Speculative Grammarian to Cease Publication in December 2012—Special Announcement SpecGram Vol CLXII, No 3 Contents

EtymGeo™—International Edition, Part II

by the SpecGram Puzzle Elves™

Below are clues to the names of a number of international cities. The name of each city is a homograph of an English word. The clues provided are vaguely etymological, and may or may not be sufficiently helpful. Some knowledge of geography will provide assistance, but possibly not enough.

These cities all have populations over 100,000 according to one or more random reference works.

???, Australia
Scottish, from Gaelic for “heap of stones, rocky hill,” akin to a Gaulish word for “horn”, from the PIE base *ker-n-
???, Brazil
Via Middle English, from the Latin for “of or belonging to one’s birth”
???, Côte d’Ivoire
From Old English, via Middle English, with obvious cognates in German and Dutch, and cognate with Old Norse mathr, and Gothic manna.
???, France
From an Old French word for “silly, foolish,” from a Latin word for “ignorant”. Over the years, the word has meant “timid”, “fussy”, “dainty”, “precise”, “agreeable” and “kind”.
???, India
Via Middle English from an Old English word meaning “to beg, ask”; cognate with German “please”.
???, Indonesia
From French, a shortened form of chemin de fer _____, referring to the Paris Underground.
???, Kazakhstan
From the Latin for “mouth”, cognate with Sanskrit ās-.
???, Pakistan
Possibly from a word for “lump”, and related to hob.
???, Russia
A shortened form of permanent wave dating back to the 1900’s.
???, Taiwan
Possibly a shortened form of a word via Old French and Middle Latin, from a Latin word for “pan, dish”.
???, Turkey
A shortened form from Middle French for “guard in front”.
???, Vietnam
Via Middle English, from an Old English word for “form, appearance, color”; cognate with Old Norse hȳ, “bird’s down”.
   


Bonus puzzle: Decode the QR code! Win valuable prizes!

As before, if you think you’ve figured out more than a couple of them, send your wild and unsubstantiated guesses to the editors of SpecGram. If we get your responses by September 15th, 2011, you could win a SpecGram magnet of your choice. The correct solution and winners, if any, will be announced in the October issue of Speculative Grammarian.

The answers to the EtymGeo™—International Edition, Part I puzzle from June are given below:

Pilar, Argentina
Ruse, Bulgaria
Split, Croatia
Slough, England
    Tours, France
Trier, Germany
Mango, India
Saga, Japan
    Bender, Moldova
Lima, Peru
Springs, South Africa
Batman, Turkey

We had quite a few solutions submitted for the EtymGeo™—U.S. Edition puzzle. Several were even correct. The winners—who will each receive a SpecGram magnet of their choice—and others are listed below:

Winners:
Eric Chen • Luise Dorenbusch • Adam Hesterberg

Runners Up:
Bernd Möbius • Patrick Chew • Ian Siebörger

   
ull ou all
the sos.
    
Finally, it has come to our attention that we never published the answers to the two puzzles given in the “Brief Puzzlicious Interlude” back in the September 2010 issue of SpecGram. It seems that, without prizes on the line, no one paid much attention. The first puzzle was a Language Identification puzzle, by John Miaou, at right. The correct answer, of course, is Fon. The second was a self-referentially rebus-like variation of a well-known idiom, by Laura Payne, at left. The correct answer there, of course, is “Pull out all the stops.” Get it? That’s perfect!

Speculative Grammarian to Cease Publication in December 2012—Special Announcement
SpecGram Vol CLXII, No 3 Contents