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#53552 01/23/2002 3:24 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 01/23/2002 4:03 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 01/23/2002 6:47 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 01/23/2002 7:44 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 01/23/2002 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.



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#53557 01/23/2002 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 01/23/2002 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 ...



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#53559 01/23/2002 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 01/24/2002 2:47 AM
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Xfmdpnf, TheFallibleFiend! Hmbe up ibwf zpv bCpbse.



#53561 01/24/2002 2:47 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]


#53562 01/24/2002 12:38 PM
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You apparently are under the delusion that the sun does not set on UK culture.

Did I use the term "UK culture"? Or is calling your attention to a minor matter of fact more "mewling and puking"?



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#53563 01/24/2002 12:39 PM
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[What IS it about these Kiwis e]

Well, for starters, m'dear, they can spell ....



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#53564 01/24/2002 2:01 PM
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they can spell

Hah! It's just pronunciation they have problems with.


#53565 01/24/2002 3:31 PM
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Glad to be aboard.

thanks,
k


#53566 01/25/2002 3:02 PM
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Being largely ignorant of popular culture, I don't do well on crosswords either. I don't know or want to know about actors, talk shows, sports, and lot of other things that some people find fascinating. But I still like doing them on occasion. I also like playing trivia games, even though I always lose, and am happy to free my neurons of unwelcome factoids as quickly as I acquire them.


k



#53567 01/25/2002 3:45 PM
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Being largely ignorant of popular culture, I don't do well on crosswords either.

Y'all're doing the wrong crossword puzzles.


#53568 01/25/2002 11:56 PM
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Glad to be aboard.
Hah--I knew you wouldn't have any trouble with that! [delighted emoticon]

I don't know or want to know about actors, talk shows, sports, and lot of other things that some people find fascinating. But I still like doing them on occasion. I also like playing trivia games, even though I always lose, and am happy to free my neurons of unwelcome factoids as quickly as I acquire them.
We are cut from the same cloth, I see.







#53569 01/26/2002 12:13 AM
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Whenever my brother plays trivia games and doesn't know the answer, he always answers "Brooke Shields". Pick your answer and stick to it.


#53570 01/26/2002 1:34 AM
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Can Shields Brooke Britney's Speare?


#53571 01/26/2002 10:05 PM
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Whenever my brother plays trivia games and doesn't know the answer, he always answers "Brooke Shields". Pick your answer and stick to it.

Yes. There was an elderly geezer (must have been 60) on The Weakest Link late last year who obviously hadn't seen a film in years. The poor devil kept getting questions relating to films, and more specifically to actresses. His response to the first actress/film question was "Kylie Minogue". Wrong.

Next round, he's not voted off and as luck would have it his first question of the round was another actress-in-the-film type question. The first one was about some obscure 1920s movie and who the actress was. I can't remember the correct answer, but this poor chappie dutifully trots out "Kylie Minogue!" again. Acid Annie's mouth twitched.

As luck would have it - and I think everyone was holding their breath by this time - this poor sod got yet another actress-in-the-film type question. I remembered this one: "Who was the lead actress in 'Basic Instinct'?" "Sharon Stone, Sharon Stone, go on, tell her, come on, you can do it!" I, and probably most of that part of Britain who were tuned in to the program prayed on hs behalf. His responses up until now had been pretty quick; he knew he didn't know, and Kylie had obviously made a deep impression on him at some time (figuratively speaking, anyway).

But this time he hesitated. Not for long, but there was definitely a pause. Britain sat on the edge of its collective chair with bated breath (no cheese here, Monsignor Faldage).

Finally, in a small voice, "Uh, Kylie Minogue?"

Acerbic Annie lost the plot and burst out laughing. She was so tickled by him that she even forgot to be nasty as he left at the end of the round ...



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#53572 01/28/2002 11:42 AM
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I notice you're from Louisville, KY.

