This puzzle was originally published Tuesday, November 17, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph
Introduction
A rather entertaining puzzle today - but not too difficult.
Today's Glossary
Some possibly unfamiliar abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions used in today's puzzle
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - English poet
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester - English nobleman, favourite and close friend of Elizabeth I of England
OR - abbreviation 3 military other ranks
Sir Stamford Raffles - British statesman best known for his founding of the city of Singapore
Leicester Square - a major square in the West End of London, England - home of Capital FM radio
Today's Links
Gazza's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 26088].
Commentary on Today's Puzzle
10a Veteran hears row breaking out (8)
It took a very long time for the penny to drop concerning this wordplay - even though I had easily found the correct solution, WARHORSE. My difficulty arose from thinking that this must be a sounds like clue with WARHORSE sounding like (indicated by "hears") "row breaking out". WAR could certainly mean "row" but I struggled to figure out how HORSE might sound like something meaning "breaking out". Eventually, I realized that I was on the wrong path and that WARHORSE is an anagram (indicated by "breaking out") of "hears row".
24a Become confused after parking row (6)
One might become confused here if, like me, you had thought that paddling and rowing were not really the same thing. Apparently, though, these sporting activities are similar enough to be considered synonyms in Cryptic Crossword Land. Gazza says that paddle is "a verb meaning to row gently". If so, I wonder what these guys are doing:
26a Article by Conservative lacking foremost abstract reasoning (6)
The same result would have been achieved had the clue read something along the lines of "Conservative embraces man displaying abstract reasoning".
Signing off for today - Falcon
NTSPP 771
12 hours ago
24A: Your canoeists are paddling, but word meanings don't always divide neatly into sporting or other categories as apparent logic might suggest. As far as language spoken in Britain (and recorded in dictionaries) goes, rowers can both row and paddle (and by similar logic, sculling is rowing). If "rowing" ever gets used as a clue for "canoeing" or vice versa, I'll be grumbling too, as those meanings doen't exist.
ReplyDeleteHi Peter,
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, my comments were a bit superficial. The first part of my commentary is based on rowing and paddling (canoe and kayak) being separate events at competitions such as the Summer Olympics.
However, I note that dictionaries do give as one definition of paddle (as an intransitive verb) "to row lightly or gently with oars", just as Gazza stated. The other definitions as an intransitive verb are "to propel or travel in a canoe or the like by using a paddle" and "to move by means of paddle wheels, as a steamer". As a transitive verb, the relevant entries are "to propel with a paddle: to paddle a canoe" and " to convey by paddling, as a canoe" (I'm not sure I see much of a distinction between these latter two definitions but the editors of the dictionary obviously must have thought that they were different meanings).
From these definitions I infer the following:
Used as an intransitive verb, (1) one would be said to be paddling if they were propelling a canoe or kayak, whether they were propelling the craft gently or vigorously; (2) one could also be said to be paddling if they were propelling a rowboat, but only if they were propelling it gently ("It being an extremely hot day, he avoided strenuous activity and merely paddled around the lake in the rowboat").
Used as a transitive verb (3) one may paddle a canoe or kayak but it would seem that one cannot paddle a rowboat.
However, while you cannot paddle a rowboat (transitive), if you row a rowboat gently you are said to be paddling (intransitive).
As I am by no means an expert in linguistics, I would not be surprised if a competent linguist were to come along and shoot my analysis full of holes.
Actually, my facetious comment "If so, I wonder what these guys are doing" was intended to be directed not so much at the characterization of paddling as rowing but rather at its description as "gentle", since (as one can clearly see in the video) their stroke would appear to be anything but gentle.
However, I think it is clear that the word paddling can take on two (at least) quite different meanings. One describes the stroke used to propel a canoe (whether vigorous or gentle) and the second describes the quite different stroke used to propel a rowboat (but only when the stroke is gentle). Thus the competitors in a sculls race between Oxford and Cambridge would be rowing, not paddling - although presumably they might paddle out to the starting position.
Falcon