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May 16, 2002

This week's theme
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This week's words
doolally
siberia
lido
Rosetta stone
pharos

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Rosetta stone

noun: A clue or key that helps in understanding of a previously insolvable puzzle.

[After Rosetta stone, a granite tablet found in 1799 near Rosetta in northern Egypt in the Nile river delta. The tablet, now held in the British Museum, has the same message written in two languages (Egyptian and Greek) using three different scripts (hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek). Discovery of this tablet, dating from 196 BCE, made possible the interpretation of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.]

"What, I asked, might be an emblematic new policy, something to symbolise their purpose, just as council house sales were Mrs Thatcher's Rosetta stone in 1979?"
Polly Toynbee; Tory Heads on the Block; The Guardian (London), Oct 1, 1999.

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