Today's NY Sun crossword.

[saxikath]

25 Down: AEONS clued by "Light-years"? Tsk tsk. Light-years are distance, not time.

Some snazzy fill, though. MALCOLMXBLVD is just showing off. :)

Comments

[meranthi.livejournal.com]

"We're the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs."

Never mind that parsecs are parallax-seconds, and therefore also distance. *sigh*

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

No, see, the thing about the Kessel run is that there's no straight path through it; he was able to shave off several parsecs from the standard route through it by slingshotting around an asteroid near the edge, thereby avoiding the...

OK, look. Han's a blowhard showoff. Of course he's going to make stuff up.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Yeah. *sigh*

"Light-years"

[(Anonymous)]

Katherine, funny thing, it's twice now today that I've run across you on-line. This morning I was Googling for "Gilbert & Sullivan Crossword" and I got some dead links referring to a puzzle you constructed in about 1998. Any chance of posting a new link to that puzzle and/or other G&S puzzles?

Second, I see via Orange's blog that you posted today on the "light-years" error. I also remember that error in Star Wars. Good job.

Re: "Light-years"

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry, didn't mean to be anonymous. I post as Jim in NYC, which is a little less anonymous.
Jim Finder, NYC

Re: "Light-years"

[saxikath]

Jim,

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm a historian of science by training, with an emphasis in astronomy, and I edit science textbooks for a living, so the "light-year" thing jumped out at me.

As to the G&S crossword -- I don't know if I even have a copy of that anymore, and I'm not sure I'd want to share it if I did! I'm not much of a constructor to begin with, and that was a very early effort.

However, I do have a few crosswords around that I did as backstage entertainment for the casts of some G&S productions. Some clues are very specific to the particular productions, but if I can find those, I'd be happy to share them.

[(Anonymous)]

I mentioned this to Peter. One of the definitions of "light-year" in his dictioary (RH2, I believe) is "a very long period of time". So it's correct, but I suspect many people will have the same reaction you did.

Jangler

[saxikath]

*boggle*

That's in the dictionary?? Shame on RH2!

I mean, I'm generally descriptivist rather than prescriptivist in my dictionary leanings, but that's just plain wrong, and doesn't even make sense. I don't think that's a legitimate alternate usage, it's an error.

Blech!

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

MW also has "an extremely large measure of comparison (as of distance, time, or quality)". So, nu. I noticed it, too, but shrugged it off as metaphorical.