Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)

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.

/dps

--
Rule #0: Don't be on fire.
In case of fire, exit the building before tweeting about it.
(Sighting reported by Adam F)

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

On Fri, 15 Sep 2017 19:44:52 -0400, Wolf K wrote:

On 2017-09-15 08:30, Janet wrote:
In article ,
says...

In message , Wolf K
writes:
[]
What frosts me is the the habit of calling the PM's wife "First :Lady".
She isn't. IIRC, Mrs Brian Mulroney was the first one to somehow
acquire that designation. Our Governor-General's spouse is the First
Spouse.

I must say (I'm a Brit, living here) that I've not heard this usage,
though I'm not saying it isn't used. Ah, sorry, I've just realised from
the Mulroney mention that you're speaking of AU; interesting.

Personally I rather like the _frivolous_ use of "first" that often
arises in the US: I have a recording somewhere (a .au file, which shows
how long ago it was!) of Socks, the "first cat" (I'm pretty sure it
was/is Bill Clinton's).

In the Scottish Parliament, the role of prime minister is called
First Minister.

A partial translation. A more complete one would be First Servant. Of
whom? The people, of course.
In practice perhaps. Formally the Ministers, Prime, First or otherwise,
are Ministers of the Crown.

An earlier FM came from the isle of Arran (small west coast island I
live on) where his father was immediately retitled the First Shepherd.

Janet.



--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

On Fri, 15 Sep 2017 21:58:05 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Char Jackson
writes:
On Fri, 15 Sep 2017 19:15:24 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

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 hope you'll share the answer, if you remember it. From there, perhaps
I could work backwards to figure out the clue.

Austria.

Thanks, John. In that case, I'm puzzled by the folks who thought the
clue was creative. I think it's awful.

"Wolf K" wrote in message
...
Thanks, John. In that case, I'm puzzled by the folks who thought the
clue was creative. I think it's awful.

"Awful" meaning "trite"? Or "trivially easy to decode"?

How about "Scrambled brains for Scottish babies?"?

Nice one.

The one I saw in a gardening crossword was "Sounds like there's a bony
mother kept in reserve".

"Snidely" wrote

| Yes, but remember we have a 200+ year record of mostly retiring our
| heads of state. So we're used to it. Jimmy Carter doesn't operate as
| a head of state these days. He does operate as someone who has built
| up an account of goodwill and respect, but the difference between him
| and Bill Gates is that the Guy From Georgia does his humanitarian work
| without being associated with Redmond, Washington.
|
I remember a quote from some PBS documentary,
attributed to Harry Truman. He described being
taken aback by the sudden transition. One minute,
the whole world hung on his every word. A few
minutes later, no one much cared what he had
to say.

I wouldn't compare Bill Gates there. He's more like
a Rockefeller, a J Paul Getty, or other rich businesssman.
They reach the limit of what can be achieved in terms
of hoarding money and decide that buying fame and
admiration might be a worthy pastime. Bill Gates has
gone from a suspect monopoly exploiter to saver of
the world through his PR efforts. And magically, he
didn't have to give up his status as the richest (or
maybe 2nd?) man in the world in the process of giving
away all his money. Now that's genius!

Also, Jimmy Carter is a palpably humble man who
seems to be truly inspired by his Christian faith to
do things for others. Bill Gates is a self-appointed
genius who's trying to commandeer US education
because he thinks he knows more about it than
teachers do. (And of course, his plan does seem
to involve lots of Microsoft products. What it does
not seem to involve is buying books, paying teachers,
building playgrounds and school buildings, or giving
any of the money to the people who actually know
about education.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/merced...b_3837421.html

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/liv..._leverage.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-ga...n07-story.html

At best we could speculate that Bill Gates could
possibly be a sincere proponent of trickle-down
theory, combined with a possibly benevolent
megalomania. Something like: "If I get rich that
helps my employees. Also, I'm a genius who can
solve any problem. So it's my duty to make billions
and spend it on lobbying efforts, investments to
make more money, and shadow companies to
advance my agenda."

In article ,
lid says...
I'm puzzled by the folks who thought the
clue was creative. I think it's awful.

And here, a bit contrived I thought.

One of the best clues I ever saw was...

hijklmno

5 Letters


--
Ken

In article ,
UnsteadyKen wrote:

One of the best clues I ever saw was...

hijklmno

5 Letters

They include the following eight (8)

-- Richard

UnsteadyKen wrote:

One of the best clues I ever saw was...

hijklmno

5 Letters

Now I don't normally 'get' crosswords, but

v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v

water (h to o)

In message , UnsteadyKen
writes:
In article ,
says...
I'm puzzled by the folks who thought the
clue was creative. I think it's awful.

And here, a bit contrived I thought.

One of the best clues I ever saw was...

hijklmno

5 Letters


If we're trotting out the classics:

014 (6, 5)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I don't like activity holidays. I like /inactivity/ holidays.
- Miriam Margolyes, RT 2017/4/15-21

"UnsteadyKen" wrote in message
T...
In article ,
lid says...
I'm puzzled by the folks who thought the
clue was creative. I think it's awful.

And here, a bit contrived I thought.

One of the best clues I ever saw was...

hijklmno

5 Letters


Now that is good. And I'm amazed that it took me only about 30 seconds to
get it.

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
One of the best clues I ever saw was...

hijklmno

5 Letters


If we're trotting out the classics:

014 (6, 5)

Now that one *has* got me baffled. Any hints?

"Richard Tobin" wrote in message
news
In article ,
UnsteadyKen wrote:

One of the best clues I ever saw was...

hijklmno

5 Letters

They include the following eight (8)

Is that another crossword clue, maybe related to the earlier one? As in
pqrstuvw?

In article ,
NY wrote:

One of the best clues I ever saw was...

hijklmno

5 Letters

They include the following eight (8)

Is that another crossword clue,

Yes, from the Guardian, I think.

maybe related to the earlier one?

Not really.

-- Richard

In article ,
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

If we're trotting out the classics:

Land of hope and --- (7)

-- Richard