ShopMEGA! 72 - The Judge Sums Up
bearing clues
One of my favourite tales from Ancient Greece is that of the wooden horse. Devised by Odysseus after years of unsuccessful attempts to enter Troy, Greek soldiers hid inside a large wooden horse while the rest of their army pretended to give up and sail away. The Trojans were persuaded to drag the gift into the city and after dark the Greek soldiers emerged, opened the gates to their comrades and the city was taken.
This tale has become part of our language. A Trojan horse is a devious ploy against one’s enemies. In business it is an offer that seems, and indeed is, too good to be true and in computer speak, it is a program that appears legitimate but is in fact destructive. We also get the expression ‘beware Greeks bearing gifts’ meaning ‘don’t trust your enemies’ from this myth.
After the destruction of Troy, Odysseus had a long and arduous journey home, as described in Homer’s The Odyssey. He faced the one-eyed Cyclops and sea monsters, encountered storms and was shipwrecked before returning after ten years to his wife, Penelope, who awaited at home in Ithaca, where Odysseus was king.
In the Mega Stinker 72 the most common error was at 128ac. ‘Odysseus’ home in Greece’ was ITHACA not ITHICA. This ancient epic was written in the 8th century BC and is still very much part of our culture. I wonder which modern tales will stand such a test of time. Odyssey is a word that also appears in our crosswords, clued as ‘Epic journey’ or ‘Lengthy adventure’.
A PYRRHIC victory is one at too great a cost. King Pyrrhus of Epirus sustained such devastating losses while defeating the Romans in 279BC that the victory was seen as fairly hollow.
A couple of entries had CYRRHIC for ‘Hollow (victory)’ at 85dn and COLEMIC at 85ac. POLEMIC, the answer to ‘Doctrinal dispute’ at 85ac, also comes from Greek, from the word for ‘war’. If you put PALEMIC for 85ac, 69dn was also incorrect. ‘Ballroom dance, … doble’ was PASO not PASA. The name of this Spanish dance translates as ‘double step’.
The ‘German diacritic’ at 56ac was an UMLAUT not UMALUT. This is the two dots placed above a vowel to alter its sound (e.g. like the difference between mice/mouse or man/men). Führer is an example, which without the umlaut is sometimes seen as Fuehrer.
Finally for the Stinker 69ac ‘Hunts, … upon’ was PREYS not PRAYS.
ATTILA the Hun appeared in the Mighty Mega at 56ac, unfortunately for some of you ATILLA is incorrect. Known as the Scourge of God, Attila and his army overran much of Roman Europe in the 5th century and have gone down in history remembered for their barbarity. Attila died on his wedding night in 453, perhaps at the hand of his new bride.
The NAPA (not NAFA, BAJA or TAPA) Valley is the ‘California wine valley’ (Mega Mix 38ac) famous for Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot and other varieties of wine.
‘A person between the ages of 50 and 59’ (23dn) is a QUINQUAGENARIAN, not QUINQUAGINARIAN. For 54dn ‘Title of the wife of the Aga Khan’ both BEGUM and BEGAM were acceptable. Begum Inaara Aga Khan was the second wife of Prince Karim, His Highness The Aga Khan IV, until they divorced in October 2011.
So many interesting bits of information hiding in our clues! Enjoy the next batch of contests and see what you can learn.
MEGA! 71 - Judge Sums Up
January 31, 2012 by The Judge
Filed under MEGA!, The Judge Sums Up
for a Stinker
A simple spelling mistake caught out some Stinker-lovers at 1dn. ‘Prophetess’ needed SIBYL not SYBIL. Sibyl’s were depicted as old women who lived in caves making prophecies. The most famous was the one who assisted Aeneas in his journey to the underworld.
Another often misspelt name caught out others of you at 103ac. ‘Othello plotter’ needed IAGO not LAGO.
Interestingly a sibyl appears in Shakespeare’s play. Othello gives Desdemona a handkerchief which he says was woven by a 200-year-old sibyl. The handkerchief is a symbol of loyalty, but Iago uses it to convince Othello of Desdemona’s infidelity.
The conniving Iago could perhaps be described as a roué, but not as a roux! ROUX not ROUÉ was the answer to 49dn ‘White sauce base’. Roux comes, like many cooking terms, from French and is related to the word russet, coming from the Latin russus, meaning ‘brownish’.
Our clue at 42dn was ‘Box-shaped solid’, but what is a box-shape? Our compiler was thinking of a regular cube-shaped box, but surely a box can have other than six sides. This was something we had to consider when faced with the answer DECAHEDRON instead of the expected HEXAHEDRON. Should we allow it? So back to maths class we went.
Hedron is a suffix meaning a solid with a specific number of faces. A polyhedron is a solid bounded by polygons, that is, closed planes of at least three sides (e.g. triangles, squares, rectangles). So far so good. A hexahedron has six faces, i.e. is a cube when those faces are squares. But a tetrahedron is 3-sided, a pentahedron is 5-sided and a heptahedron is 7-sided. Are they not still boxes? None of these fitted the space in our grid but DECAHEDRON did, and as it can be argued that you can have a 10-sided box, after due deliberation we accepted it as an alternative answer to our clue.
Imminent, coming from the Latin for ‘project over’ means ‘impending’. Immanent, coming from the Latin for ‘remain in’ means ‘existing within’. Our clue at 139dn ‘Inherent’ needed IMMANENT not IMMINENT. One little letter, but a whole world of difference!
The answer to 167dn, while perhaps not immediately obvious, was a ‘light bulb’ moment once realised. ‘Southerly’ was AUSTRAL. DUSTPAN and QUETZAL fitted the space but can only be described as wild guesses.
The Greeks used the word australis to mean the southern part of the world and terra australis incognita was the ‘unknown southern land’ that became Australia.
Austral is used for things relating to, or from the south, so an austral breeze or austral summer. It is used quite a lot by southern hemisphere businesses; Austral Gold, Austral Bricks, Air Austral are examples.
Now I feel in need of some refreshment, how about you? Look no further than 177dn where you’ll find ‘Drink, mint …’. A mint JULEP (not JULIP) originated in Kentucky as a mix of bourbon, ice, sugar syrup and mint. According to Oxford the word julep comes from the Persian gulab or ‘rose water’. A similar drink is a mojito, which has the addition of lime.
In the Mega Mix ‘Ireland’s new PM since March 2011’ (70ac) proved hard to find for some. One reader even told us she rang the Irish Consulate and was told Brian Cowen, who was in fact the previous leader. ENDA KENNY leads the Finn Gael party and heads a coalition government formed on March 9, 2011.
It is no surprise that Iran and Iraq are often mistaken, as they are neighbours and differ in English by just one letter. The ‘Gulf War nation’ was IRAQ at 55dn in the Mighty Mega, not IRAN. The United States invaded Iraq in 1991 following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. This is sometimes called the First Gulf War because of the coalition invasion in 2003, usually known as the Iraq War. Just to confuse things further, both are sometimes referred to as Desert Storm. And if that wasn’t enough confusion, there was also a conflict in the 1980s between the two nations known as the Iran-Iraq War.
Not much else to mention from the Mighty Mega I’m pleased to say. Just a couple of AVIARIES instead of APIARIES for 72ac ‘Bee farms’ and one or two ABASE instead of ABATE for 12dn ‘Diminish’.
I would like to wish you all the best for the festive season and I look forward to joining you in 2012 to make it the best puzzling year yet.
