On 16/09/17 17:04, Snidely wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) explained :
In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Fri, 15 Sep 2017 10:27:09 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:
In message , Wolf K
writes:
On 2017-09-14 16:53, RH Draney wrote:
On 9/14/2017 12:47 PM, NY wrote:
1. Near me there are two villages called Welburn, and they are about
10 miles apart. I always clarify which one I mean by reference to
the
nearest town ("The Welburn near Malton" or "The Welburn near
Kirkbymoorside"). With postcodes, there's less scope for confusion,
but before that, given that both are in the same county, there must
have been a lot of problems with mis-delivered mail.
They needn't be close together for that kind of confusion to
arise...witness this conversation from the 1990s:
Cow-orker: "I may look into a job offer in Alexandria."
Me: "Virginia, or Egypt?"
....r
I always specify that Austria is in Europe.
I remember a pleasing crossword clue - something like "Take a left from
one country to reach another".
Great! I had to read that a couple of times before I got it.
Glad you liked it! It wasn't mine - one I saw in a real crossword.
I like British crosswords much more than American crosswords, so I
finally understood it, but for most of the American here, you might
want to explain what "a left" is in that clue.
Really? I thought "take a left" as shorthand for "take a left turn"
was something we'd imported from American English.
It's applying the eft to Oz that's my sticking point.
It's common in crosswords to let a clue stand for an abbreviation of
some kind. For example, a reference to a medico might give you the
substring DR or MO as part of the solution, and "cardinal" might end up
meaning one of the letters N, S, E, W.
Using "right" to mean R or "left" to mean L is going a bit too far, in
my opinion, although it's true that L and R are sometimes used with
these meanings. (When painting hints on shoes, for example, when you
can't remember which shoe goes on which foot.) Still, it's done, so "a
left" can refer to the letter sequence AL. In this clue "take" has one
of its usual meanings: remove.
--
Peter Moylan
http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia