Cryptic crosswords are
crossword puzzlesA crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square or rectangular grid of black and white squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answers. In languages which are written left-to-right, the answer...
of a special type: one in which each clue is a word puzzle in and of itself. Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, where they originated,
IrelandIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
and in several
CommonwealthThe Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the Commonwealth and previously as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-three independent member states. Most of them were formerly part of the British Empire. They co-operate within a framework of common values...
nations, including
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
,
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
,
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
,
KenyaThe Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. Lying along the Indian Ocean, at the equator, Kenya is bordered by Ethiopia , Somalia , Tanzania , Uganda plus Lake Victoria , and Sudan . The capital city is Nairobi. Kenya spans an area about 85% the size of France or Texas...
,
MaltaMalta , officially the Republic of Malta , is a densely populated developed European country in the European Union. The Southern European island nation is an archipelago that includes the inhabited islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino, along with a number of smaller, uninhabited islands...
,
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
, and
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland, while Lesotho is an independent country surrounded by South Africa.Modern...
. In the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, cryptics are sometimes known as "British-style" crosswords. For the most part, they are an English-language phenomenon, although similar puzzles are popular in a
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
form in
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
(where they are called
tashbetsey higayon (תשבצי הגיון) "Logic crosswords") and (as
Cryptogrammen) in
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language, and over 5 million people as a second language.
"1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language...
. In Poland similar crosswords are called "
HetmanHetman was the title of the second highest military commander used in 15th to 18th century Poland, Ukraine and Grand Duchy of Lithuania, known from 1569 to 1795 as the Rzeczpospolita....
crosswords". 'Hetman', a senior commander, and also the informal name for a
queenThe queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of their first rank next to their king. The white queen starts on a white square, and the black queen on a black square, thus the mnemonic "queen gets her color" or "queen on...
in
ChessChess is a board game played between two players. The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from a similar, much older game of Indian origin...
, emphasises their importance over other crosswords.
Cryptic crossword puzzles come in two main types: the basic cryptic in which each clue answer is entered into the diagram normally, and the advanced or "variety" cryptic, in which some or all of the answers must be altered before entering, usually in accordance with a hidden pattern or rule which must be discovered by the solver.
Popularity
Most of the major national
newspaperA newspaper is a publication containing news, information, and advertising. General-interest newspapers often feature articles on political events, crime, business, art/entertainment, society and sports. Most traditional papers also feature an editorial page containing columns that express the...
s in the UK carry both cryptic and concise (quick) crosswords. Of these, the cryptic crossword in
The TimesThe Times is a daily national newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register....
is commonly believed to be the most difficult, though any of the Times, Independent or Guardian is probably equally likely to be the hardest of the day (as measured by timings for quick solvers). The puzzle in
The GuardianThe Guardian is a British daily newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. Founded in 1821, it is unique among major British newspapers in being owned by a foundation .The Guardian Weekly, which circulates worldwide, provides a compact digest of four newspapers...
is well-loved for its humour and quirkiness, and quite often includes puzzles with themes, which are extremely rare in The Times.
The IndependentThe Independent is a British newspaper published by Tony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily newspapers. The daily edition was named National...
puzzle also includes themes quite often. However, with its larger circulation,
The TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Colonel Arthur B. Sleigh in June 1855 as the Daily Telegraph and Courier...
version is probably the most attempted. An indication of the popularity of the genre is that
The Times and
The Daily Telegraph charge a subscription for their online crosswords (although their news articles are available for nothing), although
The Guardian, the
Financial Times and
The Independent place their daily crosswords online free.
Many Canadian newspapers, including the
Toronto StarThe Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, though its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
and the Globe and Mail, carry cryptic crosswords.
Cryptic crosswords do not commonly appear in U.S. publications, although they can be found in magazines such as
GAMES MagazineGames magazine is a United States-based magazine devoted to games and puzzles, and is published by Games Publications, a division of Kappa Publishing Group.-History:...
,
The Nation,
Harper's, and occasionally in
the Sunday New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record...
. Other sources of cryptic crosswords in the U.S. (at various difficulty levels) are puzzle books, as well as UK and Canadian newspapers distributed in the U.S. Other venues include the
Enigma, the magazine of the
National Puzzlers' LeagueThe National Puzzlers' League is a nonprofit organization focused on puzzling, primarily in the realm of word play and word games. Founded in 1883, it is the oldest puzzlers' organization in the world...
