Thunder & lightning – BIG Crossword 203

We don’t often have reason for controversy in our Wordygig, but in BIG 203 there was quite a tempest. The word questioned was ASTRAPHOBIA, defined in our Collins dictionary as ‘a fear of thunder and lightning’.

Many of you had references which had ‘fear of lightning’ only and listed ‘fear of thunder’ as BRONTOPHOBIA. Can I say one right does not make a wrong?
Brontophobia, keraunophobia and tonitrophobia can all be found as terms for this common childhood fear, though none of them appears in our dictionaries.

People who make up names for phobias have a lot of fun. Perhaps you have a fear of getting your competitions in late – we could use the Latin agon ‘contest’ plus tardus ‘late’ and coin the word agontardophobia. Do you think it will take off?

In the age of the Internet new coinages spread quickly and some gather credibility. A similar thing happens with collective nouns, call a group of politicians ‘a puddle of pollies’ on your weblog one day and see it in someone’s list the next.

However, when it comes to our crosswords, we still rely on the proven large edition print dictionaries as our authority – so no gremlin in our Wordygig.

Over in The Demon, clue 116ac ‘Influential film director‘, proved troublesome for some. While a few tried to fit ARTAUD, for the French director Antonin Artaud, others fitted answers such as ARTHUR, AUTHOR and ATTOUR.

The answer needed was AUTEUR, coming from the French autor (author) and describing a director who keeps close creative control over the whole movie-making process. Recognised auteurs include Woody Allen, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and George Lucas.

If you had this incorrect you may also have had 95dn ‘Elephant handler’ wrong. MAHOUT (and not MAHOOT or CAHOOT) comes from Sanskrit and means ‘one who has great measure’.

In India, a mahout often starts out as a young boy, who is assigned to a young elephant and the two remain together throughout their lives.

The Demon showed off his poetic side at 58ac with the clue ‘Wax lyrical’ and the answer RHAPSODISE (or RHAPSODIZE). A few of our less poetic readers stumbled here. In Ancient Greece a rhapsodist, or rhapsode, was a professional reciter of poetry, especially of Homer’s epics. The word means ‘to sew together a song’ – how lovely! Let us know if you slip this wonderful word into conversation – or indeed if you rhapsodise over our crosswords!

The Demon is sometimes a stretch for the mind but the Goliathon is a little gentler. ‘Inconsiderately’ at 196ac wanted the answer SELFISHLY but perhaps some of you thought this too straightforward as incorrect answers included SUFFUSELY, SWINISHLY and SLAVISHLY.

‘More extensive’ at 106dn needed to be LONGER to fit with LAHORE for 115ac ‘Pakistan city’. If you put LARGER then LAHARE was incorrect.

Bigcash errors included the misspelling CATAGORISE at 18dn (CATEGORISE is correct) and at 104dn ‘Demoralising loss’ was ROUT not RIFT or RENT.

Well done to all our clever entrants. Your brains must be feeling fit and healthy and ready for some more mind-tickling exercise.