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#53552 01/23/02 03:24 PM
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Years ago I bought and browsed a thin paperback titled "The Compleat Cruciverbalist." I've forgotten the author's name. Since then it's become one of my favorite words, even though I had assumed the authors had fabricated it. Never occurred to me it might be in a dictionary, but I'm glad to discover it's there.

http://www.geocities.com/elbillaf/cross1.html

k



#53553 01/23/02 04:03 PM
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Dear Fiend: My ten buck CD dictionary does not have "cruciverbalist". But I immediately found twenty sites on Internet that used it. Fifty years ago the puzzles involved obscure words. Now they have so much trivia, entertainers, etc. that I can't compete because I don't go to movies or watch TV because of deafness. I miss the old time puzzles.


#53554 01/23/02 06:47 PM
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Obviously, cruciverbalist was "made up" by someone who wanted something a little more pompous than crossword designer. But made up or not, if it become common currency, it gets into the dictionary.

Witness "Delia" spit, cough, splutter, glare, hoick and .... Which just goes to show that someone, somewhere should set standards for words which are to be allowed into the dictionary!

Anyway, fallible or not, welcome fiend. We'll be looking forward to some devilishly clever posts in the future.



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#53555 01/23/02 07:44 PM
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Dear CK: I think you are 'cruciverbalizing" on the diagonal. I searched diligently for "Delia" and found many sites about her cooking, but nothing about expectoration.

http://www.answerbank.co.uk/Article.go?id=2397&category_id=null

Who is Delia, that no swains defend her?


#53556 01/23/02 10:00 PM
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You would need to look at the latest English edition of Collins, Bill. That's where she be. And she's famous for colesterol-increasing and incipient-heart-attack-promoting cooking ...

It got a LOT of airtime on the radio here ... mostly complaints from famous DJs who haven't got their names as a word in Collins.



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#53557 01/23/02 10:40 PM
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Dear CK: That URL I gave is to the latest Collins. But your whited out remarks sounded as though Delia was something like far advanced pulmonary tuberculosis. " My bonnie has tuberculosis, My bonnie has only one lung, She hocks up such beautiful oysters, And rolls them around on her tongue."

P.S.
Dear CK: is it possible that you were hoping nobody could figure out what you were talking about? That would be genuinely naughty.


#53558 01/23/02 10:58 PM
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Dear CK: is it possible that you were hoping nobody could figure out what you were talking about? That would be genuinely naughty.

No, not at all, Bill. Everyone in the civilised world will have heard about Delia's canonisation to lexicographical sainthood by now. Therefore, I don't think it will come as a surprise in, oh, Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, India, Sri Lanka, parts of Africa, a couple of small places in South and Central America, Scott Base, South Georgia ...



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#53559 01/23/02 11:20 PM
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Dear CK: You apparently are under the delusion that the sun does not set on UK culture.
So why all the mewling and puking?


#53560 01/24/02 02:47 AM
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Xfmdpnf, TheFallibleFiend! Hmbe up ibwf zpv bCpbse.



#53561 01/24/02 02:47 AM
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Everyone in the civilised world will have heard about Delia's canonisation
A-hem...that's canonization, sir. [What IS it about these Kiwis e]


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