Alan Connor explores what letters of the alphabet mean in cryptic crossword clues. This week, he talks to the third vowel, the all-seeing I
It's back. You've met A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H; now I and I see what the latter gets up to in crosswords…
Hello I, and thanks for taking part … hey, have you been working out?
I might have been. Are you thinking: "I looks slim"?
Supple, yes. Lithe, even. Compared to H, anyway.
I must admit, yes: a little Pilates. Mainly on the poise, rather than the bulk. I used to be just as slender, but less upright: when I was Iota, I had terrible posture, all zig-zagged, somewhere between a ϟ and a ⌇, if your readers' browsers support those characters.
Well, look at you now. Not a kink or ripple in sight.
I agrees. That's why I is the first letter any decent typographer designs. Get your I seen to, and all the rest fall into place. I is the number one… and not just in crosswords.
Yes, I want to talk about your use in crosswords, but did you just say "I agrees … "?
I did indeed.
Is this a ximenean thing, or are you … ?
I is referring to myself in the third person, yes. I finds it helps to avoid ambiguity. Plus I is modest.
What, even our first exchange, you were doing that? I see. Or sees. I am – or is – confused …
I is not in the least confused.
… but in crosswords, yes, an I in an answer can be indicated by "one" in a clue because of the Roman numeral, and …
I was a consonant then too, you know. In Roman times. I originally also had a Y sound, then added a soft G, so there's no need for you to talk to that impostor J. I would skip straight to K if I were you.
Thanks, but I'll make that judgment.
I already has. Likewise, a or an in a clue might indicate I. Other less obvious ones are current (as in physics's I=V/R), which is easy to hide in the surface meaning, and square root of -1, which is a bit trickier. Oh, and iodine.
And with abbreviations from geography, you tend to be a dead giveaway.
I does, I does. Italy, island, isles. Nothing too flashy. Like I says, modest.
Odd, this habit of yours: sometimes you sound like a teenager, sometimes a bumpkin. Anyway, a solver who has an I in an answer can have a guess what letters might be next to it. Often an S or T beforehand, and an N or a T afterwards.
I should point out that I– or, if you include my tittle, i– is nowadays seen before all sorts of letters: even as the iPod falls out of fashion, there is an iPhone or an iPad or an iPlayer on everyone's lips. Such diversity!
Yeah, you're succeeded by P in all of those. More usefully, if a solver sees a word with an I in third-to-last place, it's worth seeing if it might be an ---ION or ---ING. And unlike, say, L and T, you don't like your own company, apart from weird words such as SKIING, LEYLANDII, SHIITE and ZOMBIISM.
I concurs. How can there be more than one I? As Ambrose Bierce put in in The Devil's Dictionary:
Although Bierce himself disappeared in Chihuahua, so there was no "I" at all there in the end.
I'll always be here, though. At least two different vowel sounds, fifth place in Etaoin Shrdlu and the first letter any child should learn to write. Love I or hate I, you can't ignore I. Thanks for your interest.