Via Rex Parker's discussion of today's horrible Sunday crossword.
The letters "ano" are convenient for a crossword, and the NYT continually presents it as a Spanish word meaning "years," but the Spanish word is "año" with a tilde. It's been flagged as a problem for years, but today's reference to the great novel seems almost like an intentional effort to make fun of the idea that it's problem and to leap into hilarity.
How could crosswords take account of all the diacritical marks in foreign language words? Would you just exclude the possibility of using any word that needed a mark? Would you require the mark to be written in and work in both across and down directions? Does the software even support that? I know how to type an "n" with a tilde, but I bet most NYT crossword solvers do not. If you made a special case out of "ano," it would seem so prissy, and yet the NYT crossword does have a fairly prissy standard — avoiding material that seems inconsistent with the conventional picture of its subscribers enjoying escapist amusement at the breakfast table.
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56 comments:
Nice job of the crossword creator trolling The Cross Word Puridts. They do come off like assholes.
Why is everyone picking on the NYT's?
Here is my current list of lazy but useful crossword answers:
EEE and EEEE (shoe sizes)
ano
etui (a good word, actually, but way overused in crosswords)
uri (Swiss canton)
UAR and UAE (former and current Middle Eastern political grouping)
OAS (former North and South American treaty organization)
Aar and Aare (variations of a Swiss river)
eff, dee, cee (grades)
AAA (everyone should know this one)
een, eer (poetic contractions)
EDT, EST, and other US time zone designations
There are others, but these are off the top of my head.
Very inconvenient letter to use on a US keyboard.
Here are a few others:
AFL, CIO, and UAW
NFL, NBA, NHL
CIA, NSA, and OSS
ETO
GTO and REO
Tee (with and without the accent mark)
baa, moo, arf
emu, rhea, roc
eeo
Think of a year as a ring (L anus).
WAIT! If Marquez didn't write "100 Lonely Assholes", who did?
It was a good read......
If you used a tilde one way, then there would have to be a Spanish word using the tilde the other way.
Once you get beyond 4 letters, there are certain answers you will come across repeatedly in doing crossword puzzles that are legitimate words, but not in common use:
arete, esker
stile
stele
Also,
tsetse
idi and amin
enol/s
ait, ile, ria, isla
imago
imari, edo
saone, oise, somme, amiens, arles
I just do the puzzles. Some diacritical leniency is in order.
Yancey, I often imagine a scenario where crossword answers are used in conversation.
She: What did you feed the dog?
He: Why, orts, of course.
She: Have you seen my etui?
He: No, but I will make an orison that you find it,
She: There was an eft in our yard this morning.
He: Yes but it was eaten by a large ani.
Etc., etc.
Interesting to see Gabrial Garcia still making the NYT in the %metoo era.
YoungHegelian said...
WAIT! If Marquez didn't write "100 Lonely Assholes", who did?
Quite unjustly, the movie went straight to DVD.
I know what an orison is, but have never seen in a puzzle that I remember. Of course, orts and ani are common answers.
Others:
tsar, czar, imam, emir, ameer, aga, agah
Aja (Steely Dan!)
any Chinese dynasty!
tao, tse, chai, tso
che, mao, lon and nol
Laos, baht, phnom and penh
I knew orts, orison, eft (the Red Eft!) but not etui or ani, which I gather from this thread is a plural of "anus".
Maybe if Marquez HAD written One Hundred Anuses of Solitude, we could've avoided the AIDS epidemic.
YH has kind of implied what I wanted to say, but let me spell it out:
In English, we have two whole sets of terms for most concepts, Latin cognates like 'anus' that tend to be scientific or high style, and German cognates like 'asshole' that tend to be everyday English or low style. A good example is 'illegible' vs. 'unreadable', though the former is not much fancier than the latter. Most of the 'four letter words' in English come from German, not Latin. As a Romance language, Spanish is basically all Latin cognates with a few Arabic or American Indian words thrown in. That means that Spanish 'año' means 'asshole' or 'butthole' just as much as it means 'anus', even if the NYT prefers the latter as relatively more tasteful (or at least less tasteless).
I knew orts, orison, eft (the Red Eft!) but not etui or ani, which I gather from this thread is a plural of "anus".
You'd think. It's a bird.
Rex Parker rails against those stupid strings of letters like "etui" virtually every day. At this point, he's annoying himself with the repetitious complaint. In the linked to post, he says: "Let's just say it's rough all over. OBLAh blah blah. FILI. XYLO. IOR. Argh, I'm doing what I said I wouldn't do. I have to stop. Write your congressperson. This madness must end."
In the 1980s, the most obvious overused letter string was "nene" (the Hawaiian goose). There must have been a memo, no more nene, because you hardly ever see it any more. I think "etui" is the worst offender of the last 20 years. But "ano" is a special case. Because it's anus.
