When did Christopher Columbus set sail for the New World?

[Simon Spivack]

I'll leave it to Nevil to mention an article in today's edition of a right wing newspaper about an affair near the British Museum that took place recently. Instead, I'll point out that the Telegraph's City Diary reports on a simultaneous display given by Karpov at broker ICAP on Wednesday. It can be found on page B5 of the print edition: it's not on the Internet at present. I note with interest that Karpov's "won or drawn 1,492 games out of 3,463 competitive matches." Until today, I had no concept of how many he had lost. Heaven forfend that anyone would suggest that the year when the Spaniards engaged in wide-scale expulsions is probably the same as the number of Karpov's wins in the professional game.

Apparently the former world champion drew two out of the fifteen in the display, he won the rest. The two he drew against have, or had, ECF grades.

Chess players whom the gods wish to drive mad are obliged to read articles on the game written by innumerate non-specialists.

[Simon Spivack]

The non-specialist press is a treasure trove of facts. A highly respectable paper today published a survey of modern Russia. On page 3 there is an article devoted to presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich, best known in our little corner of Mother Earth for helping Caissa's plebeians by ensuring the re-election of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov as president of FIDE. Apparently Dvorkovich is "known principally for his encyclopaedic statistical memory and formidable chess skills, ...". Luckily, we have the Moscow Times on hand to elucidate this last point: "On Dvorkovich's board, however, the robot's king and queen were placed on the wrong squares before the game began — a blooper neither opponent seemed to notice."

[Michael Jones]

On the subject of the non-specialist chess press...

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7183

In other news, the Pope has admitted that he's actually a Muslim.

[George Szaszvari]

On the subject of the non-specialist chess press...

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7183

In other news, the Pope has admitted that he's actually a Muslim.

And the President of the USA still hasn't admitted as much...dang!

[George Szaszvari]

Dang! ??

Here are a couple of starters:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1095354

http://www.dangthatscool.com/

[Simon Spivack]

The wish to add colour has led to a few downfalls. But it can also make for more interesting prose. I plead guilty to a liking for ghastly puns and other games in newspaper headlines. Take the current candidates match in Kazan, I'm not too fussed to read that Kazan has a kremlin, many Russian cities do. I'd rather be reminded of the famous Sergei Eisenstein film about Ivan IV ("the Terrible"). Kazan was that czar's first major conquest. That film, too, introduced colour in a very imaginative way, in the dance of the Oprichniki (the "Men Apart"). Still, there's little fun in taking an axe to a boyar's head these days, Fleet Street is so much more promising if beheading one's fellow man is a consideration.

On Wednesday 18th May a newspaper, possibly the best in the country, checked out our noble game on page 18 in its "Companies and Markets" pullout (the part that many an unwary reader has thrown away under the mistaken impression that it is "just a survey"). Its author introduced chess annotations, in particular the exclamation and question marks (the latter being an adornment to many of my games).

I have no quarrel with ignoring the Nunn system, which gives a slightly different meaning to these symbols. After all, BP, the company under consideration, is not yet, I hope, in it endgame, in which the Nunn system shines. I concur that a double question mark is worse than a crime, it's a blunder ("a very bad move" as the journalist noted). I've no quarrel, either, with the assessment of a double exclamation mark as indicating a very good move indeed.

However, the assignments are troubling. Take the single exclamation mark to BP's deal with Rosneft. It warrants the minutest of examinations, surely the annotation should not be "!" but "!?" (an interesting move), or even "?!" (a dubious punt). We really ought to be spending the next six weeks of our lives examining this arcane point to the nth degree. Even if, and it was a no-brainer that there would be objections from TNK-BP's Russian investors, the deal had gone through, how can one forecast the politics a year out, when one can't do it for today? The Kremlin has form when it comes to managing (sic) projects; take Shell in, or rather nearly out of, Sakhalin. And that's assuming commercial quantities of oil can be extracted in the Arctic.

