Ptolemy's lighthouse
Ptolemy Soter (Alexander the Great's favorite general, no relation to the astronomer) initiated one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the lighthouse on the island of PHAROS. It's so cool that I get to write a blog where I can have opening sentences like that one.
Today's Wednesday puzzle (answers) seems to be only the second by Edward Sessa. I loved his solfeggio debut which I have previously blogged about in my Crosswords and God essay and this one had a nice gimmick too — disappearing ink. I hope we hear more from Mr. Sessa.
I was fairly confused by the cross of "Shot with lots of English" (MASSE) with "Dispatch boat" (AVISO) but they're both reasonably common puzzle words having appeared now 27 and 9 times respectively in my database. I better just learn them. Maybe masse will give me the excuse I need to learn billiards.
Cephalopod is such a great word, isn't it? It sounds exactly like what octopi looks like.
Most of what I know I learned from crosswords. The rest I learned from Jeopardy! And many times the two are eerily on the same track.
Monday's Jeopardy! had a category called CEPHALOPODCAST with this answer for $600: Sepia is a variety of this 3-letter defensive secretion produced by cephalopods.
"What is INK, Alex! Haven't you done Wednesday's crossword in the Times?"
(True, you're not really supposed to say "Alex." It's considered a no-no.)
Anyway, I had CEPHA___ at 6A and still needed many more letters to get the answer. My last entry was ANAXIA, which I probably should know but don't. (Btw, you have that "cepha..." word right in your post but there's a typo in the answer grid.)
I liked the puzzle. Simple idea, well done. There's something classic about four 15s. I do wonder if DISAPPEARING INK is the same as "invisible ink." I guess not, but perhaps someone may enlighten me.
Posted by: JJF | April 15, 2008 at 08:46 PM
CEPHA___ = 17A. You knew that.
Posted by: JJF | April 15, 2008 at 08:49 PM
We enjoy so many of the same wonders...In several Continental languages (Italian, Spanish and French), the word Pharos means 'lighthouse' although in Alexander's time it was simply the location of the lighthouse. It was known to be made out of marble and still usable until the day it crashed into the sea about 1375. There was a very good PBS Documentary on looking for pieces of it that I enjoyed, but do not recall its title. I enjoyed this puzzle for many reasons including figuring out why the final answer was disappearing ink.
Posted by: PhillySolver | April 15, 2008 at 08:57 PM
Jim, my bad. My bad, bad error. You have CEPHALOPODSPRAY right, and the crossing down is ANOXIA. I thought I had double-checked that, but apparently not well enough.
Posted by: JJF | April 15, 2008 at 09:19 PM
Jim, watch one or two of Eric Yow's YouTube videos and you will have a much easier time remembering MASSE. Some months back, it was in a crossword and someone linked to a Yow video, and wow!
Posted by: Orange | April 15, 2008 at 09:26 PM
You know you're a nerd when you get cephalopod spray immediately upon seeing ink as a clue. Finally my childhood obsession with zoology pays off in the crossword. Although I was thinking squid as opposed to octopi.
As to masse, I remember the first time I saw it in a crossword and was sure it couldn't be a word. It seems like I finally have memorized it although it still took a long time to get.
Enjoyed the disappearing ink-- clever
Posted by: profphil | April 15, 2008 at 10:09 PM
JJF
Invisible ink is invisible from the time of writing. One may have to apply heat or a chemical to make it appear. Disappearing ink, is visible at first but disappears soon thereafter. They would be used for different reasons often in spy stories.
profphil
Posted by: profphil | April 16, 2008 at 07:17 AM
Jim,
I read your recent crossword blog and comments and was struck by how the plural of octopus was referred to as octopi. This is the form that I used,until recently, when I happened to hear a researcher of octopus behavior state that this was incorrect. So I looked it up in the ultimate word authority--The Oxford Dictionary and found this:
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/plurals
"Although it is often supposed that octopi is the 'correct' plural of octopus, and it has been in use for longer than the usual Anglicized plural
octopuses, it in fact originates as an error. Octopus is not a simple Latin word of the second declension, but a Latinized form of the Greek word oktopous, and its 'correct' plural would logically be octopodes."
Since you are a language lover and possibly a future crossword puzzle clue might include this word, I thought that you might like to know.
Thanks,
Patricia
Posted by: Patricia | April 17, 2008 at 09:18 AM