Talk:Derrick Somerset Macnutt

Untitled

I don't dare edit a clue in case I've missed something, but surely in the sample 'Printer's Devilry' clue both versions should have an apostrophe in 'day's'. 91.107.72.143 (talk) 20:48, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation of 'Ximenes'

I can't cite a written reference to prove this. However, fifty-five years ago my uncle, a Classics master and keen Ximenes solver and competitor, was pronouncing it with a short 'i'. So has everybody else I've since met who solved him or his successor, Azed - and his name has come up from time to time at the Azed celebratory dinners/lunches I've attended. Azed himself (on the BBC's Timeshift: "How to solve a cryptic crossword", BBC4 Nov 2008) pronounced the X as something like 'ths', which I presume is the Spanish way. He still used a short 'i'. Perhaps all this is original research and my entry should be removed.

However, the previously given pronuncuiation is not how it is customarily said in relation to the crossword or its composer - it should not be replaced.

(And I hope my attempt at an IPA version is correct) Dinoceras (talk) 17:07, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Flogging

No doubt I will regret this, but I have added some words about Macnutt's other pastime, beating (preferably pre-adolescent) boys with a cane. There is a reliable source for this, the historian Norman Longmate, but it was well-known, though not universally, to boys at Christ's Hospital (I was one, and was taught by him). Longmate comments "Along with his abilities as a teacher, however, went a fatal flaw, which today [2000] would debar him from the profession, if not land him in prison". The beatings were administered on the boys' bare buttocks, often until there were deep bleeding cuts. I have not gone into as much detail as Longmate does: he cites further sources from the Christ's Hospital school magazine which I have been unable, and perhaps unwilling, to access. Anyone with copies of The Blue might wish to consult the issues for July 1993, pages 140-141, December 1993, page 220, and July 1997, page 174, as well as Longmate's lengthy and informative memoir. Thomas Peardew (talk) 16:45, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Marriage

The General Registry Office shows the marriage of a Derrick S Macnutt in the September quarter of 1936 to a woman whose surname was Long. His wife is nowhere mentioned in the article. Thomas Peardew (talk) 09:31, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

The obituary used as reference 1 says "He was married and had two daughters and one son, six grand-children and two great grandsons". It does not grace his wife with a name. DuncanHill (talk) 11:57, 4 December 2021 (UTC)