I happen to have strong opinions about this novel, Pierre Bayard-like.
Started, skimmed, heard people talk about, judged negatively (--).
Also about the author, who I always thought was an *&%#.
So, I have the crossword fanatics to thank for all those accidentals in my Word Welding sessions.
As an alternative to Marquez (unless you want to read it in Spanish), but on the same general subject zone of a magical realist explanation of Latin America, look for RM Koster's "The Dissertation".
Sadly forgotten these days.
"The Dissertation" is vastly more fun than "A Hundred Years of Solitude".
Brilliant annalysis.
"The Dissertation" is vastly more fun than "A Hundred Years of Solitude".
Thank you for the recommendation. The latter felt like it took a hundred years to read. I enjoyed the atmosphere but the story and writing were dull, to my mind.
Dr. Weevil
In English, we have two whole sets of terms for most concepts, Latin cognates like 'anus' that tend to be scientific or high style, and German cognates like 'asshole' that tend to be everyday English or low style. ...As a Romance language, Spanish is basically all Latin cognates with a few Arabic or American Indian words thrown in That means that Spanish 'año' means 'asshole' or 'butthole' just as much as it means 'anus'..
Several corrections. Spanish 'año' means 'YEAR.'
Work on the corrected sentence.That means that Spanish 'ano' means 'asshole' or 'butthole' just as much as it means 'anus'...
When it comes to "anus," you have correctly pointed out that in English,medical/high style terms such as "anus" tend to come from Latin(French), while the vulgar terms tend to come from German.
While Spanish, in contrast to English, has almost all Latin roots, like English it also has medical and vulgar terms. While "ano" is the Spanish language medical term for "anus," there are a number of Spanish language vulgar terms for "ano." Try "culo," or in Spain, "gilipollas." (asshole.) In Argentina, while "pelotudo" literally means "big-balled"(and as stupid as a bull), it is also translated as "asshole."
As Americans, we believe that there are 26 letters in the alphabet and with the exceptions of 'i' & 'j', they do not have weird little things hovering over them or hanging below them. Furthermore, that's the way it is on our keyboards as well...
Vasquez gomez secret history of costaguana has picaresque and magical realist elements aa ive mentioned before. Best read in english by ann mcclean.
Peggy Hill may have been involved here --
LAWYER: Mrs. Hill, in your own words -- your own Spanish words -- please tell the judge what happened with little Lupe.
PEGGY (in Spanish, subtitled): "Your honor, I can tell you are a reasonable horse. I am very pregnant because of what happened with Lupe. She ate my bus accident and all I wanted was to make Lupe into a book. I have too many good anuses ahead of me to spend my life in a cigar factory."
One could argue that the logical approach is to use the crossword convention for the word's language when you use the word in a crossword.
So, if you're including a French of Italian word, you ignore all diacritics, because French and Italian crosswords ignore them. If you're using a Spanish word, you ignore most diacritics but distinguish ñ from n, because Spanish-languager crosswords do. If you use a Portuguese word, you ignore them (including tildes) except for distinguishing c from ç. If you're using the German word, the umlauts ä, ö, and ü are dissolved into ae, oe, and ue (rather than simply being ignored), and ß is dissolved into ss, because that's how it would be done in a German crossword. If you reach for an Esperanto, Czech, or Slovak word, you have to respect all diacritics, because the convention in those languages' crosswords is respecting all diacritics.
I learned of “One Hundred Years Of Solitude” through Love & Rockets.
So I bought it. I prefer Gilbert Hernandez.
""The Dissertation" is vastly more fun than "A Hundred Years of Solitude"."
Even more fun than Vargas Llosa's Captain Pantoja and the Special Service?
I speak "work" Spanish, so I thought I'd give "100 Years of Solitude" a shot. Hey, I'd read it in English, so I should be able to follow it, right? Nope. Garcia Marquez uses things like tenses and grammar and stuff. I was sin esperanza.
Nitpick: diacritics aren't punctuation, but like punctuation, they are a subset of orthography.
Also, it's almost guaranteed that 'oboe' will appear at least once a week in the daily crossword puzzles. Not so much in the weekend ones.
If you are going to struggle through a Spanish novel, there are better options (way, way better), and better places to start, than Garcia Marquez.
Spanish literature is an entire parallel world that crosses over into English in only a very limited way. The novels of Perez-Reverte are a decent choice, easily available on Kindle, definitely "guy" books, and many have not yet been translated. I am a fan.
LAWYER: Mrs. Hill, in your own words -- your own Spanish words -- please tell the judge what happened with little Lupe.
PEGGY (in Spanish, subtitled): "Your honor, I can tell you are a reasonable horse. I am very pregnant because of what happened with Lupe. She ate my bus accident and all I wanted was to make Lupe into a book. I have too many good anuses ahead of me to spend my life in a cigar factory."