, and
The Atlantic MonthlyThe Atlantic is an American magazine founded as The Atlantic Monthly in Boston in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. Though based in Boston, it quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and...
. The latter puzzle, after a long and distinguished run, has appeared solely on
The Atlantics website for several years, and is scheduled to end after the October, 2009 issue.
How cryptic clues work
In essence, a cryptic clue leads to its answer as long as you read it in the right way. What the clue appears to say when read normally (the surface reading
) is a distraction and usually has nothing to do with the clue answer. The challenge is to find the way of reading the clue that leads to the solution.
A typical clue gives you two ways of getting to the answer, 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 other part (the subsidiary indication
, or wordplay
) gives you an alternative route to the answer. (This part would be a second definition in the case of double definition clues.) One of the tasks of the solver is to find the boundary between definition and wordplay 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 GuardianThe Guardian is a British daily newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. Founded in 1821, it is unique among major British newspapers in being owned by a foundation .The Guardian Weekly, which circulates worldwide, provides a compact digest of four newspapers...
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.
Compilers or setters 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 commonly exploited: often the meaning the solver must use is completely different from 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, an electric cable, 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).
Of these examples, "flower" is an invented meaning by back-formation from the -er suffix, which cannot be confirmed in a standard dictionary. A similar trick is played in the old clue "A wicked thing" for CANDLE, where the -ed suffix must be understood in its "equipped with a ...." meaning. In the case of the -er suffix, this trick could be played with other meanings of the suffix, but except for river=>BANKER (a river is not a 'thing that banks' but a 'thing that has banks'), this is rarely done.
Grids for cryptic crosswords
A typical cryptic crossword grid is generally 15x15, with half-turn rotational symmetry. Unlike typical American crosswords, the grid entries are not "fully checked"; instead, roughly half the letters in each entry are checked. Checked squares are those in at least two answers; squares used in only one answer are 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, for example, all words have at least half the letters checked, and although words can have two
unches in succession, they cannot be the first two or last two letters of a word. The grid shown here breaks one Times grid rule - the 15-letter words at 9 and 24 across each have 8 letters unchecked out of 15. 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 may 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. The solver also may need to determine where answers fit into the grid.
A July 2006 "Puzzlecraft" section in
Games MagazineGames magazine is a United States-based magazine devoted to games and puzzles, and is published by Games Publications, a division of Kappa Publishing Group.-History:...
on cryptic crossword construction noted that for cryptic crosswords to be readily solvable, no fewer than half the letters for every word should be checked by another word for a standard cryptic crossword, while nearly every letter should be checked for a variety cryptic crossword. In most UK "advanced cryptics" ('variety cryptic'), at least three-quarters of the letters in each word are checked.
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.
Clues
Clues given to the solver are based on various forms of wordplay. Nearly every clue has two non-overlapping parts to it - one part that provides an unmodified but often indirect definition for the word or phrase, and a second part that includes the wordplay involved. In a few cases, the two definitions are one and the same, as often in the case of "& lit." clues. Most cryptic crosswords provide the number of letters in the answer, or in the case of phrases, a series of numbers to denote the letters in each word; "cryptic crossword" would be clued with "(7,9)" following the clue. More advanced puzzles may drop this portion of the clue.
Cryptic Definition
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 blossom, 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. It's almost certainly the oldest kind of cryptic clue: cryptic definitions appeared in the UK newspaper puzzles in the late 1920s and early 1930s that mixed cryptic and plain definition clues and evolved into fully cryptic crosswords.
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 blind
can mean both "not seeing" and "window covering". 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, as 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") but in the US this would be considered unsound.
Some British newspapers have an affection for quirky clues of this kind where the two definitions are similar:
-
Let in or let on (5)
- ADMIT
Note that these clues do not have clear indicator words.
Hidden words
When the answer appears in the clue but is contained within one or more words, it is hidden. 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".
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", "reverses" "to the left" or "left" (for across clues), and "rising", "overturned" or "mounted" or "comes up" (for down clues).
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".
"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 such as "against", "after", "on", "with" or (in a down clue) "above".
Containers
A container clue puts one set of letters inside another. So:
- Apostle's friend outside of university (4)
gives
PAUL ("apostle"), by placing "pal" ("friend") outside of "U" ("university").
Other container indicators are "inside", "over", "around", "clutching", "enters", and the like.
