Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

No problem malone ;-) thanks wintonian: “thete” is perfect, don’t know how I missed it as I thought I’d trawled just about every five- or six-letter word beginning “the”...! I’d hit that far with 37, but just need a teeny hint how the wordplay works pls...

The word “so” should be read as “south”. Take the standard one-letter abbreviation, and then add the word “orra”, which is a Scots word meaning “worthless”.

Boom! Many thanks wintonian. One of the cleverer clues with the truncated word taking a meaningful part in the wordplay. I’ve figured out 21 (likewise) and 4 (my carelessness in checking the BRB was to blame for that one), but the “count fish” of 30 is my last little annoying niggle with last week’s...

If there's anyone still here, I'd still like to understand 30 -- "count fish traps backwards". I know that a "gin" is a trap, and I think the word "count" must be extended by 2 or 3, but the rest eludes me.

Hi mooncow,

Turn 'count' into 'country' to get a 'country' ie dialect word for 'to fish'


Lil

ok, my answer is indeed a dialect word -- I haven't come across 'country' for 'dialect' before but could buy that. The word doesn't actually mean "to fish" per Chambers, but it sort of means "a fish" -- a young eel. That's probably enough -- maybe this clue just doesn't quite work for me on some level and I'm trying to look for too much in it...

Sorry mooncow,

I was misremebering - you are quite right. 'Fish' rather than 'to fish'.

Lil