Cryptic crossword

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Cryptic crosswords are crossword puzzles of a special type: one in which each clue is a word puzzle in and of itself, often involving anagrams. Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, as well as in several other Commonwealth nations, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and India. For the most part, they are an English-language phenomenon, although similar puzzles are popular in a Hebrew form in Israel (where they are called "Logic crosswords") and, as Cryptogrammen in Dutch. In Poland similar crosswords are called "Hetman crosswords", where 'hetman' means chess queen rather than military commander.

Contents 1 Popularity 2 How cryptic clues work 3 Grids for cryptic crosswords 4 Regional variation 5 Types of clue 5.1 Pure cryptic 5.2 Double definition 5.3 Hidden words 5.4 Reversals 5.5 Hidden backwards 5.6 "Charade" clues 5.7 Containers 5.8 Anagrams 5.9 Homophones 5.10 Deletions 5.11 Combination clues 5.12 "& lit." 6 Abbreviations in clues 7 History and development 8 Crosswords in specific newspapers 8.1 The Times 8.2 The Daily Telegraph 8.3 The Independent 8.4 The Sunday Times 8.5 The Guardian 8.6 The Spectator 8.7 Irish Times 8.8 New York Magazine 8.9 New Yorker 8.10 New York Times 8.11 Private Eye 8.12 Sydney Daily Telegraph 8.13 Sydney Morning Herald 8.14 Lovatts Crosswords 9 Setters on more than one British national paper 10 Further reading 11 See also 12 External links

[edit] Popularity

Most of the major national newspapers in the UK carry both cryptic and concise (quick) crosswords. Of these, the cryptic crossword in The Times is particularly noted for its difficulty, whilst that in The Guardian is well-loved for its subtlety, humour and quirkiness.

Many Canadian newspapers, including the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail, carry cryptic crosswords.

Cryptic crosswords do not commonly feature in U.S. publications, although they can be found in magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation and Harper's, and occasionally in the New York Times. Other sources of cryptic crosswords in the U.S. (at all difficulty levels) are puzzle books and GAMES Magazine, as well as UK and Canadian newspapers distributed in the U.S. Enigma, the magazine of the National Puzzlers' League, also features cryptics.

[edit] How cryptic clues work

In essence, a cryptic clue describes its answer accurately but only when the clue is read in a very devious way. What the clue appears to say when read normally (the surface reading) is almost never anything to do with the answer and is there as a distraction. The challenge is to find a way of reading the clue that leads to the solution.

In a typical clue, the answer is described in two ways, either of which can come first. One part of the clue is a definition, which must exactly match the part of speech and tense of the answer. The second half (the subsidiary indication) describes the answer in terms of wordplay. (The subsidiary indication can be a second definition in the case of double definition clues.) One of the tasks of the solver is to work out where this boundary occurs and insert a mental pause there when reading the clue cryptically. (Sometimes the two parts are joined with a link word or phrase such as "from" or "could be".)

Because a typical cryptic clue describes its answer in detail and often more than once, the solver can usually have a great deal of confidence in the answer once it has been determined. This is in contrast to non-cryptic crossword clues which often have several possible answers and force the solver to use the crossing letters to distinguish which was intended.

Here is an example (taken from The Guardian crossword of Aug 6 2002, set by "Shed").

15D Very sad unfinished story about rising smoke (8)

is a clue for TRAGICAL. This breaks down as follows.

• 15D indicates the location and direction (down) of the solution in the grid
• "Very sad" is the definition
• "unfinished story" gives "tal" ("tale" with one letter missing, i.e. "unfinished")
• "rising smoke" gives "ragic" (a "cigar" is a smoke and this is a down clue so "rising" indicates that "cigar" should be written up the page, i.e. backwards)
• "about" means that the letters of "tal" should be put either side of "ragic", giving "tragical"
• "(8)" says that the answer is a single word of eight letters.

There are many "code words" or "indicators" that have a special meaning in the cryptic crossword context. (In the example above, "about", "unfinished" and "rising" all fall into this category). Learning these, or being able to spot them, is a useful and necessary part of becoming a skilled cryptic crossword solver.

