Saturday Times 26406 (7th May)

25 comments on “Saturday Times 26406 (7th May)”

1. 7:36 here. As I commented yesterday, I like a mixture of easy and difficult ones, and this was definitely in the ‘good for the ego’ category, but at the weekend I prefer them a bit harder than this.
   I was a bit puzzled by by 15ac too but according to Collins it’s ‘another name for linoleum’. And like everyone else I was puzzled by 8dn too but I looked up EN in Collins where it says ‘also called nut’.

   Edited at 2016-05-14 07:52 am (UTC)

2. 35 minutes, with embonpoint having last cropped up long enough ago to have re-entered the unknown category.

   ‘Forty two’ was put in because it couldn’t be anything else. This book, together with Moby-Dick and Catch-22, must be the most over-rated books written in the last couple of centuries. Catch-22 and the Galaxy one vie for most-annoying-because-they-also-think-they-are-funny.

   1. I suppose it depends on who’s doing the rating and why. It’s great genre literature if you like that sort of thing, and pretentious tosh if you don’t. I like the way Adams plays with language – “the Vogon ship hung in the air in exactly the way a brick doesn’t” “a substance that was almost, but quite, entirely unlike tea” – and derived great pleasure from much of the “trilogy”. How do you get on with Pratchett?
      1. C-22 has sentences which are very similar in their construction, and to me it’s all very sophomoric. I’ve never read Pratchett, but, thanks – may dip into him after finishing Marmion.
3. Okay, but baffled by nut = EN, though in itself I am perfectly familiar with EN as a printing term. Whenever EN is mentioned, EM usually comes up too by way of contrast; I wonder if it has an alternative name (corresponding with nut = EN) that we may need to know on a future occasion?
   1. mutton = EM
      1. I should add that I didn’t know this, but my Chambers app has a full text search facility.
         1. It’s in Collins, too, defined as ‘the square of a body of any size of type’. I have absolutely no idea what that means!
            Collins also has ‘pica’ as an alternative for ’em’.
            1. Yes, that’s one of those definitions where you feel less knowledgeable for having read it.
         2. Thanks. Is there any logic behind these names?
            1. The only attempt at an explanation that I could find was that em and en sound similar so mutton and nut were introduced as more easily distinguishable names.
4. I’m pretty sure I remember my mother referring to lino as OILCLOTH. Anyway, it went in straight away. Wish I could say the same about ENLIGHTEN which I had to biff. Unlike Ulaca, I enjoyed both Catch 22 and Hitchhiker. I remember meeting Douglas Adams just after the radio series had been broadcast and before the books came out. He was a guest at an SF convention. I suppose we were his earliest fans. No one would claim that his books are great literature but they do provide a fun read and, as far as I’m concerned, the more fun we get out of reading the better. 30 minutes. Ann
5. I managed to get most of this but Oilcloth, Enlighten and Elytra were all beyond me. I had Awaked for 12d which I knew looked wrong.
   But encouraging progress nevertheless and to illustrate that I completed today’s Daily Telegraph cryptic in one sitting; it seemed pretty easy after The Times. David
   1. You need the reflexes of an experienced solver. The ‘see’ = ‘Ely’ and ‘paintings’ = ‘art’ are almost automatic; ‘elytra’ fits the crossers, so that must be it.
6. I have done my share of printing so I can explain “the square of a body of any size of type”. If you are using, say, 24 point type then an EM space is 24 points long and an EN space is half that, 12 points. But an EM is also a 12-point EM space in some contexts too.

   One of my pet peeves is that people pronounce FORTE (meaning a strength) as if it is an Italian word meaning loud rather than the French word for strength that it actually is. So, despite making you look like an idiot, it really should be prnounced “fort” not “forty”.

   1. I’m not a subscriber to the view that foreign words adopted into the English language should be pronounced as in their original tongue. Sometimes they are, but very often not, the obvious example of the latter being “Paris”.

      Edited at 2016-05-14 10:03 pm (UTC)

   2. And the common mispronunciation is “forTAY,” not “forTEE,” reminding me of why I don’t usually like “sounds like” clues—because they usually don’t.
      1. My Oxford app only allows “for-TAY,” not “for TEE.”
         Chambers has all 3: fort, now usually “for TEE” or “for TAY.”

         Knowing a bit of Italian but zero French I mispronounce it – acceptably to both dictionaries and to all the populace except you two – “for TAY.”

         The crossword: mostly harmless. Whizzed through all except AWEIGH/ENLIGHTEN, NUANCE/ELYTRA and FORTY-TWO in near record time, then about 10 minutes for those last 5.
         Rob

7. The EM dash is the width of the letter M, & the EN dash is the width of N, in any font.
8. Re 8d I cannot find any authority that en = nut.
   It seems to be a dash in printing. David
   1. It’s in Chambers.
9. Three of my favourites, not surprisingly.

   Incidentally, can you give an example of a comic work that doesn’t “think it is funny”? Without mentioning Donald Trump, that is.

   1. I think the great art is to conceal the art.
      1. Yes, I enjoy fart jokes as well.
10. …spread over several sessions.

    EMBONPOINT required a leap of faith.

    Thanks setter and Linxit.

Comments are closed.