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To be stumped

Posted by R. Berg on May 21, 2001

In Reply to: I'm stumped, too posted by j on May 20, 2001

: : : : : : : I have a quiz sheet that has 105 questions, I have only 4 unsolved, can anyone help?
: : : : : : : These are sayings, phrases, song,film,book or play titles:
: : : : : : : I-------- one t-- f---
: : : : : : : ten t------- s-- I a- a g-----
: : : : : : : t-- l--- o- three o------
: : : : : : : five f----- e-------
: : : : : : : thanks in advance for any help
: : : : : : five finger exercise
: : : : : : the love of three oranges
: : : : : ten thousand say I at a glance... (I wandered lonely as a cloud....)

: : : : Well, the last one still has me stumped. I can imagine "imagining one too fair" as something that fits... but I can't find the reference. Help?

: : : I haven't figured it out, even with the help of the list of 9-letter I-words in a crossword-puzzle dictionary. Has any poet written "incurious one, the frog"?

: : one two five? one too fast? one two feet? one tan fish? one top fool?

: And where does the expression 'I'm stumped' come from? As far as I'm concerned, cricket is a very likely origin, since 'to be stumped' is a way of getting a player out. What do the US regulars reckon?

We-all reckon this here ol' Oxford English Dictionary is the best goldurn reference book we ever set eyes on, sure as shootin'.

Sense #14 for "stump" (verb): "Orig. U.S. To cause to be at a loss; to confront with an insuperable difficulty; to nonplus. The primary reference was prob. to the obstruction caused by stumps in ploughing imperfectly cleared land."

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