Clue

While rumbling through 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' by Kate Summerscale, a diverting enough read although it is rather dry, I've stumbled across something interesting: The history of the word 'clue'. Well, I find it interesting so you had better all do the same. The word 'clue' has its origins in the Greek legend of Theseus and the Minotaur and is a mutation of the word 'clew'. 'Clew' has many meanings but the one we're interested in is archaic: 'A ball of yarn or wool.' As Theseus ventured into the labyrinth he laid his yarn behind him so he'd be able to retrace his steps and solve the puzzle and from then on that thread of salvation was a clew and now hints and data that help us to solve puzzles are clues. It's all rather nice actually. Stealing from Wilkie Collins, a plot is a knot and the clue is what unravels that knot into the denouement. I like Wilkie Collins.

Mysteries are wonderful things, and they have keys that are so special that they have special names: clues. When I was growing up books were all about clues and mysteries and intrigues and they are still now to some extent. Perhaps the only books I've ever enjoyed have had clues; kitchen sink stories have no appeal at all. Perhaps that's the key to the mystery that is Oliver.

Dactyl: A poetical foot of three syllables (— ~ ~), one long followed by two short, or one accented followed by two unaccented.

That word dactyl is truly random but we can pass over it to the alternative, poetic, meaning of 'foot'. Apparently this foot is a basic metrical unit that is used to generate a line of verse. This leads us into the classical forms of generating poetry. When we consider such patterns of short and long syllables we are considering quantitative measure and it is fascinating! There are more than twenty base foots, spread across two, three and four syllable combinations. If we consider the iamb,

Iamb: A metrical foot in verse consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

then a verse in iambic pentameter is one where each line is made up of five foots, the majority of which are iambic. That's right, you can mix prosodic foots! Now, I never thought I would write a post that touches on Greek mythology, the origins of the word 'clue' and poetic measure but here it is. Maybe tomorrow there'll be a verse to accompany...

O.