[edit] Grids for cryptic crosswords

A typical cryptic crossword grid is generally 15x15, with half-turn rotational symmetry, but unlike typical American crosswords, the words are not "fully checked"; instead, words tend to cross at every other letter in a lattice (similar to a typical British crossword grid). (Checked squares are those in across and down words. The other (unchecked) squares arre sometimes called "unches".) In most daily newspaper cryptic crosswords, grid designs are restricted to a set of stock grids. In the past this was mainly because 'hot-metal' printing meant that new grids were expensive, but nowadays, it seems to be used as a way of making sure that grids conform to the preferences of a paper's crossword editor. Some papers have additional grid rules - at The Times, all words have at least half the letters checked, never more than two unches in succession, and never two unches together at the beginning or end of a word. The grid shown here breaks these rules - the 11-letter words in the top and bottom rows have 5 letters checked out of 11. The Independent allows setters to use their own grid designs.

Variety (UK: "advanced") cryptic crosswords typically use a "barred grid" with no black squares and a slightly smaller size - 12x12 is typical. Word boundaries are denoted by thick lines called "bars". In these variety puzzles, one or more clues typically require modification to fit into the grid, such as dropping or adding a letter, or being anagrammed to fit other, unmodified clues; unclued spaces may spell out a secret message appropriate for the puzzle theme once the puzzle is fully solved. Clue lists for these puzzles may also be unassigned to a specific location and lack clue length as to add to the difficulty.

A 2007 "Puzzlecraft" section in Games Magazine on cryptic crossword construction noted that for cryptic crosswords to be readily solvable, no less than half the letters for every word should be crossed by another word for a standard cryptic crossword, while nearly every letter should be meshed for a variety cryptic crossword. In most UK "advanced cryptics" (= 'variety cryptic'), at least three-quarters of the letters in each word are checked.

[edit] Regional variation

There are notable differences between British and North American (including Canadian) cryptics. American cryptics are thought of as holding to a more rigid set of construction rules than British ones. American cryptics usually require all words in a clue to be used in service of the wordplay or definition, whereas British ones allow for more extraneous or supporting words. In American cryptics, a clue is only allowed to have one subsidiary indication, but in British cryptics the occasional clue may have more than one e.g. a triple definition clue would be considered an amusing variation in the UK but unsound in the US.

Compilers or setters (or cruciverbalists as many term themselves) often use slang terms and abbreviations, generally without indication, so familiarity with these can be useful. Also words that can mean more than one thing are common, often the meaning the solver must use is completely different to the one it appears to have in the clue. Some examples are:

• Bloomer - often means flower (a thing that blooms).
• Flower - often means river (a thing that flows).
• Lead - could be the metal, or the verb.
• Novel - could be a book, or a word for new, or a code-word indicating an anagram.
• Permit - could be a noun (meaning licence) or a verb (meaning allow).

[edit] Types of clue

[edit] Pure cryptic

The original cryptic clue, more commonly known as a double entendre or cryptic definition. Clues of this sort appeared in "straight" crosswords before cryptic crosswords existed. Here the clue appears to say one thing, but with a slight shift of viewpoint it says another. For example:

A word of praise? (8)

would give the answer ALLELUIA, a word used by Christians to praise God, but not what first springs to mind on reading the clue. Notice the question mark - this is often (though by no means always) used by compilers to indicate this sort of clue is one where you need to interpret the words in a different fashion. The way that a clue reads as an ordinary sentence is called its surface reading and is often used to disguise the need for a different interpretation of the clue's component words.

Another one might be:

The flower of London? (6)

which gives THAMES, a flow-er of London. Here, the surface reading suggests a flower, which disguises the fact that the name of a river is required.

This type of clue rarely appears in American cryptics, but is common in British and Canadian cryptics.

[edit] Double definition

A clue may, rather than having a definition part and a wordplay part, have two definition parts. Thus

Not seeing window covering (5)

would have the answer BLIND, because both "not seeing" and "window covering" can mean blind. Note that since these definitions come from the same root word, an American magazine might not allow this clue. American double definitions tend to require both parts to come from different roots, like in this clue:

Eastern European buff (6)

This takes advantage of the two very different meanings (and pronunciations) of POLISH, the one with the long "o" sound meaning "someone from Poland" and the one with the short "o" sound meaning "make shiny."

