A taxidermist stuffs and mounts animals. A taxonomist, on the other hand, classifies things like animals or plants. Both words link to taxis, Greek for arrangement. Cousins of a kind, but you’d be a fool to muddle the pair, or a negligent crossword maker.
Or both, in my case. Last week I wove TAXONOMIST into the cryptic grid, defined as “He stuffs …” He did indeed. He stuffs up big-time. I owned the blue on social media, while Liam Runnalls (alias Tuesday’s LR) tweaked the clue online.
You could hear me tsk-tsking all week.Credit:Jo Gay
But my stuff-up wasn’t done. My quick puzzle had a glitch, too. The relevant clue read fine: “Punishing price, figuratively (2,3,3,1,3).” Its answer was also valid: AN ARM AND A LEG. Only hitch being, the solution grid carried AN ARM AMD A LEG. Spot the error? I didn’t. My eye saw what it idly expected to see, costing my career an arm, if not a leg, as AND is not spelt AMD and never will be.
Traditional solvers of the tactile page were oblivious to the snafu. They entered the phrase and sipped their coffee. Online solvers, however, hit a wall. Cracking a crossword on-screen, the grid is alive to each keyed letter, reporting when you’ve lapsed. Except they hadn’t; I had. Their AND copped a wrongful demerit, as the software insisted AMD was the word they needed.
Not a good week, last week. I took my lumps and walked to the beat of tsk-tsk all weekend. Puzzling can be a cruel profession. Truth being, both puzzles boasted some tidy wordplay, each crossword sullied by the clumsiness of one clue. Fair cop. As a solver, I don’t want a setter’s blunders to complicate the challenge further.
To paraphrase Alexander Pope, humans err. Back in the 1980s, the Gotcha Club was a cadre of avid New York Times solvers intent to blow the whistle on any flub spotted in that paper’s prestigious puzzle. While the whistle wasn’t constant, it did shrill a fair bit, marking those times Eugene Maleska (then-editor) muddled Arctic with Antarctic, dyne with erg, or described an aorta as “A way to man’s heart”.
Sexism aside, the clue had a medical complaint. The aorta carries blood from the heart – not towards. Picky, but true. Meanwhile the lion will never be king of the jungle, according to a later clue, since lions stalk the plains. Any taxidermist could tell you that.
Errors sting, believe me. I wish there was none. Last year I wish I’d labelled bubble tea as Taiwanese, not Chinese. Hobbyist setter Raelene Lee lamented my slip. “I know Taiwan is also known as the Republic of China, but in general I think your clue amounted to a disappointing decision.” I agreed. Mistakes matter, just as much as my beloved solvers who take pains to tell me.
Even in this column, readers will raise the alarm. Last month I’d said how the hoi polloi (literally “the people”) is commonly conflated with posher classes. Yet my remark had a second flaw, noted by Janice McAdam and Merran Loewenthal. Both readers pounced with classical nous on their side. We don’t say “the the masses” so why “the hoi polloi”?
Good point, but we often do, don’t we? The tautonym is enshrined, just as we say Timor Leste (literally East East), dillybag (meaning “bag bag” via Yagara language) or “the the tar tar pits” of the La Brea Tar Pits. No excuse, no bones broken, but each oversight needs sharp eyes – yours and mine – to see. Especially when puzzles and answers are at stake.
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