Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

ChrisE

Thanks, great clue. I think an anagram one might prove difficult!

Malone

I love it - a 22-letter synonym!

Watching Masterchef. Why do the chefs say "toomeric" when it's "tuRmeric"?

Chrise - turmeric agreed.

It made me investigate scallops. Despite a rare permissible spelling of scollops, I have always preferred the short 'a' sound, despite accepting that 'wallops' has an 'o' sound. A horse gallops, of course.

Now I find the Old French derivation from 'escalope', so surely my scallop preference is justified.

While I'm on a French kick, I hate hearing 'lingerie' so often pronounced 'longerie' by the English.

Paulh

Most people around here tend to say `scallops` to rhyme with `wallops` ... not `gallops` - there is a place called Wath (upon Dearne), not far away from me, which I pronounce like `Goth` , although locals might prefer the `math` version ... all very confusing, with little logic involved!

Paul

Up here we dont have lingerie, however it is pronounced. But we do have underwear and plenty of layers of it.

We say scallops - like wallops

Malone jigjag

Sorry to hear you are suffering from PHPP, which conveniently covers both synonyms.

Grunger

Thanks for your kind wishes. You'll be pleased to hear that I am on the mend. I don't remember there being many homophones/'homophones' in the weekend puzzles, but maybe my brain automatically blanks them out now?

I am interested in building a collection of 'Only In Crosswords' words and I think one that featured in yesterday's Times puzzle will do. It was 'san', meaning 'hospital'. Has anyone used the word 'san' in that sense in the last 20 or 30 years? It seems so, so dated now - it always brings to mind books from my childhood, books featuring boarding schools. Yes, I think I'll add it to my list, it can join 'char', 'daily', 'IT' and sundry others.

Malone

There are many of us still alive who attended boarding school, played rugger and had a spiffing time despite the harsh conditions. Luckily I just missed compulsory cold baths, which survived only as a punishment.

My school had a san (see previous post) and a few years later I joined the NAS, National Association of Schoolmasters (anagram of 'the classrooms' as you no doubt know). We later became the NASUWT which pretty much eliminated us from crosswords, unlike our rivals, the NUT, who still make frequent appearances.

I don't have a 'daily' but my parents did. You'll be glad to know that my sister wasn't a deb.

I don't think it unfair of crosswords to expect some knowledge of social history.

Thanks, Paul...

Yes, I love stories about boarding schools and fags and 'ragging' and spiffing midnight feasts etc. I don't mind in the slightest that clues reference 'social history', but there's seldom any indication that the terms aren't current. For younger solvers, some of the words are going an awful long way back. It was only a week or so ago that we had 'Tree' referenced by 'old actor'- yes, really, really old, he died over 100 years ago!

I enjoyed hearing the stuff about the teachers' unions. I really don't like unwieldy things such as NASUWT. ASLEF was fine in that it can be pronounced, the NASUWT is rather different.