These clues tend to be short; in particular, two-word clues are almost always double definition clues.

In the UK, multiple definitions are occasionally used e.g.

Burn milk making hot drink for clergyman (6)

is a triple definition of BISHOP ("mulled red wine flavoured with bitter oranges", or "to burn milk in cooking" as well as the usual meaning) - but in the US this would be considered unsound.

[edit] Hidden words

This is when the answer appears in the clue, but it is hidden within one or more words. For example:

Found ermine, deer hides damaged (10)

gives UNDERMINED, which means (cryptically at least) "damaged" and can be found as part of "Found ermine deer". The word "hides" is used to mean "contains," but in the surface sense suggests "pelts".

Possible indicators of a hidden clue are "in part", "partially", "in", "within", "hides", "conceals", "some", and "held by".

Another example:

Introduction to do-gooder canine (3)

gives DOG, which is the first part of, or "introduction to", the word "do-gooder", and means "canine".

[edit] Reversals

A word that gets turned around to make another is a reversal. For example:

Returned beer fit for a king (5)

The answer is REGAL. "Lager" (i.e., "beer") is "returned" to make regal.

Other indicator words include "receding", "in the mirror", "going the wrong way", "returns", "to the left" or "left" (for across clues), and "rising", "overturned" or "mounted" or "comes up" (for down clues).

[edit] Hidden backwards

Sometimes the above two clue types are combined. A word may be hidden backwards, such as in the clue:

Cruel to turn part of internet torrid (6)

The answer to this clue is ROTTEN. The phrase "to turn" indicates "to reverse," and "part of" suggests a piece of "internet torrid".

[edit] "Charade" clues

Here the answer is formed by joining individually clued words to make a larger word (namely, the answer).

For example:

Outlaw leader managing money (7)

The answer is BANKING formed by BAN for "outlaw" and KING for "leader". The definition is "managing money". With this example, the words go next to each other in the clue as they do in the answer - it isn't specifically indicated. However, where the parts go in relation to others is sometimes indicated with words like "against", "after", "with" or (in a down clue) "above".

[edit] Containers

A container clue puts one set of letters inside another. So:

Perfume cloth seen in European nation (9)

gives FRAGRANCE, placing "rag" ("cloth") inside "France" ("European nation").

Other container indicators are "around," "clutching," "enters," and the like.

[edit] Anagrams

An anagram is a rearrangement of a certain section of the clue to form the answer. This is usually indicated by words such as 'strange', 'bizarre', 'muddled', 'wild', 'drunk', or any other term indicating change. One example might be:

Chaperone shredded corset (6)

gives ESCORT, which means chaperone and is an anagram of corset, indicated by the word shredded.

Anagram clues are characterized by an indicator word adjacent to a phrase that has the same number of letters as the answer. The indicator tells the solver that there is an anagram they need to solve in order to work out the answer. Indicators come either before or after the letters to be anagrammed. In an American cryptic, only the words given in the clue may be anagrammed; in some older puzzles, the words to be anagrammed may be clued and then anagrammed. So in this clue:

Chew honeydew fruit (5)

chew is the anagram indicator, honeydew clues melon, which is to be anagrammed, and fruit is the definition for the answer, LEMON. This kind of clue is called an indirect anagram, and in the vast majority of cryptic crosswords indirect anagrams are not used, ever since they were criticised by 'Ximenes' in his 1966 book 'On the Art of the Crossword'. Minor exception: Simple abbreviations may be used to spice up the process - e.g. "Husband, a most eccentric fellow" (6) for THOMAS, where the anagram is made from A, MOST, and H = husband.

Anagram indicators, among the thousands possible, include: abstract, absurd, alien, alternative, awkward, bad, barmy, blend, break, careless, chaotic, clumsy, contrived, convert, corrupt, develop, doctor, eccentric, fabricate, fake, fix, fudge, ground, hammer, hybrid, jostle, knead, loose, maybe, messy, mix, mutant, new, novel, odd, order, out, outrageous, peculiar, poor, questionable, remodel, resort, rough, sort, strange, style, troubled, twist, unconventional, unsound, vary.