I'm currently in VA, but I was born in Louisville, and later attended Fort Knox HS, and graduated from U of L (Speed School).

k



#53573 01/28/2002 1:37 PM
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Kylie Minogue

I have some friends who like to play Trivial Pursuit®. They once roped me into a game and I won so handily that they made a special rule requiring me to go around three times to claim victory. The next game I came in first, second and missed third by one move. They then discovered that I had slept through the '80s and required me to answer only questions from the '80s pack. My answers from then on were limited to "Ronald Reagan" and "Michael Jackson" from which font I chose according to the nature of the question.


#53574 01/28/2002 3:05 PM
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Whenever my brother plays trivia games and doesn't know the answer, he always answers "Brooke Shields".
Pick your answer and stick to it.


During the '70s the popular inter-varsity quiz show University Challenge featured a college from Oxford or Cambridge (can't remember which but it's immaterial). As a form of protest the team answered all their questions with the one word - 'Trotsky'.


#53575 01/28/2002 3:10 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.

Here's the book and it's details, TFF. Interestingly (for me, at least) it was listed just after 'The Compleat Cricketer' on my database.


AUTHOR :Kurzban, Stanley A. Rosen, Mel
TITLE :The compleat cruciverbalist : how to solve, compose and sell crossword puzzles / Stan Kurzban and Mel Rosen
IMPRINT :New York ; London : Barnes & Noble, c1981
COLLATION :(xvi,167p) : ill ; 21cm corrected : pbk)
NOTES :Originally published: New York : Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1980
ISBN :0064635449
SUBJECT :Crossword puzzles


#53576 01/28/2002 3:33 PM
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listed just after 'The Compleat Cricketer'

What! No Compleat Crossdresser?


#53577 01/28/2002 3:40 PM
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What! No Compleat Crossdresser?

That would come under crucivestalism!!!!


#53578 01/28/2002 4:00 PM
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crucivestalism

OK, how bout cruciarcoist?


#53579 01/28/2002 4:37 PM
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Dear Faldage: Isn't a "cruciarcoist" a soldier with a crossbow?


#53580 01/28/2002 7:02 PM
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a soldier with a crossbow

Bingo, Dr. Bill.


#53581 01/28/2002 8:10 PM
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In back alley parlance, what is a cruciossetrix? (warning vile ignorant canard. Answer by PM on request.)


#53582 01/28/2002 9:25 PM
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In back alley parlance, what is a cruciossetrix? (warning vile ignorant canard. Answer by PM on request.)

Dr Bill, far be it from me. But good to see you in your usual good form... hehehe






#53583 01/28/2002 9:39 PM
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Dear ASp: Since I am very confident you never visited any such vile alley to hear the ignorant argot, I think it quite possible that you are pretending comprehension, which Faldage also has lived too properly to have encountered. A psychiatrist has to know all the dirty words, to know what patients are talking about.


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Whilst in the US a few years ago i played trivial pursuit with some friends ( US version ) when any US sport question came up i just said "BABE RUTH" every time, i seem to remember being correct at least once!

the Duncster


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"BABE RUTH"

So if I'm in an English speaking country and I'm playing Trivial Pursuit I should answer every sports question, "The Don"?


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every sports question, "The Don"?

Works for me as well as any other strategy in that mindless game of shite


#53587 01/29/2002 6:28 PM
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friend of mine has "Robert Zimmerman" as his generic answer, after it won him a round once.

So tell us, Max...what's Bob Dylan's real name? If you stick with this in the music questions, I guess you're bound to get one right! kinda like Hogwash®, eh, Max?


#53589 01/30/2002 12:37 AM
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I was born in Louisville,Your parents had good taste.and later attended Fort Knox HS, Had you lost your mind? and graduated from U of L (Speed School). Regained your senses, I see!





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If anything happens in the US, it happens in Colorado.

Verdi and Mozart wrote all the operas.


#53591 01/30/2002 2:02 AM
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Verdi and Mozart wrote all the operas.

...but I thought it was either Puccini, or else Carmen...


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