Anagrams
An
anagramAn anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place. Someone who creates anagrams is called an anagrammatist...
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:
- 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
anagramAn anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place. Someone who creates anagrams is called an anagrammatist...
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, which in the vast majority of cryptic crosswords 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, at sea, awkward, bad, barmy, blend, blow, break, careless, chaotic, clumsy, contrived, convert, corrupt, develop, doctor, eccentric, engineer, fabricate, fake, fix, foolish, fudge, ground, hammer, hybrid, in a tizzy, jostle, knead, loose, maybe, messy, mix, mutant, new, novel, odd, order, out, outrageous, peculiar, poor, questionable, remodel, resort, rough, sort, strange, style, tricky, 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 in order 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.
Homophones
HomophoneA homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...
s 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", "utterly", "vocal", "to the audience", "by the sound of it", "is heard" and "on the radio". "Broadcast" is a particularly devious indicator as it could indicate either a homophone or an anagram.
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 definition; 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".
Initialisms
In an initialism clue, the first letters of part of the clue are put together to give the answer.
An example of an initialism:
Initially amiable person eats primate (3)
The answer would be APE, which is a type of primate. "Initially" signals that you must take the first letters of "amiable person eats"--"ape".
Another example would be:
At first, actor needing new identity emulates orphan in musical theatre (5)
The answer would be
ANNIE, the name of a famous orphan in musical theatre. This is obtained from the first letters of "actor needing new identity emulates".
Words that indicate initialisms also include "firstly" and "to start".
It is possible to have initialisms just for certain parts of the clue. It is also possible to employ the same technique to the end of words. For example:
- Old country lady went round Head Office initially before end of day (7)
The answer would be
DAHOMEY, which used to be a kingdom in Africa (an "old country"). Here, we take the first letters of only the words "Head Office" (ho) and we take the "end" of the word "day" (y). The letters of the word "dame", meaning "lady", are then made to go around the letters "ho" to form Dahomey.
Odd/Even Clues
An odd/even clue is one in which the odd or even letters of certain parts of the clue give the answer. An example is:
- Odd stuff of Mr. Waugh is set for someone wanting women to vote (10)
The answer would be
SUFFRAGIST, which is "someone wanting women to vote". The word "odd" indicates that we must take every other letter of the rest of the clue, starting with the first: S
tu
ff
of
Mr
Wa
ug
h i
s s
et.
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".
Note that "sweetheart" could also be simply "wee" or the letter "E", that is, the "heart" (middle) of "sweet".
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".
"& lit."
A rare clue type is the "& lit." clue, standing for "and literally so". In this case, the entire clue is both a definition and a cryptic clue. In some publications this is always indicated by an exclamation markAn exclamation mark or exclamation point is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or high volume, and often marks the end of a sentence.-History:...
at the end of the clue. For example:
God incarnate, essentially! (4)
The answer is ODIN. The Norse god OdinOdin , is considered the chief god in Norse paganism and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon Wōden and the Old High German Wotan, it is descended from Proto-Germanic *Wōđinaz or *Wōđanaz.The name Odin is generally accepted as the modern translation; although, in some cases, older...
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; in the cryptic sense, spoil
works as an anagramAn anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place. Someone who creates anagrams is called an anagrammatist...
indicator for vote
, while the whole clue is, with a certain amount of licence allowed to crossword setters, a definition.
Another example:
e.g. Origin of goose (3)
gives the answer EGG. Geese find their origins in eggs, so the whole clue gives "egg", but the clue can also be broken down: e.g. loses its full stops to give eg, followed by the first letter (i.e. the "origin") of the word goose--g--to make egg.
Visual Clues
Visual clues are very rare. They are best explained using an example:
Exclamation of surprise about spectacles (3)
The answer would be
COO, which is an "exclamation of surprise". The 'c' comes from the abbreviation of the word "circa", meaning "about", and "spectacles" is
OO because these letters look like a drawing of a pair of glasses.
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 that the
diminutiveIn language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form, is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment...
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 abbreviationsCryptic crosswords often use abbreviations to clue individual letters or short fragments of the overall solution. These include:*Any conventional abbreviations found in a standard dictionary, such as:...
.
History and development
The history of cryptic crosswords started in the UK. The first British crossword puzzles appeared around 1923 and were purely definitional, but from the mid-1920s they 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 MathersEdward Powys Mathers was an English translator and poet, and also a pioneer of compiling advanced cryptic crosswords....
