Crossword blogCrosswords This article is more than 12 years oldCrossword blog: meet the letter C
This article is more than 12 years oldAlan Connor explains what letters of the alphabet mean in cryptic crossword clues. This week, he interviews the voiceless velar stop (or is it the voiceless velar sibilant?) - the letter CAs we scamper through the letters of the alphabet and see what they get up to in crosswords, we come to, following B, C. So, let's get to know C...
C, hello. Nice place you have here.
Welcome to the C-section. Say my name.
Sorry?
I'm not quoting Destiny's Child here: I'm telling you to say my name.
Well, it's 'cee'.
Ah, but is it? I can be soft like in "certainty" or hard like in "curveball". Team me up with my buddy H and who knows what we'll do! "Charade" or "cha-cha-cha"? Inconsistency is C's game. In fact, say "inconsistency" and you'll say two of my disguises in one word. In a crossword, I can be clued by caught. Catch me!
OK, let's talk about that inconsistency. If I know a crossword answer begins with C and I try to 'say' it in my head, I don't know where to start with you.
Cer-tain-ly. I could sound like an S- or like a K- or even like a CH-. Careful now! Truly I am unknowable. And yet you totally need me.
Ah, well: do we? Language reformers have been trying to get rid of you for centuries.
That's one of mine.
One of...?
Century. The word century in a crossword clue - it probably means you want to write in a C. Continue.
Language reformers want to get rid of you - to replace you with K or Q or even J depending on what noise you're making at the time. Their argument is that we don't, in fact, need you at all.
Oh, those clowns. C don't worry about them. I got my shape from a Phoenician boomerang. Throw me away and I come right back and smack you in the chops. Ca-pow!
Oh, I thought your letter shape was originally based on a camel. And isn't it 'ka-pow'?
Boomerang. The camel theory's been discredited. Keep up, chump.
Well, you're here to discuss how you work in cryptic crosswords. You're not that common a letter in written English - somewhere near the middle...
This better be going somewhere.
...but you're more common as a first letter, and so there are many words that get abbreviated to you which can crop up in crosswords.
OK. That's better. Most often, I'm conservative like on a ballot paper, cold like on a tap or 100 like in Roman times. I love those Romans - and they loved me, by Caesar.
Well, yes. Even though they won't be using the word itself much, crossword newcomers learn pretty fast that the Roman word 'circa' was abbreviated to 'c'...
You see about or around in a clue - that could mean part of the wordplay is going round another, or it could be part of the surface meaning, but there's a considerable chance it's me, C. I curl and I curve, around and about.
And, of course, you can mean Charlie.
Charlie? Who said anything about Charlie? You look to E or H if you want narcotics.
I was thinking of the Nato alphabet. Alfa, Bravo, Charlie?
Oh yeah. C knew that. Hey, did you mention copyright? When I appear in a cool ring? Comme C, comme ça.
Tell me about your use in some scientific fields.
I do a lot of work for science. Scientists like to be beside the C-side. I'm cloudy to meteorologists, constant to mathematicians, canine to dentists, carbon to chemists and coulomb - which means charge - to, er, you know, to those electromagnetism-liking guys.
Physicists?
Whatever. The important thing is, I'm the star of the best and most famous equation in all of science: E=mc2. There I am at the end: the speed of light. I'm the fastest letter in the alphabet. Take that, Z!
In terms of hobbies, you're one of the seven musical notes, and one of the four suits of cards.
And let's not forget that I'm a word in myself.
Actually, no. 'A' is, but 'C' doesn't mean anything.
Sure it does. "See". See?
Yes, but 'see' isn't 'C'. It's 'see'.
Look it up. If you see see in a clue, you might have to write in a "C". Me. C. "See". See?
OK, that's enough. See you.
"C, you" what? "C, you also mean cape on a map?" "C, you never mentioned celsius?" Hey, where's he gone? Come back here, Connor!
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