[Kde-games-devel] kpat issues (in recent svn)

[Ian Wadham]

On Sat, 23 May 2009 9:14:46 am Parker Coates wrote:
> On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 6:15 PM, Ian Wadham wrote:
> > I play Klondike for one or two hands a day, using the Egyptian deck, but
> > have never seen any clipping of the "talon".  That's the face-down stock
> > pile isn't it?
> >
> > Who calls it a "talon", BTW?  I have never seen the term elsewhere than
> > in KPat handbooks ...  Is it "according to Hoyle"?
>
> I have often wondered that myself. According to
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talon it seems it isn't just a KDE
> invention.
>
Hmmmm ... that reference is a passing one, but it also calls it a "skat".

My Oxford English Reference Dictionary (A4, about 7 cm thick) lists
"talon" as "the cards left after the deal in a card-game", but I think you
would have to be a cryptic crossword addict to know that word.  "Skat"
is "a three-handed card game with bidding", derived from Italian
"scarto" = a discard, according to the OERD.

I do not think we should be using rare or unusual English words
in our Handbooks ... unless "talon" is standard US English among
"solitaire" players over in the USA.  I think Hoyle would call it a
"stock" or "stock pile", but I lost my copy of Hoyle a while ago.

Cheers, Ian W.