, 1892–1939), who set for The Saturday Westminster
from 1925 and for The ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In about the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a left-liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-History:The...
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.
The first newspaper crosswords appeared in the Sunday and Daily Express from about 1924. Crosswords were gradually taken up by other newspapers, appearing in the Daily Telegraph
from 1925, The Manchester Guardian
from 1929 and The TimesThe Times is a daily national newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register....
from 1930. These newspaper puzzles were almost entirely non-cryptic at first and gradually used more cryptic clues, until the fully cryptic puzzle as known today became widespread. In some papers this took until about 1960.
Puzzles appeared in The Listener from 1930, but this was a weekly magazine rather than a newspaper, and the puzzles were much harder than the newspaper ones, though again they took a while to become entirely cryptic.
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), wherein 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 MacnuttDerrick Somerset Macnutt was a British crossword compiler who provided crosswords for The Observer newspaper under the pseudonym Ximenes. One of the principal founders of the modern style of puzzle, he is often known as the "father of the cryptic crossword"...
, 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" and sometimes described by the word "square-dealing". The most important of them are tersely summed up by Ximenes' successor
AzedThe Azed crossword appears every Sunday in The Observer newspaper and has a small but devoted following. Since it first appeared in March 1972, every puzzle has been composed by Jonathan Crowther who also judges the monthly clue-writing competition. The pseudonym Azed is a reversal of Deza, a...
(
Jonathan CrowtherJonathan Crowther has for over 35 years composed the Azed cryptic crossword in The Observer Sunday newspaper. He was voted "best British crossword setter" in a poll of crossword setters conducted by The Sunday Times in 1991 and in the same year was chosen as "the crossword compilers' crossword...
, born 1942):
- A good cryptic clue contains three elements:
- a precise definition
- a fair subsidiary indication
- 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
GuardianThe Guardian is a British daily newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. Founded in 1821, it is unique among major British newspapers in being owned by a foundation .The Guardian Weekly, which circulates worldwide, provides a compact digest of four newspapers...
setter Araucaria (
John Galbraith GrahamThe Reverend John Galbraith Graham MBE is a British crossword compiler, best known as Araucaria of The Guardian. He is also a Church of England priest.-Career:...
, born 1921) is a noted non-Ximenean, celebrated for his witty, if occasionally unorthodox, clues.
The UK
In Britain it is traditional -- dating from the cryptic crossword pioneer
Edward (Bill) Powys MathersEdward Powys Mathers was an English translator and poet, and also a pioneer of compiling advanced cryptic crosswords....
(1892-1939), who called himself Torquemada in honour of the great
InquisitorThe Spanish Inquisition was an ecclesiastical tribunal started in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the medieval inquisition which was under papal control...
-- 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.
The Times
- Adrian Bell
Adrian Bell was an English journalist and farmer, who was the first compiler of The Times crossword.-Life:The son of a newspaper editor, he was born in London and educated at Uppingham School in Rutland...
was the first to set The
Times
The Times is a daily national newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register....
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 BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
's The Listener
.
- The daily Times puzzle is syndicated in the New York Post (US) and The Australian (Aus) papers. In both cases, the puzzle appears some weeks after it appeared in The Times.
- In October 2007, The Bugle
The Bugle is a weekly satirical news podcast, hosted by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman, and distributed by TimesOnline. New episodes of The Bugle are released on Fridays with related material appearing on the official website...
, a TimesOnline podcast by John Oliver and Andy ZaltzmanAndrew "Andy" Zaltzman is a British comedian and author who largely focuses on political material. He has worked extensively with John Oliver; their work together includes Political Animal, The Department and The Bugle.-Early life:...
, introduced the first, revolutionary "Audio Cryptic Crossword."
The Daily Telegraph
- The 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. Regular setters include Roger Squires, Ray Terrell, and Don Manley. The regular setters as at 1 November 2006 are shown in a photograph here. Edited by Phil McNeill, who took over from Kate Fassett in early 2009. There's an advanced cryptic called Enigmatic Variations in the Sunday Telegraph, and a 15x15 blocked grid puzzle too.
- In September 2008 the Telegraph started printing a 'Toughie' crossword as well as the daily puzzle, on Tues-Fri. This is described by the paper as "the toughest crossword in Fleet Street" or similar. Comments from some solvers on these puzzles don't always agree with this assessment, rating maybe half of them as close to average broadsheet cryptic difficulty.
