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- Doctor Clue on Notes for Azed 2,778
What are the crossword rules/conventions regarding pluralising Latin words ending in ‘-ium’, when the plural is not given in Chambers? . Such as ‘perichaetium’ or ‘suspensorium’. Should they require a note such as “in Collins” (if that’s the case) or is the ‘-ia’ ending assumed?
That’s a very good question, which probably can only be answered fully by a lexicographer who has worked on the Big Bed Book!
Chambers is decidedly coy when it comes to the regular formation of plurals which do not end in -s. In most instances, such plurals are shown as part of the main entry, so for singulars ending in -ium we have eg cranium (pl craniums or crania), effluvium (pl effluvia). Chambers does not show any plural form for eg ‘geranium’ and ‘marsupium’. The implication is that if no irregular plural is shown, the plural is formed by adding an -s, eg ‘geraniums’ and ‘marsupiums’.
On that basis, it would seem that only plurals formed by the addition of -s (or -es/-ies, as per the ‘Spelling rules’ in Chambers) are allowable unless specifically overridden in the main entry for the word. But ODE gives the plural of ‘marsupium’ as ‘marsupia’, so what’s going on? Chambers doesn’t say that ‘marsupia’ isn’t the plural, but on the basis that the sole plural form ‘effluvia’ is explicitly shown, if the ‘Chambers plural’ of ‘marsupium’ is ‘marsupia’, then the ‘Chambers plural’ of geranium must be ‘gerania’.
I’d have to say that if MARSUPIA were to be used in a puzzle for which the primary reference is Chambers there would need to be a note to the effect that ‘the plural form at (eg) 17a is in ODE’. But I may be missing something – if anyone can shed light on why Chambers seemingly lists some ‘irregularly formed’ (by their own rules) plurals and not others, it would be appreciated.
Incidentally, in the Chambers app, searching for mars*s returns ‘marsupiums’ and searching for ‘mars*a’ returns ‘marsupia’; I’m not sure that there is any significance in this, since neither is in the core word list, so both inflections have clearly been produced by the app itself, although it does suggest that the rules which have been programmed in may be similarly loose.
Thanks, that’s a good help. If no hint is given in the entry I had always tended to assume the -ia ending was better for long words, especially scientific ones. I’m surprised that Chambers isn’t clearer about some plural usage. Was Azed not a consultant? Another subject that confuses me concerns countable/uncountable nouns. A word like ‘cabbala’ with a subsidiary definition ‘any secret…doctrine’ would certainly suggest countability for that meaning whereas the primary definition is uncountable. but others are less clear. Could I have said ‘usages’ above? I believe some dictionaries specify (U) or (C) for nouns but not Chambers.
I think that Hart’s Rules sums the dilemma up nicely: “Plurals of foreign words used in English are formed according to the rules either of the original language or of English.” It seems to me that with many ‘New Latin’ words of a technical nature, including the ones which you mentioned, there is no well-established plural form and therefore neither the -s nor the -a version is clearly correct or incorrect. I suspect that where there is no compelling evidence either way, the editors of Chambers have opted for the ‘head below parapet’ approach. Although JC was a lexicographer, he worked for the Oxford University Press – I’m not aware of him having any direct involvement with the Big Red Book.
The countable/uncountable noun concept is certainly useful when it comes to English grammar, but many ‘uncountable’ nouns teeter on the brink of countability. A potential minefield is avoided when it comes to crosswords: excluding proper nouns (eg ‘Lerna’), nouns which are themselves plurals (eg ‘data’), and words with an irregular plural explicitly given by dictionaries (eg ‘exedra’), any regularly-formed plural noun is allowable. I think this is the only sensible approach – ‘integrity’, for instance, might seem like a noun without a plural, but the OED has an example (albeit from 1620) – “They be privatives of Originall integrities.” Personally, I steer clear of plurals of nouns that seem unlikely to ever appear in such a form, but there are other ‘valid’ inflections of adjectives and verbs which are perhaps equally questionable, such as ‘uniquer’ or ‘bewared’.
Last weekend’s Inquisitor (which I really enjoyed) left me with one query.
