Today's Toronto Globe and Mail crossword has this clue:
"Narrow gauge train set spread out" - 8 letters.
I have these three letters:
S - R A - - - -
"RA" could be the beginning of "RAIL" but I don't see how that fits anything.
Can anybody help (today!)?
As S R & A appear in trainset I suspect it's an anagram.
Straiten?
Andy,
I'm sure you're right. Thank you!
But why narrow gauge? - any trainset would do!
Is straiten a word? - I guess so, as in straitened circumstances, though I can't think of any other common usage. Straighten is the common version.
The origin made me wonder about other languages - etroite (Fr) or estrecha (Sp) but neither of those fits - I don't know any Canadian!
David.
Apparently, 'straiten' means to make or become narrow. (I did not know this an hour ago, but it helps to explains marine straits too.)
Perhaps I should have said that the Toronto paper gets the puzzles from some British setter - not a Canadian.
Might be an Irish Setter, or an English Setter
woof
Quote from: clayliner on March 10, 2021, 15:16
But why narrow gauge? - any trainset would do!
Those were my thoughts. I did wonder if it was cryptic 'code' for the letters NG in which case it might be part of an ING word ending, but I can't think of a word S_RA_ING.
SCRAPING works but while a P and an I can be found, not a C.
It certainly looks like STRA _ _ _ _
STRANGER - ??? but why? (A comment on model railway enthusiasts perhaps? ;D )
Perhaps more to the point is why we're all puzzling over word games during the day rather than 'working' - maybe just a symptom of lockdown... :) :)
David.
David makes an excellent point.
However why narrow gauge? its a clue towards the answer: narrows, strait as in, say Tacoma narrows or straits of Dover, ie a constriction.
As for spread out, not sure how but it was my pointer to an anagram, kinda confirmed with the S R A - work out the anagram and the Narrow gauge reference validates.
Back to work lads and lasses!
I did make a reply and then deleted it because it is already established the third letter is an A, but it was a good suggestion anyway so I've typed it again -
STRINGER
Like it or not, the right answer (published today) was STRAITEN. Well done, Andy. Thanks everybody - even people who thought I was doing a puzzle during working hours, which was not true in my time zone. (My only deviation from work during work hours is dreaming about OO9.)
Good to be back on the straiten narrow!