Thu., 7/9 Jerry Edelstein

[magus]

THEME:   SIDES in phrases found spelled in reverse order
   
GOOD ONES:     
With SIDE, reverse {& theme}   FLIP SIDES   
Clear in class   ERASE   
   
BTW:   
Empire founded…   INCA [does this sound right?  it's the Incan empire; Inca is the people as in "The Inca used human sacrifice."]

BEBE is not used in English, though it may be found as a first name, and as I recall a pop song "Bebe LeStrange."

Feints   DEKES [really only found in sports so clue should indicate this jargon --- "Feints on the ice" or "Feints in the outfield"]

Love interest   FLAME [that's an oldie --- I enjoyed the song "My Old Flame" and the rhyming line, "I can't even think of his(her) name."
   
   
RATING:    
Three grins = Loved it; Two grins = Enjoyed it; One grin = A bit bland for my taste; One teardrop = Not much fun   

[Thomps2525]

Seven more over-used words today: AREA, EDEN, EPEE, INCA, INN, LEI and OLE. And "Shipwreck movie staple" was DESERTEDISLAND. I maintain that the answer should be UNINHABITEDISLAND. "Desert" means "to withdraw from or leave, usually without intent to return." In motion pictures, when shipwreck victims wind up on an uninhabited island, the island, by definition, can not be "deserted." There were never any people living there to desert it.

[magus]

Of course an island cannot be uninhabited if a shipwreck survivor lives on it, but there's a Shakespearean quote I can't remember "precisely" which goes something like "It is brainsickly to think too precisely on things."  Not to say you have a sick brain, but it certainly is literal.

[Thomps2525]

Okay, let me summarize this for the members of the jury:

If an island never had any people living on it, it is not "deserted." It is "uninhabited." It can't be deserted unless people were living on it at one time and then left.

If shipwreck survivors reach an uninhabited island, it is no longer uninhabited---although I would prefer the word "occupied" because "inhabited" implies that the people have made the island their permanent residence.

Finally, there was no logical reason for Mr. and Mrs. Howell to take several clothes-filled suitcases on what was supposed to be a "three-hour tour."

[magus]

25(2):

I meant in my reply to say deserted not uninhabited.  Sorry.

As for your jury summation:
It can't be deserted unless people were living on it at one time and then left.

I agree that uninhabited denotes "not occupied" but so does deserted.  A "deserted island" means that no one occupies it, whether or not it had once been occupied.  If you don't believe me, and you should, you can go to the Oxford.  Admittedly, there is some disagreement among lexicographers, but whether or not one admits to a denotative authority, certainly connotatively an island can be deserted without having had any previous inhabitants.

[Thomps2525]

Here are three similar definitions of "deserted":

Cambridge Dictionary : "Having no people or things in it; empty."
Macmillan Dictionary: "Empty of people or things: empty, blank, bare."
Oxford Dictionary: "(Of a place) empty of people."

So "deserted" means "having no people" but I still don't see how an island can be legitimately referred to as "deserted" if there were never any inhabitants to desert it. I'm going to side with the lexicographers who share that same opinion. There have never been people living on Mars or Venus. Would we describe those planets as "deserted"? Maybe some would...but I wouldn't.

I'm reminded of a Sunday Peanuts comic in which Lucy, Schroeder, Patty, Violet, Shermy and Snoopy were standing on the pitcher's mound with Charlie Brown. A question about how to pitch to a batter turned into a lively debate on several unrelated subjects. Charlie Brown sighed, "We never win any ball games but we certainly have some interesting discussions."

I can relate!