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To put you in the picture I bought a set of books from a charity shop all relating to words and crosswords. Going though the crossword solver book I came across this printed in The Times on 5 March 1976.

Sir,

Returning from my local hammam I was somewhat ensurient and so visited our spence and set the table complete with ortolans but my fear was adipose [ /b] so I stopped eating and performed a quick antiphonal with my wife,before retiring to bed.

All the words that appear in bold appeared in this week's crossword puzzles, and if they are known and understood by your average reader then I will eat my zucchetta

Strangely I could not find hammam or zucchetta in either the Oxford English or Collins but found hammam in Dictionary.com and the only reference I can find of zucchetta is that he is an artist? Unless of course any of you know better?

And I could only find antiphonal and ortolan in my new dictionary!! Happy days.

Cheers

Linda



Sent from my iPad

What a gem, Linda!
I thought a zucchetta is a kind of skull cap worn by Roman Catholic Ecclesiastics? just going now to look up the other words!

You would find ORTOLAN in any birdbook, linda - it's a type of bunting, often shot and eaten on the continent.

You will find all these words in Chambers, which is the Times crossword setter's primary source.
I used Ortolan in a past JE and without checking, if my memory serves me right, I think it was Greedy Kite or aristophanes who clued it, I remember because it caused a debate about it being a kind of 'Bunting'

Can any of the regular setters/solvers of the JE remember?
I'll try and find it later if not.

elle: The skull cap is a zucchetto.
Les: I didn't clue that one.

Hi aristo,
Couldn't remember who it was exactly, it's maybe over a year ago or even two years.
I think Syzygy has them all in order.
I have them but they're on 3 different computers.

I've just checked in Chambers 12th Edition and it has:
Zucchetto / Zuchetto / Zuchetta - all variant spellings, it doesn't have Zucchetta (with a double 'C' - only single 'C' with the end letter being 'a')

I feel 'Ensurient' is a typo and should be 'Esurient' (very hungry)

I came up with 'ensurient ' meaning 'covetous'? but only by googling it - and I know you can't believe everything you read online!

elle: Unless it's in Wikipedia. :)

Thank you for you little nuggets of wisdom. I think now that there was a typo error in the text from the book and should have had an "o" not an "a" at the end as that made more sense being a scull cap? And as for the Ortolan, never heard of it and frankly none of the others either! You live and learn.

Thanks everyone

Cheers


Linda