Wed 2 May 2007
Who’s Frank?
Posted by jangari under Nothing in particular
[7] Comments
In yesterday’s cryptic crossword, I managed to finish off all but one clue. I subsequently cheated by looking at today’s paper, but I’m still a bit quite confused as to how the compiler came up with it. Which is where you, dear reader, come in.
The clue was Measure nothing in Frank’s woodland plants (8). I’m not going to make the solution obvious to you – in case you want to have a crack – but if you hold your mouse here it should pop up.
If you have any idea how that solution works, please leave a comment. It’s really beginning to annoy me.
May 3rd, 2007 at 5:14 pm
That’s bloody tough, but then again I am crap at all crosswords, especially cryptic ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anemone_ranunculoides
Mentions a ‘Frank Waley’, but I’ve no idea really
May 3rd, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Ah, that’s helps greatly:
I thought the ‘clue’, the synonym, was ‘woodland plants’, but evidently it is ‘Frank’s woodland plants’, perhaps Frank Waley discovered them or something.
The construction then, is ‘measure nothing in’, the ‘in’ can be disregarded – extrametricated, in phonological terminology – leaving ‘measure nothing’. If ‘nothing’ is ‘none’, then all that remains is the a_em___s, which are the first four letters of ‘measure’.
It’s a stretch, perhaps even too much of a stretch for anyone else, but not for this compiler. The same crossword also had work fin out in metallic sheet to give tinfoil. Easy you say? But how?!
Anyway, that may have been it, Cooper.
Cheers.
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Well, an em is a typographical unit…
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Aha, David, another clue!
Okay, so measure nothing becomes anemo, but then where does the nes come from?!
May 4th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
I think the problem is that the answer is based on a mistake. The Frank in question may be Anne of that ilk. Then nemo is supposed to mean nothing, but it actually means nobody. Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens. It requires sufficent stupidity to fight it.
May 4th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Or better still – and more respectfully to the setter, combine David’s insight with mine: em + O (nothing) in An-ne’s. That must be it.
May 4th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
!
That is it.
I had some idea that Anne might have had something to do with it, but I couldn’t see where it fit in. That works well. Thanks Nicholas, I can sleep now.