It is common for the setter to use a juxtaposition of anagram indicator and anagram that form a common phrase, to make the clue appear as much like a 'normal' sentence or phrase as possible. For example:

Lap-dancing friend (3)

uses dancing as the indicator as it fits cohesively with lap to give the solution, PAL.

[edit] Homophones

Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings, such as "night" and "knight". Homophone clues always have an indicator word or phrase that has to do with phonetics, such as "reportedly", "they say", "vocal", "to the audience", "by the sound of it", and "is heard".

An example of a homophone clue is

We hear twins shave (4)

which is a clue for PARE, which means "shave" and is a homophone of pair, or "twins". The homophone is indicated by "we hear".

If the two words are the same length, the clue should be phrased in such a way that only one of them can be the answer. This is usually done by having the homophone indicator adjacent to the word that is not the answer; therefore, in the previous example, "we hear" was adjacent to "twins" and the answer was pare rather than pair. The indicator could come between the words if they were of different lengths and the enumeration was given, such as in the case of "right" and "rite".

[edit] Deletions

Deletions consist of beheadments, curtailments, and internal deletions. In beheadments, a word loses its first letter. In curtailments, it loses its last letter, and internal deletions remove an inner letter, such as the middle one.

An example of a beheadment:

Beheaded celebrity is sailor (3)

The answer would be TAR, another word for "sailor", which is a "celebrity", or star, without the first letter.

Other indicator words of beheadment include "don't start", "topless", and "after the first".

An example of curtailment:

Shout, "Read!" endlessly (3)

The answer is BOO. If you ignore the punctuation, a book is a "read", and book "endlessly" is boo, a "shout".

Other indicators include "nearly" and "unfinished".

An example of internal deletion:

Challenging sweetheart heartlessly (6)

The answer is DARING, which means "challenging", and is darling without its middle letter, or "heartlessly".

[edit] Combination clues

A clue may employ more than one method of wordplay. For example:

Illustrious baron returns in pit (9)

The answer is HONORABLE. "Baron" "returns", or is reversed, and put inside "pit" or hole, to make honorable, or "illustrious".

[edit] "& lit."

A rare clue type is the "& lit." clue, standing for "and literally so". In this case, both the wordplay and the definition halves are the same. In some publications this is always indicated by an exclamation point at the end of the clue. For example:

God incarnate, essentially! (4)

The answer is ODIN. The Norse god Odin is hidden in "god incarnate," as clued by "essentially," but the definition of Odin is also the whole clue, as Odin is essentially a God incarnate.

This satisfies the "& lit." clue definition, but as read is clearly a cryptic clue. Another example:

Spoil vote! (4)

would give the answer VETO as a perfectly passable clue in a concise crossword; in a cryptic puzzle, however, spoil works as an anagram indicator for vote, while the whole clue is, with a certain amount of license allowed to crossword setters, the definition.

[edit] Abbreviations in clues

Abbreviations are popular with crossword compilers for clueing individual letters or short sections of the answer.

Consider the following clue:

About to come between little Desmond and worker for discourse (7)

There are two abbreviations used here. "About" is abbreviated "c" (for "circa") and "little Desmond" indicates the diminutive of Desmond, namely DES, is required. The "c" is "to come between" DES and ANT (a worker - note that compilers also use "worker" to stand for BEE or HAND), giving DESCANT, which means "discourse".

Compilers make use of a large number of these crossword abbreviations.

[edit] History and development

The first crossword puzzles were purely definitional, but from the 1920s began to include cryptic material: not cryptic clues in the modern sense, but anagrams, classical allusions, incomplete quotations, and other references and wordplay. Torquemada (Edward Powys Mathers, 1892–1939), who set for The Saturday Westminster from 1925 and for The Observer from 1926 until his death, was the first setter to use cryptic clues exclusively, and is often credited as the inventor of the cryptic crossword.

Cryptics were gradually taken up by other newspapers, appearing in the Daily Telegraph from 1925, The Manchester Guardian from 1929 and in The Times and The Listener from 1930.

Torquemada's puzzles were extremely obscure and difficult, and later setters reacted against this tendency by developing a standard for fair clues, ones that can be solved, at least in principle, by deduction, without needing leaps of faith or insights into the setter's thought processes.