It gets worse, unfortunately. The final sentence reads: "Most of all, he (i.e. Robert Dudley, BP's chief executive) needs to follow the example of chess tyros everywhere: play defensively while assimilating his reversal." Do all beginners play defensively? We should be told.

На Казань!

[Stewart Reuben]

More serious surely, than any mangled words offered here, is the usage regarding the Libyan Conflict. Repeatedly the word STALEMATE has been used, particularly as a possible outcome.
I can't think of many situations less likely to end in stalemate. They may possibly mean deadlock, but it is difficult to tell when a word has been so misused.
I should sue the newspapers and generals for raising my blood pressure.

Stewart Reuben

[Simon Spivack]

More serious surely, than any mangled words offered here, is the usage regarding the Libyan Conflict. Repeatedly the word STALEMATE has been used, particularly as a possible outcome.
I can't think of many situations less likely to end in stalemate. They may possibly mean deadlock, but it is difficult to tell when a word has been so misused.

I fear that that particular usage has stuck. For instance the Concise Oxford (the revised tenth edition) gives a secondary definition of:

a situation in which further progress by opposing parties seems impossible

Note the use of "seems".

To me expressions like "breaking the stalemate" make no sense. In chess, whether one is using the modern outcome of a draw, or an archaic award of a win, the game is over. Of course I am assuming that sense two of the definition derives from chess, and not along some independent path from the Anglo-Norman French.

In a like vein, the common translation of "Oprichniki " as "Men Apart", as given earlier in the thread, conveys the impression of a pop group more than a gang of brutish thugs, which was the reality.

[Stewart Reuben]

Chambers online did not give this additional new meaning of stalemate. But I suppose I will have to add in
stalemate
refute
billion
disinterested
This is a list of words which have, in my lifetime in my opinion, changed their meaning to the detriment of clarity.
Stewart Reuben

[John Moore]

I am really uninterested!

[Simon Spivack]

Trust John, with his eagle eye, to notice that, on the 23rd, I missed out a letter "s" when I wrote: "the company under consideration ... in it endgame, ..." This, of course, constitutes a rejection of the spelling of my words, not a refutation of my argument. I am quite certain, however, that I am not close to making a milliard mistakes, never mind a billion, which is beyond even me: I blame Harold Wilson.

A non sequitur: John's disinterested approach to the match in Kazan is in marked contrast to the cry of joy that reverberated throughout part of north London. I wanted Gelfand to win.

[George Szaszvari]

...that I am not close to making a milliard mistakes, never mind a billion, which is beyond even me: I blame Harold Wilson.

Dang haven't seen/heard "milliard" since past years in Flanders/Netherlands. The first time I counted having
millions of something was when I changed my relatively few pounds sterling into Italian Lira, and it looks like the
US dollar could well be on the same slippery slope, but without an EU to help prop it up... and dredging up good
ol' Harold Wilson like that, Simon, really does remind the, er, more senior among us just how much water has gone
under the bridge. Despite voting for Harold, I do, in retrospect, like Ted Heath more (who was politically killed
by the 3 day week...recall that the IRA came pretty close to a literal kill.) Oh yeah, this is supposed to be chess
related, ain't it, so here goes: Gel-fand, ra ra ra!

[Simon Spivack]

... dredging up good ol' Harold Wilson like that ...

He may be the last Prime Minister to die comparatively poor. I know whom I hold responsible for the Lavender List.

I should sue the newspapers and generals for raising my blood pressure.

That's got to be better than fork bending as a sign of frustration.

Another word whose meaning appears to be achanging is corn. I blame the race of convicts who ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.

I plead guilty to a liking for ghastly puns ... in newspaper headlines

Such as "Dearth on the Nile", as one can read on page eleven of a pink comic today. Now that would have caused the late Tony Wheatley to chortle.

I'm not convinced one should be downbeat about Gelfand's prospects in the coming match against Anand. I don't consider myself a partisan for either player, yet, it seems to me, match preparation, in particular the hunt for opening surprises, may well trump other considerations. In this regard need Gelfand prove inferior?