Times Saturday Cryptic Clue

[r...@minster.york.ac.uk]

A friend and I finished the Saturday Times crossword
with the exception of the following clue:

Q. A conspirator in Rome stands up, but falls. (8)

A. Cascades?

The answer above is a guess but I can't find a convincing
justification for it. The pattern to match is:

- A - C - D - -

Please, break the suspense!

R.

[Chris Boyd]

r...@minster.york.ac.uk wrote:
: A friend and I finished the Saturday Times crossword

: with the exception of the following clue:

: Q. A conspirator in Rome stands up, but falls. (8)

: A. Cascades?

Correct: Casca was one of the conspirators against J. Caesar. SED is Latin
for "but". Therefore in a down clue, "stands up, but" is DES. Hence
CASCA + DES = "falls".

Best wishes,

Chris Boyd / chr...@hgu.mrc.ac.uk

[Iain G Liddell]

In article <7921011...@minster.york.ac.uk>,

<r...@minster.york.ac.uk> wrote:
>A friend and I finished the Saturday Times crossword
>with the exception of the following clue:
>
>Q. A conspirator in Rome stands up, but falls. (8)
>
>A. Cascades?
>

CASCA - conspirator against Julius Caesar
DES - reverse of SED (Latin for "but") [stands up = reverses]

CASCADES - falls

The "in Rome" properly indicates using Latin for "but", but will have
been of (spurious?) help in narrowing down the field of conspirators,
rejecting, e.g., Fawkes and Catesby.

My "Times" got used for wiping muddy boots before I got to the crossword,
so I missed that one.

Iain

[Laurie, DP]

>A. Cascades?

Casca was 'a conspirator in Rome', SED is Latin for 'but', 'falls'='cascade'
(as in 'Niagara Falls'). The clue is technically flawed because the 'stands
up' (reversal in a down clue) applies to the 'CASCA' part, not the 'SED'
part.

Dirk

[Donald Macleod]

In article <7921011...@minster.york.ac.uk>, r...@minster.york.ac.uk writes:
> A friend and I finished the Saturday Times crossword
> with the exception of the following clue:
>
> Q. A conspirator in Rome stands up, but falls. (8)
>
> A. Cascades?

CASCADES is correct - it is a clever, took me a little while to get it.

Casca was one of the Roman conspirators against Julius Caesar (I'm glad I
had to do a lot of Shakespeare at school). And the Latin for "but" is SED,
this stands up, it was a down clue. (I also did Latin at school!)

The same puzzle contained a very nice clue for FLIBBERTIGIBBET. Sorry I've
posted it off, and can't exactly recall it. One day I'll win that whisky :-)

Donald