Didn't Bizet make that into an opera? ;-)
I tried vargas llosas conversation in the cathedral, re the brief prado regime, it was a slog,
The simplest solution would be to refer to Portuguese here, since in Portuguese the word for year is "ano" while the word for anus is "cu". You don't want to ask a Mexican "Cuantos anos tiene usted?" but you can ask a Brazilian "Quantos anos você tem?"
Thought of others while at the gym:
oboe, uke, sitar, viol, Amati
eek, oomph, omg, lol, rofl, byob, tgi with and without f
okra
Arp, Dada, Dali, Degas, Rijn (as in Van Rijn)
Este, Asti
Moe (as in the Stooges and the bartender)
Yes, you don't see Nene (an Hawaiian goose) much any longer in today's puzzles.
Also, William Shatner's contribution Tek.
Tyrone Slothrop (Rainbow):
I speak "work" Spanish, so I thought I'd give "100 Years of Solitude" a shot. Hey, I'd read it in English, so I should be able to follow it, right? Nope. Garcia Marquez uses things like tenses and grammar and stuff. I was sin esperanza.
His 100 Years of Solitude is definitely not his most difficult work for second-language readers. At least the sentences in Solitude tend to be of normal length- say 3 lines and 40 words.
In Autumn of the Patriarch (Otono del Patriarco), most sentences are ~70 words long, with an estimated one quarter of the sentences in the 140-170 word length. Many paragraphs with other authors aren't that long!
As Isabel Allende's vocabulary is relatively limited, courtesy of having spent decades in the US, she might be recommended for someone with a limited command of Spanish. However, she is about a good a writer as Salvador Allende was a President. Salvador Allende was a first cousin of Isabel's father, and played an important role in her childhood.Isabel's maternal grandfather supported the coup- which gives a good idea of how divided Chile was during the Allende years.
Then there is
mea and culpa, amor, amas, amat, veni, vidi, vici, esse
ette, une, ula, and other suffixes, pre, pro, oste, endo, ecto, intra, infra, and other prefixes.
I tried vargas llosas conversation in the cathedral, re the brief prado regime, it was a slog,
Well done, narciso!
"I tried vargas llosas conversation in the cathedral, re the brief prado regime, it was a slog,"
Didn't get far in that. But Captain Pantoja made me laugh many years ago.
It's a book even Trump might like (as an audio book), if you literary connoisseurs know what I mean.
Sounds like a gay seminary.Which I first spelled semenary.
Or the Pet Sematary
I cringed when I saw the clue for 66A: garrote, “rope for strangulation.” Wouldn’t a sensitive editor have made a last-minute adjustment given last week's highly publicized gruesome news of both Bourdain and Spade. This stood out in an otherwise lighthearted themed Sunday puzzle.
I came across a title today whilst searching the local library catalogue. “Trading Places: Canadian and American Mechanical Kerosene Lamp Makers in the 19th Century “. I felt then no desire to read it. It sounds quite awful really. But being reminded of that Marquez novel, I realized it cannot be the worst book about a hundred years of something.
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa'S Dearh in the Andes is worth a go. Shining Path figures.
The distinction in the use of the tilde in Spanish is that the "n" (ene) and the "ñ" (eñe) are two separate letters. To write "anos" when you mean "años" is as much a misspelling as if you had written it "afos."
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa'S Death in the Andes is worth a go. Shining Path figures.
I find Mario Vargas Llosa much more readable then Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Gabo writes for the professors and the critics; Vargas Llosa writes for his readers.
Nicholas Shakespeare has written two novels that deal with Shining Path. The Dancer Upstairs is a somewhat fictionalized account of the capture of Abimael Guzman, a.k.a. Comandante Gonzalo, the leader of Shining Path. Good read. The Vision of Elena Silves also deals with Shining Path, but is much more fictional than the roman-a-clef approach of The Dancer Upstairs.
Roberto Ampuero, currently Chile's Foreign Minister, has two claims to fame as an author. He has written a number of mysteries based on the Cuban-born detective Cayetano Brule, based in Ampuero's hometown of Valparaiso. He has written several memoirs based on his years behind the Iron Curtain: Nuestros años verde olivo (our olive green years) and Detrás del muro (Behind the wall). As a member of Communist Youth, Ampuero fled to East Germany after the coup. In East Germany, he fell in love with a daughter of Cuba's Nomenklatura. They married in Cuba, but the marriage eventually dissolved. His life in Cuba and East Germany gives him a unique perspective- not a perspective that the Castros appreciated.
Unfortunately, The Neruda Case is the only one of his works available in English.
What is atriking is shakespeare never vidal. The dogged investigator. But captured his mo exactly. Of course the lifw of alwjandro mayta. Was prescient to what would occur five years after it was published.
Met vidal. The film further fleshes out this paradox
One Hundred Anuses of Solitude
I don't know about the Solitude bit, but the rest sounds like the US Senate.
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