Please use the comments form attached to this page for any general feedback relating to the site.
all about cryptic crossword clues
all about cryptic crossword clues
Please use the comments form attached to this page for any general feedback relating to the site.
Good evening Dr Clue
Just chanced upon a minuscule cosmetic typo in the “last letter” subgroup of the Letter Selection list, which contains “what’s behing this = S”. Prob best to correct this asap otherwise children across the land will be shouting “It’s behing you!” at the imminent Xmas pantos.
Thanks, Monk
Is it fixed now? Oh yes it is!
😆 Just wondering why my avatar on the first posting in this latest thread is no longer my lovely border collie? Has the server/protocol changed?
There was a slight problem with the spelling of your email address on that particular comment – I’ve adjusted it, and the border collie is back 😃
Hello Dr Clue
Just noticed that the internal timestamp on the Drag and Drop lists is still showing as 27-11-23 (31 entries) rather than 21-10-24 (37 entries). I couldn’t post this comment using the non-public interface as no AntiSpam question appeared therein in my Firefox browser.
Thanks, Monk
Looks like I’d closed the browser accidentally when there were unsaved changes pending. Thankfully (since I’d updated the introductory text as well as the change history), WordPress had an autosaved version , so all should now be well.
Hello Dr Clue
Thank you for your ongoing sterling efforts in maintaining this excellent site. One (so far) of the most recent updates struck an immediate chord as it arose in a puzzle I recently solved. It concerns the addition of ‘drains/draining’ as deletion indicators. The clue I saw obtained ‘[Letters for a bottle] minus [letters for a man]’ from the wordplay ‘Bottle man drained’. Notwithstanding the minimalistic crosswordese, surely “Bottle man drained” leaves not “bottle minus man” but rather “bottle and man, with the contents of the former now transferred [to the man/sink/floor/A N Other/etc]”. Presumably this is why you didn’t include ‘drained’ in the list?
Hello Monk
Most kind, thank you.
I agree completely with your analysis of ‘Bottle man drained’. I included ‘drains’ and ‘draining’ on the basis of the intransitive meaning of the verb, but (as with something like ‘disappear’) only compounded forms can be used in an ‘unpaused’ construction – ‘colour drains from face’, ‘face drained of colour’ – with the uncompounded verb only working in something like ‘face, colour draining’. I wouldn’t use ‘face, colour drained’ or ‘face, colour disappeared’ myself, but I can see that the transitive senses of the two verbs make the judgement on them marginal.
Hello Dr Clue
It’s often the case with so many of these apparent complications that simply adhering to normalspeak resolves any ambiguities. In your examples, ‘face, colour having drained’ or ‘face, after colour has disappeared’ would be 100% soundly parsed. I wonder if such ambiguities arise predominantly in sound-SR-driving-iffy-CR clues?
I’m sure you’re right, and I suspect that it’s often the quest for the smoothest possible SR that tips the CR over the edge.