| TIPS FOR SOLVING THE CRYPTIC CROSSWORD: At first glance, the crossword before you may appear similar to most others. Look more closely though, and you'll discover that its clues don't immediately suggest an answer to be entered into the grid. For first time solvers, they may not suggest anything at all! You see, what sets a cryptic crossword apart is that each clue is like a puzzle in itself. Half of the phrase is indeed a traditionally straightforward clue, and the other half is a type of wordplay that when decoded, also indicates the answer. The fun part of solving a cryptic is figuring out which half is which. Even for longtime cryptic crossword devotees, this puzzle offers a bit of a twist--Several of these clues and solutions involve local people, places and stories. Here are the ten basic types of wordplay used by cryptic creators: |
| 1. Anagrams In an anagram clue, the letters of the solution are rearranged into another word or phrase. For example, creditor is an anagram of director, and vice-versa. This rearrangement will always be accompanied by an indicator that the author is using this type of wordplay. These indicators are words like mixing, changing, edited, moved, or even words that more subtly suggest letters need to be anagrammed, like disturbed, struggling, fighting, poor, questionable, crazy, off, and so on. With the above example, the clue might be: Director struggling with bill collector. (8) (answer: Creditor-----Director is struggling.) There are hundreds of words the author can choose to indicate an anagram. This may seem daunting, but a solver can always count on the combination of the indicator word with the anagram itself to help in spotting this kind of clue. 2. Double Meanings: This type of clue is quite straightforward, even for a novice solver. The two parts of the clue actually indicate two words, both with the same spelling but different meanings. For example: Takes off foliage.(6) (answer: Leaves) In this clue, the word leaves can mean both "takes off" and "foliage." The double meaning clue will always involve two words that are spelled the same way, but may or may not be pronounced the same way. Which brings us to.... |
| 3. Homophones: This is perhaps the easiest type of clue for the beginning cryptic enthusiast. The solution will be indicated by a word or phrase that sounds the same. For example, rain and reign. In a homophone clue, the author will always provide an indicating word or phrase, such as heard, spoken, it sounds like, noise, etc... Using the above pair of words, a clue might look like this: Rule for shower noise. (5) (answer: Reign) The word reign means to "rule", and if you take the 'noise' from a word meaning "shower", i.e. rain, then it confirms your answer. If the two words are the same length, the clue will always clearly indicate which word is to be pronounced, and which is to be entered into the grid. Remember, a homophone clue can also involve a phrase that sounds like the solution. 4. Puns: Almost a combination of the double meaning and homophone types of clues--but a little more humorous, is the pun clue. The author will indicate this type of clue using a question mark, a sort of request for the solver to indulge him or her in stretching the meaning of a word. Here is an example: He drags car to highrise? (5) (answer: Tower) Someone who drags a car might be called a tow-er, and a highrise, or tall building is also called a tower. I can almost hear the groaning! These clues tend to be tricky for first-time solvers, so I've spared you any puns in the first puzzle. |
| 5. Charades: Similar to puns, but lacking the corny jokes, are Charade clues. In this type of clue, the author forms the solution word from smaller words, and strings them together into a phrase. For example, Doctor seeking document preparer. (7) In cryptics, words are often indicated by their common abbreviations. In this case, "doctor" is written as Dr. A word that means "seeking" is after. If you combine the two, the word drafter is formed. This, in turn, is a word that means "document preparer." "Dr". is just one of the abbreviations favoured by the cryptic creator. Other such shorthand can include chemical symbols, days of the week (MON,TUE,WED, etc...), directions (N,E,S and W), postal abbreviations (ON, AB, BC, etc...) or even words like "university" (U) and "concerning" (RE). Don't worry, you'll soon get the hang of it! CLICK HERE FOR FULL LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 6. Containers: This type of clue differs from that of Charades, in that one part of the answer is a word found within another word. Here is an example: Cars have ton of boxes.(7) (answer: Cartons-----ton is found within cars.) Now, a cryptic author rarely makes a clue so easy as to provide both component words in a container clue. Instead he or she would likely give definitions for one or both words. For example: Vehicles have two thousand pounds of boxes. (7) (cars and ton are now both defined.) |
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