D.Mail Tues 13th April

[oldmisery]

Stuck on two,
12d : Get used to popular river. I- - -E
15a : Complete works follow man in clever tactic. O- - - R-
Having a mental block, any help please.

[factor-fiction]

Inure?

[bibblebub]

15a oeuvre

[oldmisery]

Thank you both for your speedy response, spot on.

[factor-fiction]

Yes, ouvre, (from manouvre ).
Incidentally bibblebub- is my memory playing tricks or was this spelt manœvre (with o and e joined together) when i was at school?

[factor-fiction]

oops, oeuvre frm manœuvre

[factor-fiction]

...from !

[bibblebub]

factor30 - I can't remember spelling it differently in the past but it's not a word that crops up often enough to be memorable. Doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

[writesbad]

You are right, factor30. They were called diphthongs (ae, oe, etc). They are largely ignored now because of modern word-processing methods.

[factor-fiction]

I never wore a dipthong in the 60s but I can remember words such as Encyclopædia with the a and e joined together as æ. Other examples of œ were onomatopœia and fœtus The symbols are available on Word but I never see them used. It does look a little odd /pretentious now to join letters together.
Incidentally I hate the US spelling of manoeuvre which is maneuver - I think that does look odd.
I can also remember when we used hyphens in to-day and to-morrow. That certainly looks odd now.