What helps one to se[t] each remedy when suffering (8, 2 words) E
ARMED EYE [EA(ch) REMEDY]*
(The “[T]” is a deliberate misprint that requires correction to E.)
I thought this use of a two letter abbreviation (EAch) was considered unfair in anagrams… not hard to solve of course, but I wondered what you’d make of it. (I’ve seen it argued that it’s fairer if the string EA remains intact in the answer, but I haven’t really formed an opinion of my own on this.)
I received a question on similar lines a few weeks ago – this link should (I hope) take you to the discussion.
A clue like that would almost certainly not be allowed in a ‘back-pager’, or in a Ximenean puzzle like the Listener. I’m not keen on multi-letter abbreviations being used as part of fodder, and whether they remain intact in the answer seems irrelevant in the absence of a containment/insertion indicator (I don’t think an anagram indicator can be expected to convey the instruction “shuffle the rest around and stick any two-letter indicators somewhere in the middle”). But of course an ‘unfair’ clue can be very straightforward to solve and a ‘fair’ clue fiendishly hard…
Thanks! Would you consider the Inquisitor on the libertarian side in general? I’d sort of assumed all barred cryptics were Ximenean…
The editor of the Inquisitor is John Henderson (Elgar, Enigmatist, Io etc), and he tends to take a more libertarian view when it comes to clueing, although solvability remains a prerequisite; and the IQ has a test-solving team who can be relied on to highlight any clues which appear to be unfair to the solver. You are, though, likely to find clues in the Inquisitor which for reasons of grammatical precision wouldn’t have made it past the editors of the Listener, the Enigmatic Variations, or the Magpie;
Hi. Could I use “sparingly” to indicate that a word is given in its Collins dictionary-supported “short form”. Its use is common in the short form anyway but it fits my surface so well.
Hi Codjuma
I’ve taken the liberty of taking your ‘user submitted post’ and adding it to this thread.
I’m guessing that you are thinking along the lines of either ‘information sparingly’ or ‘intelligence sparingly’ for INFO. I think one could certainly argue that ‘information’ expressed sparingly or economically could be INFO, in the same way that ‘short time’ can indicate T. In effect, the solver is being asked to shorten a word in plain view, which seems fair enough.
I would say that ‘intelligence sparingly’ for INFO is a no-no, as the word ‘sparingly’ is an unfair addition which can only confuse the solver.
Thanks for the helpful guidance. I was thinking of saying “spread sparingly” to clue the short form MARG(arine) but i see now why that would be unfair.
I’m not sure that it’s any less sound than certain other constructions that I have seen in published puzzles, but it falls outside the boundaries of what solvers would expect. The only example of anything similar that I could find using ‘sparing’ or ‘sparingly’ was ‘sparing father’ for FR, which is akin to the ‘short time’ example.
Many thanks 😊
Can “uses” be used as a D->W link?
Hi Codjuma
Yes, I think ‘uses’ and ‘using’ are perfectly acceptable to indicate that the answer results from the wordplay. They are similar to ‘involves’, which is in the list, and several others suggestive of ingredients which are not, eg ‘comprises’, ‘consists of’ and ’embodies’. I like these more than those which imply a requirement, eg ‘needs’, requires’ and ‘demands’, because the answer could be produced in other ways, but I would say that all of the foregoing were likely to be understood and accepted by solvers.
The key with all these verbal links is to ensure that the grammar of the clue as a whole when interpreted cryptically is valid. It’s essential as a setter to be able to ‘park’ the surface reading of a clue and read it as an instruction to the solver; if this doesn’t legitimately lead to the answer, the clue is unsound. There are some examples of unsound constructions on the ‘Links Between Definition and Wordplay’ page, but one including ‘uses’ would be “Fool uses child’s bed nurses left” for CLOT (COT around L). Ignoring the surface reading (which is grammatically valid) and treating the clue as the solver needs to do in order to derive the answer reveals that there are two main verbs, ‘uses’ and ‘nurses’, which is no good; if you change ‘nurses’ to ‘nursing’, it’s sound, but the surface reading doesn’t work. Something like “Fool uses Latin in bed” would be fine.