Spectator 1919

[greyfox]

'Idiomatisch' by Doc is this week's challenge:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article_assets/arti cledir_7405/3702908/crossword.pdf

Have fun.

gf

[cruciverbali]

Thank you gf - Thursdays just can't come soon enough !

[robinruth]

Nice one with an intriguiging similarily with this week's Listener in the bottom line!

[slaney]

Good morning all, and thanks greyfox.

Might have been a bit difficult without Brewer though.

[mad max]

Many thanks for link

[novalis]

Thanks yet again for the link. I shall look forward to having a go at this later.

[dr b]

As much as I hate to whine (ha!), I think the payoff to this one is pretty unfair. Unless you own the right book and/or speak the right language, there's not much hope in guessing what the unclued lights might be. I made a lucky guess and got one pair, but you might say the 1 has not yet 43'd on the others.

[turnerjmw]

I completely agree, dr b. I think it's nonsense. To complete a grid and then find one needs a reasonable knowledge of a second language to complete the puzzle is just plain daft. And it's not sour grapes. I've got two of the phrases through a good deal of struggle, but there is no obvious theme which unites them. I own an old version of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, but I've no idea if that's the Brewer referred to or where they might appear in it. A waste of an afternoon. Is there a Chambers Word Wizard for the German language?

[Christiana]

Many thanks for the link, though somewhat daunted by some of the comments. I gather I ought to say "Danke schon" or some such.

[turnerjmw]

Apologies for my rant yesterday. I am used to finishing these unaided, so maybe there were some sour grapes after all :)

I'm enormously grateful to an extremely clever and helpful friend for putting me out of my misery on the two missing phrases, and they serve only to endorse dr b's point, that unless you have the linguistic expertise or book edition in question, (or a boiler room chock-full of googling monkeys), don't necessarily expect to complete the puzzle, even if you�ve solved all the clues.

In my irritation yesterday I went for a more apposite anagrammatic title:

Idiotic sham by Doc

Or, more generously,

Didacticism? Oh boy!

But I�ve mellowed overnight. Congratulations to all those who have completed it

[Mysterons]

Just out of interest turnerjmw, where should we look in Brewers if we do happen to have a copy please ?

[turnerjmw]

Apparently, Mysterons, there is a section in the recent Brewer (though not in my old version) called German Idioms running to about three pages in which the phrases can be found

[Mysterons]

Thanks for that turnerjmw

My Millennium Edition was also deficient, so with your help I have found a newer online edition via the Libraries website that we have discussed before (http://www.credoreference.com/entry/orionpf/ge rmany#opfb09232)

[robinruth]

If it's any help, the pages in the 17th (2005) edition are 570 to 572. One of the idioms will come up on the Internet if you look for names of Hitler's policies - things he kept in the dark.

[Helveticus]

I also feel frustrated. My edition of Brewer is not the same as the (unspecified) edition which Doc uses. Despite this, I have 1D/43A, 16D/27A and 25D/40A, although a native German speaker told me that she had never heard 25D/40A in precisely this form, only a similar variant. This makes me worry that one or more of my pairs is perhaps incorrect. Neither of us can get the last pair, but we could perhaps solve it if someone could give us a hint about 9D (the only clue which I have not solved), or tell us whether the last unclued pair is 4A/13A or 13A/4A and which of these lights is of how many words.

Besten Dank im Voraus und Gr�sse an alle!

[robinruth]

13 comes first followed by 4 - for 9 down, think of the sound of very small US coins that were perhaps forwarded or 9d on to a new address. Any help?
Have a triumphal glass of Best Rhine wine when you have solved it (and don't let it down with any water!)

[robinruth]

postscript - 6,2,3,4,7

[Mysterons]

Think Estonia for 9 down.

[Helveticus]

Many thanks robinruth. Your kind help was enough to help me find the German phrase similar to "Eulen nach Athen tragen". However, I now have a crow to pluck/eine Kr�he zu rupfen with Doc: 9D surely should have been something like "Forwarded money, by the sound of it" to show that it was a homonym rather than a double lit. Also, I would dispute the spelling of the first word in 4A, which has always had 5 letters whenever I have seen it in German. This is probably why my germanophone friend and I did not get the last pair. If this word really has 4 letters in Brewer, then it must be a typo (perhaps unnoticed because 4A as a single word is a valid German word). Most misleading and unsatisfactory!

I will nevertheless follow your suggestion and treat myself to a bumper of the Rhenish. Zum Wohl!

[Helveticus]

Many thanks Mysterons! This sense of the word was not given in my slightly outdated Chambers. Typing this made me wonder just now if a copy of Chambers can be said to be "slightly" outdated. Is it not like a woman being "slightly" pregnant?

[Mysterons]

The homophone is just a coincidence Helveticus - this is a double definition clue (see link above for spoiler)