The Independent
- The Independent is a relative newcomer but is 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, Morph, 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.
The Sunday Times
- The main compiler for
The Sunday TimesThe Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *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 produced in rotation since 1995 by Chris Feetenby (replaced by Paul McKenna in 2008), Mike Laws and Tim Moorey. Previous Mephisto setters were Richard Kilner (1959 - 1973) and Richard Whitelegg (1973 - 1995).
The Guardian
- Notable compilers of
The GuardianThe Guardian is a British daily newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. Founded in 1821, it is unique among major British newspapers in being owned by a foundation .The Guardian Weekly, which circulates worldwide, provides a compact digest of four newspapers...
’s cryptic crosswords include Araucaria, Enigmatist, Pasquale, Paul, Rufus, and the late Bob SmithiesRobert Smithies was a photographer, journalist and crossword compiler. He was born in Middleton, near Rochdale, Lancashire....
(Bunthorne). The puzzle is edited by Hugh Stephenson.
The Observer
- Home of the estimable Azed
The Azed crossword appears every Sunday in The Observer newspaper and has a small but devoted following. Since it first appeared in March 1972, every puzzle has been composed by Jonathan Crowther who also judges the monthly clue-writing competition. The pseudonym Azed is a reversal of Deza, a...
crossword, which employs a barred grid and a wider vocabulary than standard cryptics. On the first Sunday of every month and at Christmas, Azed runs a clue-writing competition, via which many of today's top compilers have learnt their trade.
The Observer
also features a standard cryptic crossword, the Everyman, compiled by Allan Scott.
The Radio Times
- Roger Prebble has compiled the cryptic crossword since 1999.
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 a 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 a historic event which occurred in the year corresponding to the four-digit number of the puzzle for that week). Compilers include Doc (the puzzle editor as well as chief setter), Dumpynose (an anagram for 'Pseudonym') and Columba.
Private Eye
- In the early 1970s the satirical magazine
Private EyePrivate Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, currently edited by Ian Hislop. Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic of public figures deemed incompetent, inefficient or corrupt, and has become a self-styled "thorn in the side" of...
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". This crossword is usually topical, and contains material varying from risqué to rude, in clues, answers and the solver's head - much of the rudeness is by innuendo. It also often includes references to the content of the rest of the magazine, or its jargon in which, for example the current monrarch of the UK is "Brenda" and the likely next one "Prince Brian". The £100 prize for the first correct solution opened is unusually high for a crossword and attracts many entrants.
Elsewhere
The Hindu
(India)
- "The Hindu"
The Hindu is a leading English-language Indian daily newspaper. With a circulation of 1.45 million, The Hindu is the second-largest circulated daily English newspaper in the India after Times of India, and slightly ahead of the Economic Times...
newspaper carries cryptic crosswords in the main paper from Monday to Saturday, and a much tougher Sunday Crossword in the Sunday Magazine supplement.
Irish Times
- The Irish Times includes a daily puzzle by "Crosaire"
The Crosaire Crossword is one of the crossword puzzles contained in The Irish Times, the other being the "Simplex" crossword. It has been written by Derek Crozier for over sixty years...
(Derek Crozier), with a fairly unorthodox style of clue-writing.
The Globe and Mail
(Canada)
- "Canada's national newspaper" includes a daily cryptic somewhat less difficult than its British cousins. The crossword also comes with another set of "Quick Clues" (American-style) which provide a completely different set of answers. Fraser Simpson compiles the Saturday cryptic; he also used to compile an advanced cryptic in
The Walrus
. Once a year on Canada DayCanada Day , formerly Dominion Day , is Canada's national day, a federal statutory holiday celebrating the anniversary of the 1 July 1867 enactment of the British North America Act, which united Canada as a single country, which was in turn composed of four provinces...
, The Globe
publishes a large 24x24 bar-diagram cryptic.
The Listener
(New Zealand)
- This weekly magazine includes a cryptic by David Tossman, who took over from RWH (Ruth Hendry) in 1997. RWH had been providing a mixed (some cryptic clues) puzzle since 1940.
New York Magazine
- Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre , multiple Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize...
’s puzzles for
New York Magazine
have been collected in book form. Sondheim is himself a collector of old-time puzzles and board games.