The basic principle of fairness was set out by Listener setter Afrit (Alistair Ferguson Ritchie) in his book Armchair Crosswords (1946), where he credits it to the fictional Book of the Crossword:

We must expect the composer to play tricks, but we shall insist that he play fair. The Book of the Crossword lays this injunction upon him: "You need not mean what you say, but you must say what you mean." This is a superior way of saying that he can't have it both ways. He may attempt to mislead by employing a form of words which can be taken in more than one way, and it is your fault if you take it the wrong way, but it is his fault if you can't logically take it the right way.

An example of a clue which cannot logically be taken the right way:

Hat could be dry (5)

Here the composer intends the answer to be "derby", with "hat" the definition, "could be" the anagram indicator, and "be dry" the anagram fodder. But "be" is doing double duty, and this means that any attempt to read the clue cryptically in the form "[definition] [anagram indicator] [fodder]" fails: if "be" is part of the anagram indicator, then the fodder is too short, but if it is part of the fodder, there is no anagram indicator.

Torquemada's successor at The Observer was Ximenes (Derrick Somerset Macnutt, 1902–1971), and in his influential work, Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword Puzzle (1966), he set out more detailed guidelines for setting fair cryptic clues, now known as "Ximenean principles". The most important of them are tersely summed up by Ximenes' successor Azed (Jonathan Crowther, born 1942):

A good cryptic clue contains three elements:

1. a precise definition
2. a fair subsidiary indication
3. nothing else

The Ximenean principles are adhered to most strictly in the subgenre of "advanced cryptics" — difficult puzzles using barred grids and a large vocabulary. Easier puzzles often have more relaxed standards, permitting a wider array of clue types, and allowing a little flexibility. The popular Guardian setter Araucaria (John Galbraith Graham, born 1921) is a noted non-Ximenean, celebrated for his witty, if occasionally unorthodox, clues.

Roger Squires, of Ironbridge, Shropshire, is recognised by Guinness World Records as "The World's Most Prolific Crossword Compiler". He appeared in the Guinness Book of Records from 1978 until all crossword records were dropped in 2002, though they were continued online until 2006. An update is expected in the 2008 print edition. Roger, 75, has now published over 66,000 crosswords in total. His crosswords have appeared in 564 outlets, including 105 publications in 32 countries outside the UK. He holds the record for the longest word used in a published puzzle: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which he clued as an anagram.

[edit] Crosswords in specific newspapers

In Britain it is traditional -- dating from the crossword pioneer Edward (Bill) Powys Mathers (1892-1939), who called himself Torquemada in honour of the great Inquisitor -- for compilers to use a single evocative pseudonym. Crispa, named from the latin for "curly-headed", who set crosswords for the Guardian from 1954 until her retirement in 2004, legally changed her surname to Crisp after divorcing in the 1970s.

[edit] The Times

Adrian Bell was the first to set The Times Crossword from 1930 and was one of those responsible for establishing its distinctive cryptic style. (The Times was a late adopter - the Telegraph, for example, started printing a crossword in 1925.) The Times has a team of about 15 setters, many of whom set puzzles for other papers. The setter of each puzzle is not identified. The Times also has "jumbo" (23x23) puzzles in the Saturday edition, and since 1991 has provided a home for the famously difficult advanced cryptic puzzle which used to appear in the BBC's Listener magazine.

[edit] The Daily Telegraph

Like the Times, doesn't identify the setter of each puzzle, but unlike the Times, has a regular setter for each day of the week, plus a few occasional setters to cover holidays or sickness. Edited by Kate Fassett, who took over from Val Gilbert in late 2006. There's an advanced cryptic called Enigmatic Variations in the Sunday Telegraph, and a 15x15 blocked grid puzzle too.

[edit] The Independent

A relative newcomer, but generally regarded as a source of some of the most innovative crosswords. Setters include Virgilius, Dac, Phi, Quixote, Nimrod, Monk, Nestor, Bannsider, Merlin, Mass, Math, Scorpion, Tees and Punk. The crosswords are often themed and may contain a Nina - a hidden feature. The daily puzzle is edited by Eimi (Mike Hutchinson) and the fiendish Inquisitor puzzle is edited by former Times crossword editor Mike Laws.

