A Wimsical clue
Ian P. Gent
mystery "Have His Carcase" by Dorothy Sayers. It appears in Chapter
XXIII as he sits in a waiting room working out a crossword puzzle.
"Bright-eyed after swallowing a wingless biped?"
No solution is provided, nor is the length of the answer.
Any good ideas? BTW, the book is (c) 1932, only two years after the first
Times Crossword appeared. I don't know how well cryptics had developed by
then, but it looks cryptic enough to me!
Ian
(sorry for the manual cross-posting)
Carl J Lydick
>In <1992Mar2.1...@tc.cornell.edu> i...@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Ian P. Gent) writes:
>>"Bright-eyed after swallowing a wingless biped?"
>
'Fraid not. The emu's flightless, NOT wingless.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CA...@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL
Disclaimer: Hey, I understand VAXes and VMS. That's what I get paid for. My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below). So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it. If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
John Farrell
LEMUR? Animal with big eyes containing an emu...
Friendless
Philip Nikolayev
]I'm stumped by a crossword clue that appears in the Peter Wimsey
]mystery "Have His Carcase" by Dorothy Sayers. It appears in Chapter
]XXIII as he sits in a waiting room working out a crossword puzzle.
]
]"Bright-eyed after swallowing a wingless biped?"
]
]No solution is provided, nor is the length of the answer.
]
]Any good ideas? BTW, the book is (c) 1932, only two years after the first
]Times Crossword appeared. I don't know how well cryptics had developed by
]then, but it looks cryptic enough to me!
'A wingless biped' undoubtedly means 'man'. Diogenes Laertius
tells us in 'The Lives of Eminent Philosophers' that Plato
once defined man as a 'biped without feathers'. Diogenes the
Cynic, who deemed Plato a fool, brought him a plucked cock and
said, 'This is your man' - whereupon Plato redefined man as
a 'featherless biped with flat nails'. (This should be in
volume 2, under Diogenes.)
Anyone care to solve the 'bright-eyed' part?
]Ian
Philip Nikolayev at nik...@husc.harvard.edu
C B Dreyer
>I'm stumped by a crossword clue that appears in the Peter Wimsey
>mystery "Have His Carcase" by Dorothy Sayers.
L.
take heed, she seems to have been quite sensitive about it ... ;)
Bernie Cosell
}In article <1992Mar2.1...@tc.cornell.edu> i...@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Ian P. Gent) writes:
} ]I'm stumped by a crossword clue that appears in the Peter Wimsey
} ]mystery "Have His Carcase" by Dorothy Sayers. It appears in Chapter
} ]XXIII as he sits in a waiting room working out a crossword puzzle.
} ]
} ]"Bright-eyed after swallowing a wingless biped?"
} ]
} ]No solution is provided, nor is the length of the answer.
} ]
} ]Any good ideas? BTW, the book is (c) 1932, only two years after the first
} ]Times Crossword appeared. I don't know how well cryptics had developed by
} ]then, but it looks cryptic enough to me!
} 'A wingless biped' undoubtedly means 'man'. Diogenes Laertius
} tells us in 'The Lives of Eminent Philosophers' that Plato
} once defined man as a 'biped without feathers'.
This seems more than a little imprecise to me. Why say 'wingless' when
you mean 'featherless'?
Perhaps the parsing is:
Bright-eyed after swallowing a wingless // biped
that is, swallowing 'a' and some word that means wingless. Perhaps
"dealate"?
/Bernie\
A Usenet Pal
>nik...@husc10.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) writes:
>
>} ]"Bright-eyed after swallowing a wingless biped?"
>
>} tells us in 'The Lives of Eminent Philosophers' that Plato
>} once defined man as a 'biped without feathers'.
>
>This seems more than a little imprecise to me. Why say 'wingless' when
>you mean 'featherless'?
>
>Perhaps the parsing is:
> Bright-eyed after swallowing a wingless // biped
>
>that is, swallowing 'a' and some word that means wingless. Perhaps
>"dealate"?
Also, "wingless biped" could be "ipe", but I wasn't able to get far with
this line either.
-paul asente
ase...@adobe.com ...decwrl!adobe!asente moo-...@cs.stanford.edu
Bibles can ALWAYS be obtained FOR FREE from Hotels, Church organizations, the
Gideon Society, thrift stores, and your parents' house. Be advised that in
certain instances theft is a moral obligation.
Warwick Allison
>far...@coral.cs.jcu.edu.au (John Farrell) writes:
>>i...@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Ian P. Gent) writes:
>>>
>>>"Bright-eyed after swallowing a wingless biped?"
>>
>> LEMUR? Animal with big eyes containing an emu...
>
>'Fraid not. The emu's flightless, NOT wingless.
John probably assumed Ian had whoopsed. After all, John keeps emus in
his chookhouse (they aren't as noisy as domestic fowls).
Warwick
--
_-_|\ war...@cs.uq.oz.au / And now for something ruder...
