit via Marlowe for 6/3]
GRIT: Some land is girt, at sea? [Tough to ignore the patriotic echo, and the piss-take, of this five-star clue from Hitch, with a 10/5 return.]
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In the Punshon panache-not section, trying to make the most laborious clues from the same wordlist, the votes were close. In fact only two rose above the pack:
MORMON: Perhaps Mitt Romney or Oliver Twist might say this in Jamaica [Watson did well with another 5/3]
TODDLE: Homophonically and informally, Todd will walk [Mystery of 7-Down had my vote for lame, and another vote: 6/2]
Rather than resort to the podium to figure a winner, I went back through the aggregates for all three clues per shamus. In ascending order, with winner the last, here are the suspects: Styles 2, Da Fino 3, Poirot 3, Clarice 7, Mystery of 7-Down 11, Watson 16, Hitch 17, Marlowe 20.
Congratulations Philip. Your mega-Hidden alone was worthy of an award, while your general casework in fine working order. So thanks all for the game. Sorry to blow my DAme mystery en route. And may every noir accompany a blanc.
"C Change
This morning’s #daplay on 702 ABC asked listeners to define a phrase, name, word or title with an extra C, to mark the Crossword Centenary. Among the book-winners were these:
Ad Choc – a spontaneous dessert (Josh)
Antisceptic – cream to stop true believers from becoming infected (Kyle)
Lawrence of Arabica – WW1 search for the perfect bean (Chris)
Kick-starting the brainstorm, I offered this batch:
Chuckleberry Finn – the rafter with the laughter
Closing My Religion – bye-bye Buddha
Uncle Scam – head of the NSA
Something tells me you lot – as no dabbler is a clot – could add to this cock-a-doodle-doco with consummate class.
Your Listening Pleasure
Testing, 1…2… Hope your sound systems are sound this week, as you can catch your blog host flapping his jaw across several wavelengths (as per usual).
In two ticks, around 12:30 today (Wednesday), I’ll be confessing my verbaholic ways to Alicia Sometimes on Triple R’s Aural Text. If you can’t grab a radio, or PC, then tab the show for a Listen On Demand.
Likewise, if you have an idle 30 minutes, then I can recommend the yak I had with Tim Cox on ABC Brisbane. Here’s the podcast. You’ll hear the chat is less on Cluetopia, and more about cryptic pitfalls, but the quality of the listeners' calls keeps the topic pulsing.
Meantime, if you want your chance to win Cluetopia, then get your text and tweet fingers flexed for my Adam Spencer #daplay this Friday. Our game has been delayed by Sydney’s chronic fires, which have thankfully eased. Meaning Adam and I can spark up with wordplay, as can you.
RRRadio
Quick heads-up. Fair bit of tranny work over the next week, with a lunchtime chat (12:30 or so) this Wednesday on Triple R just the start of the domino chain. Tune in there, and drop in here for more alerts.
Crossword Mystery Upgrade
Crossword Mystery – that old whodunit that Sam unearthed – merits its own book-winning Storm. The penny dreadful, written by ER Punshon in 1948 – has a crossword that readers need to crack in order to advance.
At the risk of being unfair, most clues have not aged well. Take the sample for NETTLES, say, reads: Donkey’s dinner; not yours, I hope. While SAMPAN cops this charade – Add a man’s name to a kitchen utensil to make a boat.
As a clue-setter, ER Punshon was a fine novelist. But let’s move on. What say we create new clues for any of the same puzzle’s answers below? Give it your best shot, using both definition & wordplay. And to make the Storm complete, let’s also come up with something clumsy, to capture the Punshon panache. (We should be able to spot the difference.)
To enter the Storm, use a whodunit alias. File your two best clues, plus your best ‘Punshon’ clue, by Thursday afternoon, 1-6. Voting on Friday via email will be simple: 4/3/2/1 for the best clues, and 3/1 for the Punshon creation. All players must vote. The winner will win a Fairfax book of Rainy Day Crosswords (quick, just like Punshon’s opus), with results being declared on the weekend. Here are the words:
GOBLET
MORMON
CORNER
RUINED
TODDLE
SAFE
GRIT
Good luck all shamuses.
Crossword Mystery (Salon 43)
Cluetopia has joined the troposphere. A great launch last night, at Readers' Feast in Melbourne. So cheering to see JD, PRS and AS (of Trippers' fame) – as well as Sam – in the mosh. Of course, Sam snapped up one of two prizes on offer, while NF (Nadine on Trippers) snaffled the other. These wordy types have prior.
Sam also passed on some brilliant crossword lore from his amateur sleuthing, including clues published as part of ER Punshon’s Crossword Mystery, published in 1948. This is a whodunit with a puzzle as codex, including two clues that still defy elucidation. Any insights?
Here cook and P.C. meet, so say the comic writers = AREA
Another palindrome, but ask the Poet Laureate = NAN
Your musings are welcome. For those who missed my yarns on Sunday, you may well get a chance this week to catch a few. I’m yakking with Tony Delroy on Nightlife this Tuesday. Then the lovely Alicia Sometimes on Triple R’s Aural Text at around 12.40 on Wednesday – to name two.
