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Hi phil535, I'm assuming you have entered "nob" rather than "neb" as the answer which now should be clear tallies with the revised definition. While the middle letter is unchecked, ne is an obsolete form given in Chambers.

Dryden, I agree about 35 down. On ferentis, whether it is correct or not is still in dispute. The quote can hardly have changed. I have no copy of the book in Latin, however both the online Latin library and gutenberg.org use ferentis, not ferentes. I accept Barretter's argument for pluralisation, but to 'correct' a quote in hindsight is reducing it to a misquote. One might as well go through all of Shakespeare's plays and tidy up his English a little...

It's probably just a misprint and then a copied misprint. I once had the pleasure of pointing out to a professor of Middle English a misprint in the renowned edition of Chaucer's works by F.N. Robinson and he had to agree with me. Do you have access to Virgil's manuscript? It is not feasible for him to have written "ferentis" deliberately as the line would make no sense.

You obviously also know very little about the different printings of Shakespeare and the textual problems they throw up.

Barretter, to begin with item 24. "You obviously also know..." I distrust remarks such as this because they assume so much which cannot be assumed. Creationists will tell you that the human eye, on account of its complexity, obviously is not the process of natural selection. What they really mean to say is that the evolution is not obvious to them. If you had said that, that would have been fair comment.

Item 23. You have declared an aptitude for Latin to 'A' level, which is good. Your account of a discussion with one of your professors changes nothing. What Chaucer wrote is the quote. Anything else is an amended or re-interpreted quote. But having pursued Chaucer to the professor, will you now pursue Virgil to Guttenberg ?

It was a misprint. Misprints happen and get perpetuated.
You seem to have no idea about the transmission of texts. What is all that nonsense about creationism about? It seems totally irrelevant to me. What exactly does "What Chaucer wrote is the quote" mean, if it is subjected to a misprint.? You don't actually know what Virgil wrote : you just make the assumption that because it's in this Guttenberg edition on the internet it must be correct? What is the rationale for that? Why do they have some special authority?

The point about the Chaucer erroris that even in the best edited versions of classic texts there can be errors, which are not picked up, even if they go into several editions. There are no manuscripts of Virgil.His works were transmitted by a succession of scribes who could make mistakes. There are no manuscripts of Shakespeare against which to check the various printed versions of his plays. Some versions of Hamlet are twice as long as others. So which is the correct "quote"?

Crumbs! Who would have thought that an i/e could cause such debate. Perhaps the old boy had dyslexia or some scribe was a bit dodgy on grammar somewhere along the way? Come on guys, it's only a crossword, in words often sung by my granddaughter "Let it go".

Indeed, Planks. At least Barretter refrained from incorrect usage of 'obviously' in his latest missives. Interesting that, whether the error was originally Virgil's, or whether it was a transcription error, in the whole history of learned Latin experts no-one has thought to change ferentis to ferentes until the last 50 years.