/ * <-- Computer Science Department,/
\_.-._/ University of Queensland, / Derma tamper noh whoa surra thetch.
v Brisbane, Australia. /
John Farrell
>In article <farrell....@coral.cs.jcu.edu.au>, far...@coral.cs.jcu.edu.au (John Farrell) writes:
>> LEMUR? Animal with big eyes containing an emu...
>'Fraid not. The emu's flightless, NOT wingless.
Yeah, well, it was a crappy guess anyway.
Wingless
psb
>In article <1992Mar2.1...@tc.cornell.edu> i...@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Ian P. Gent) writes:
>
> ]I'm stumped by a crossword clue that appears in the Peter Wimsey
> ]mystery "Have His Carcase" by Dorothy Sayers. It appears in Chapter
> ]XXIII as he sits in a waiting room working out a crossword puzzle.
> ]
> ]"Bright-eyed after swallowing a wingless biped?"
>
> tells us in 'The Lives of Eminent Philosophers' that Plato
> once defined man as a 'biped without feathers'. Diogenes the
>
>
Yes, the joke about man being a "featherless biped" per Socrates is from
Plato's Statesman (266E).
An epithet applied to Athena is "bright-eyed" or "grey-eyed" ... it might
have been applied to Odysseus as well. I haven't read Homer in a while.
We have a "greek connection" but I cant go any further ... I never was
good at crossword puzzles.
--psb
--
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|* Partha S. Banerjee Sic volo, Sic jubeo; *|
|* <p...@Berkeley.EDU> || <{spine}!ucbvax!psb> Stat pro ratione voluntas *|
\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/*\*/
Mark S. Manasse
In 1932, clues might not have been as well-regulated as now.
In that spirit, how about
fulgent
(fulj <schwa> nt),
adj.
shining brightly; dazzling; resplendent: fulgent patterns of sunlight.
[ME < L fulgent- (s. of fulgens, prp. of fulgere), equiv. to fulg-
flash + -ent- -ENT]--fulgently, adv.--fulgentness, n.
from "full" (after swallowing) + "gent" (a wingless biped)? Just don't
ask me where the extra "l" went -- it's gone to the same place as the "h"
in the subject line. Unless it got used for the middle initial of the
author....
Mark
Rod Williams
>> i...@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Ian P. Gent) writes:
>> I'm stumped by a crossword clue that appears in the Peter Wimsey
>> mystery "Have His Carcase" by Dorothy Sayers. It appears in Chapter
>> XXIII as he sits in a waiting room working out a crossword puzzle.
>>
>> "Bright-eyed after swallowing a wingless biped?"
>
> 'A wingless biped' undoubtedly means 'man'...
I assumed it was "ipe", removing the "wings" ("b" and "d")
from "biped"...but I couldn't figure it out either :-(
--
__________________________________________________________________
|_p_|_a_|_c_|_i_|_f_|_i_|_c_|___*___|_b_|_e_|_l_|_l_|_rod_williams_|______
|_s_|_a_|_n_|___|_f_|_r_|_a_|_n_|_c_|_i_|_s_|_c_|_o_|_rjw...@pacbell.com_|
Michael Jason Lewis
>I'm stumped by a crossword clue that appears in the Peter Wimsey
>mystery "Have His Carcase" by Dorothy Sayers. It appears in Chapter
>XXIII as he sits in a waiting room working out a crossword puzzle.
>"Bright-eyed after swallowing a wingless biped?"
Unfortunately, I can't get any farther than anyone else seems to be able, but
in my handy-dandy dictionary of euphemism and slang, "bright-eyed" means drunk.
Maybe this will help someone...
- Mike Lewis
tr...@leland.stanford.edu
Harry Ford
meaning drunk. pie comes from the wingless biped b ipe d, faced is
where everything is swallowed.
harry
Harry Ford
harry
Jim Saxe
replies to a previous question about the cryptic clue
Bright-eyed after swallowing a wingless biped
In 1932, clues might not have been as well-regulated as now.
In that spirit, how about
fulgent
(fulj <schwa> nt),
adj.
shining brightly; dazzling; resplendent: fulgent patterns of sunlight.
[ME < L fulgent- (s. of fulgens, prp. of fulgere), equiv. to fulg-
flash + -ent- -ENT]--fulgently, adv.--fulgentness, n.
from "full" (after swallowing) + "gent" (a wingless biped)? Just don't
ask me where the extra "l" went ...
Perhaps "biped" alone means "gent" and "full" (after swallowing) is "a
wing less" (i.e., missing an ell). This leaves only the question of how
"eyed" gets used. Can "fulgent" mean "bright-eyed" as well as simply
"bright"? I checked the O.E.D. (second edition), which doesn't list such
a metaphorical sense explicitly, but does include the following usage
example from the late 19th century: "Her hero faced about and stood up,
looking at her fulgently."
--Jim Saxe
Philip Nikolayev
]In 1932, clues might not have been as well-regulated as now.
I don't know if this is correct, but how brilliant! Bravo!
]Mark
Philip Nikolayev at nik...@husc.harvard.edu