[edit] The Sunday Times

The main compiler for The Sunday Times is Barbara Hall (who also compiles the simpler dictionary crossword) and has been Puzzles Editor for thirty two years. The beneficial effect of crosswords' mental stimulation can be seen from Barbara's record - her first crossword was published in 1937 and she is still going strong after nearly seventy years of setting. The Sunday Times is also home to the fiendish Mephisto puzzle set for the last 10 years by Chris Feetenby, Mike Laws and Tim Moorey

[edit] The Guardian

Notable compilers of The Guardian’s cryptic crosswords include Araucaria, Enigmatist, Pasquale, and the late Bob Smithies (Bunthorne). The puzzle is edited by Hugh Stephenson.

[edit] The Spectator

Cryptics in the weekly Spectator often have a specific theme, such as a tribute to a public figure who has died recently, or an historic event which has its anniversary this week. As in most British periodicals, the cryptic in the Spectator is numbered: in the Spectator's case, a puzzle's theme may be related to its specific number (such as an historic event which occurred in the year corresponding to the four-digit number this week's puzzle). Compilers include Doc (the puzzle editor as well as chief setter), Dumpynose (an anagram for 'Pseudonym') and Columba.

[edit] Irish Times

Includes a daily puzzle by 'Crosaire' (Derek Crozier), with a fairly unorthodox style of clue-writing.

[edit] New York Magazine

Stephen Sondheim’s puzzles for New York Magazine have been collected in book form. Sondheim is himself a collector of old-time puzzles and board games.

[edit] New Yorker

When this magazine was edited by Tina Brown (around 1990), it included a small (9x9) barred-grid cryptic crossword, set by a range of American and Canadian setters. These puzzles are also available in a book collection.

[edit] New York Times

Two weeks in every 18, the 'variety puzzle' in the Sunday edition is a cryptic crossword, usually by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, Richard Silvestri, or Fraser Simpson. One week in 18, it's a "Puns and Anagrams" puzzle, a relic of a 1940s attempt to introduce cryptic puzzles to the US.

[edit] Private Eye

In the early 1970s the satirical magazine Private Eye had a crossword set by the Labour MP Tom Driberg, under the pseudonym of "Tiresias" (supposedly "a distinguished academic churchman"). It is currently set by Eddie James under the name "Cyclops". The crossword is frequently pornographic and, by all measures, usually intensely offensive. The prize for the first correct solution opened, £100, is unusually high for a crossword and attracts many entrants.

[edit] Sydney Daily Telegraph

Prints the "Stickler" puzzle, set by David Stickley.

[edit] Sydney Morning Herald

Prints a daily puzzle which is also available free on-line. Various setters compose the puzzles, each being indicated by their intitials.

[edit] Lovatts Crosswords

Lovatts Crosswords are a range of magazines sold throughout the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Christine Lovatt is the main cryptic compiler, and she has been so for 30 years.

[edit] Setters on more than one British national paper

Several setters appear in more than one paper. Some of these are:

Albie Fiore G/Taupi FT/Satori

John Graham G/Araucaria FT/Cinephile

Brian Greer G/Brendan I/Virgilius T

John Henderson G/Enigmatist I/Nimrod

Mark Kelmanson I/Monk FT/Monk T

Don Manley - I/Quixote G/Pasquale FT/Bradman T DT

Roger Phillips - I/Nestor T

Richard Rogan - I/Bannsider T

Roger Squires - G/Rufus FT/Dante DT/Monday

Roger Squires and the late Ruth Crisp set at various times in their careers for all 5 of the broadsheets.

(G-Guardian, T=Times, DT=Daily Telegraph, I=Independent, FT=Financial Times):

[edit] Further reading

Chambers Crossword Manual by Don Manley (4th edition, Chambers 2006)

Collins A to Z of Crosswords by Jonathan Crowther (Collins 2006)

Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose (8) by Sandy Balfour (Atlantic Books 2003)

Secrets of the Setters by Hugh Stephenson (Guardian Books 2005)

[edit] See also

• Crossword

[edit] External links

• Cryptic Crossword Tutorial
• Cryptics Monthly
• A great British obsession (article from The Guardian, extracted from the above book by Sandy Balfour)
• Ximenean clueing
• The Australian Crossword Club
• Blog on Times cryptics
• Blog on Guardian and Independent cryptics