Comments on: Independent 6580/Monk

By: Geoff

Geoff — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:02:06 +0000

26A: Abbreviation, or more accurately contraction, of ‘has’ to ‘apostrophe s’ only normally occurs in English when ‘has’ is being used as an auxiliary verb (in the perfective aspect) rather than as a simple verb (ie meaning ‘possesses’). ‘Editor’s a dog’ can only mean ‘Editor IS a dog’ and not ‘Editor HAS a dog’.
‘Editor’s wrapped vehicle round tree’ or ‘Editor’s got vehicle wrapped round tree’ are both alternatives where ‘Editor’s..’ could indeed be read as ‘Editor has..’ But this doesn’t really work with the clue as written: ‘Editor’s vehicle wrapped..’ can’t grammatically be analysed as ‘Editor has vehicle…’ because direct objects always follow past participles in English and therefore ‘wrapped’ can only be interpreted as an adjective.
Which means the clue is written in arfacese, doesn’t it?

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 12:47:05 +0000

I’d some doubts about SIDE, too, but that was the explanation I also settled for. Maybe it was a more common expression when there were just two channels (BBC, ITV) so the 4 worried me a bit.

By: Testy

Testy — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 11:25:22 +0000

Re 26A: you could read it as “Editor has vehicle wrapped round” in which case it’s a normal container-and-contents.

I definitely agree with your explanation for 8D SIDE.