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And why not a challenge to finish? Emily Jung Schwartzkopf is not a real person, but 21 unrepeated letters, or what puzzle-heads call an isogram. What’s the longest Australian name – place or person – that’s isogrammatic?
Share your whims and wonders in the forum. As well as the best of Brit puzzles and clues in The G and The Times (in The Oz). And have a verbivorous week.
Tent City [BB434]
If a powerful camper pitches a POTENT, or a regular scout dozes in a CONSISTENT, what ‘tents’ appeal to these twelve types?
(And if you conquer the jamboree, is there a different sort -tent you can invent? Feel free to add an annex, with clue, name and byline.)
- Inventor (6)
- Fortune-teller (7)
- Glum bum (10)
- Hair-shirt wearer (8)
- Criminal (10)
- Accidental one (11)
- Mean one? (6)
- Nagger (9)
- Pauper (10)
- Bungler (11)
- Drop bear? (11)
- Under-lier? (6)
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB433 SOLUTION: Ethernet (ten/three), fortune (ten/four) and teething (eight/ten). Allowing duplication, froufrou (four/four) is a fourth. Other words are possible.
Stun Grenades
Imagine the shock. Tom Johnson had just created a general knowledge puzzle, back in 1997, where one key entry was SQUIDGYGATE, the nickname for the phone-tap saga involving Princess Diana. You can see the crisis coming can’t you?
That’s right. Overnight the Paris crash made Tom’s answer seem callous in the extreme. With only days till press, the setter had to reset his solution, or fashion a new grid from scratch. Doc (as he’s known) went with Plan A, as Cluetopia reveals in the 1997 chapter. He kept as many cross-letters as he could (the odd quartet of S-U——-A-E), converting them into a clue that almost described the state of the nation, in the aftermath of Diana’s death:
Small bomb which temporarily dazes its victims (4,7) = STUN GRENADE
Read more crossword yarns, strange and stunning, in the 100-year story that is Cluetopia. And meanwhile, let’s ‘rescue’ other names, and no-nos, assuming fate decreed a late change. Try this lot, where I’ve retained a handful of odds, or evens, to spare any scandal:
AL GORE > AUGURY
JOE HOCKEY > JEALOUSLY
BILL SHORTEN > GOLDSWORTHY
ROVE MCMANUS > GOVERNMENTS
CATE BLANCHETT > LASERTAINMENT
JUDI DENCH > LUMINESCE
SPOTFIRE > SPITFIRE
What other names, places or acts of God can you give a later reprieve?
Lion Is A Cat
Quite true – lion is a cat. That zoological statement can’t be denied. The biological breakdown is the truth. And it’s also an anagram of a single word – ANTISOCIAL. Which is my cue to invite a crowd to seek out other truths hiding in single words.
The best examples, like my leonine claim, is a complete sentence, with subject and verb. Though let’s put forward any jumble that radiates veracity.
Yes, MENSWEAR may lead to MEN SWEAR. Or SUNDRIES may suggest SUN DRIES. But I’m more interested in HISTORIAN yielding IRAN IS HOT. Or IMMOLATES, where TOM IS MALE. Or even the near misses, such as RESURRECTS can lose an R to make REST CURES.
Can’t think there is a glut of examples, but you verbivores have been known to astound in the past. Consider the gauntlet thrown. The antisocial lion may well be a cat, but can it pounce on another mauled truth?
Salon 42
Yay. The week has arrived. Cluetopia is hitting the streets, and so is your blog host to spin and spiel the book’s many stories. Packed inside those 300 pages are tales of Nabokov butterflies, England’s first official homosexual, a dockyard walk-off, an Estonian ferry disaster, an ice-cream campaign – each one intricately linked to a crossword.
There’s even Chapter 1962, where the clue was coined by Ulla, an earlier Storm winner. Not to mention love, death and Superman – Cluetopia teems with puzzle lore. It lands at your local bookstore (or online) midweek.
Or maybe you can’t wait. Then take pot luck at Smith Journal, which is giving three copies away. Or wait your chance, once the fires abate, on Adam Spencer’s #daplay segment, aired on a Friday coming, where more boons are due. Or order now on Booktopia, no relation, and be for a $250 voucher.
Speaking of coming, my son has his last school day, dressed as Jesus. As I drove the Messiah to the gates, he wondered, “What car would Jesus drive?” I’m still trying to think of a comical riposte. Any help?
And lastly a very cool list of films that have strong linguistic interest, from Avatar’s Na'vi tongue, to the dashes of Polari in Velvet Goldmine. The lister is the generous wordsmith Stan Carey, who asks what else is out there? Have you seen a flick of verbal appeal? Or what distorted variants could we add: Apocalypse Noun? Santa Clause? Any semantic comedy?
Share your whims, and your clue joys and wrangles right here, at DA Central.
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