New Yorker
- For some of the time that this magazine was edited by Tina Brown (1997-1999), it included a small (8x10) barred-grid cryptic crossword, set by a range of American and Canadian setters. These puzzles are also available in a book collection.
New York Times
- Two weeks in every 18, the 'variety puzzle' in the Sunday edition is a cryptic crossword, usually by Emily Cox
Emily Cox is a US puzzle writer. She and her partner, Henry Rathvon, have written "The Atlantic Puzzler," a cryptic crossword featured each month in the magazine The Atlantic Monthly since 1977...
and Henry RathvonHenry Rathvon is a puzzle writer. He and his partner, Emily Cox, write The Atlantic Puzzler, a cryptic crossword featured each month in the magazine The Atlantic Monthly since 1977...
, 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.
Sydney Daily Telegraph
- Prints the "Stickler" puzzle, set by David Stickley.
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.
Lovatts Crosswords
- Lovatts Crosswords
Lovatts Publications, is an Australian publishing company that was founded in 1978, and is now Australia's leading crossword and puzzle publishing company, with a range of 20 crossword and puzzle titles....
are a range of magazines sold throughout the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Christine LovattChristine Lovatt is an Australian crossword puzzle compiler and co-founder of Lovatts Publications, an Australian magazine company that publishes crossword and sudoku puzzles....
is the main cryptic compiler, and she has been so for 30 years.
The Nation
- Prints a weekly puzzle by Frank W. Lewis, who has set their puzzle since late 1947.
The Atlantic Monthly
- The magazine has one of the longest-running cryptic crosswords, compiled by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon. Since March 2006 the Puzzler, as it is known, is only published online.
Harper's
- This magazine features a monthly puzzle by Richard Maltby, Jr.
Richard Maltby, Jr. is an American theatre director and producer, lyricist, and screenwriter.Maltby is also well known as a constructor of cryptic crossword puzzles. He has done this for Harper's Magazine, sometimes in collaboration with E. R...
.
GAMES
- This magazine includes two standard cryptic crosswords, as well as one with a twist--typically a rule, described by unclued entries, that requires the solver to amend a number of answers in a similar fashion in order to fit them into the grid.
Setters on more than one British national paper
Several setters appear in more than one paper. Some of these are:
|
Guardian |
Times |
Independent |
Financial Times |
Daily Telegraph |
Private Eye |
| Michael Curl |
Orlando |
x |
|
Cincinnus |
|
|
| Albie Fiore |
Taupi |
|
|
Satori |
|
|
| John Galbraith Graham The Reverend John Galbraith Graham MBE is a British crossword compiler, best known as Araucaria of The Guardian. He is also a Church of England priest.-Career:...
|
Araucaria |
|
|
Cinephile |
|
|
| Brian Greer |
Brendan |
x |
Virgilius |
|
|
|
| John Halpern |
Paul |
x |
Punk |
Mudd |
|
|
| John Henderson |
Enigmatist |
|
Nimrod |
Io |
|
|
| Mark Kelmanson |
|
|
Monk |
Monk |
|
|
| Don Manley Don Manley is a long-serving compiler of crosswords in the UK. He has supplied puzzles for the Glasgow Herald, Radio Times, The Spectator, The Independent, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and the Financial Times among others...
|
Pasquale |
x |
Quixote |
Bradman |
x |
|
| Roger Phillips |
|
x |
Nestor |
|
|
|
| Richard Rogan |
|
x |
Bannsider |
|
|
|
Roger SquiresRoger Squires is a British crossword compiler, living in Ironbridge, Shropshire, who is best known for being the world's most prolific compiler ....
|
Rufus |
|
|
Dante |
x |
|
| Eddie James |
Brummie |
|
|
|
|
Cyclops |
x - Denotes a compiler operating without a pseudonym in this publication.
In addition, Roger Squires compiles for the Glasgow Herald and the
Yorkshire PostThe Yorkshire Post is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds, England by Yorkshire Post Newspapers, a company owned by Johnston Press...
.
Roger SquiresRoger Squires is a British crossword compiler, living in Ironbridge, Shropshire, who is best known for being the world's most prolific compiler ....
and the late Ruth Crisp set at various times in their careers for all 5 of the broadsheets.
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)
- 101 Cryptic Crosswords: From The New Yorker edited by Fraser Simpson (Sterling Publishing 2001)
External links