But it wasn't until 1910 that the first 'cryptic' clue, in the modern sense, appeared, in a puzzle devised by
Professor Ian MacNutt (known by the pseudonym Xylophone). The clue was:
Great Scott! Gladstone's wife mangled then dismembered by velocipede's spokes! (4,5)
(Seasoned crossword solvers, who are used to more demanding fare these days, will immediately see that the answer is CORN DOLLY.)
Faced with this new type of clue, the public deserted the crossword in their millions, preferring the brainless new 'Word Search' games, and the puzzles
were relegated to the back of the broadsheet dailies.
Today in England the cryptic crossword thrives in the Times, Telegraph and Guardian newspapers, the setters often known only by their noms-de-guerre.
The most celebrated are probably Araucaria, Poncho, Himmler, Castrato and Roger Hargreaves. A cryptic crossword also runs every day in the New York Times,
Washington Post and Baghdad Evening Standard.
How to solve a cryptic crossword
First, the good news. For those in the know, cryptic crossword is easier than the regular crossword!
This is because it contains two pointers to the answer: the definition part and the wordplay part.
The definition is the synonym you would find in a regular crossword.
For instance, the clue might be 'Rising (8)', and you will write HAURIENT in the grid. Other easy examples are:
Protuberance = INION
A region of mist = NIFLHEIM
Subordinate canine = DEPUTY DAWG
The wordplay section of the clue can take many forms, and therein lies the puzzle's fiendishness. How do you know which form it is?
Well, there will be an indicator. Let us take each type of wordplay in turn.
Anagrams
Here, you jumble up certain letters to form the answer. The indicator will be a word that means 'mixed up'.
Example:
Angle about for beautiful creature (5)
We immediately see that the anagram indicator is about. An anagram of angle gives us Jessica LANGE, a beautiful creature.
Hidden Words
In these clues the answer is simply staring you in your rather fat face, for it is hidden within two or more words. The indicator will be a word that means 'hidden'.
Example:
Excrement within lycra poodles (4)
Within indicates a hidden type of clue. And we see the letters A POO, which is of course excrement.
Double Meanings
The English language is full of ambiguous words
(for example bush, which is of course a shrub, but can also mean a religious hypocrite in control of a large army).
This type of clue plays on such ambiguity.
Example:
Buoyant lamp (5)
We have to find a five-letter word that means both lamp and buoyant.
The answer of course is SMACK, which is a drug that causes buoyancy, and if you smack someone you are said to lamp them.
See how important it is not to take things literally!
Homophones
These are clues in which the answer sounds like all or part of the wordplay. The indicator will be a phrase meaning heard or spoken.
Example:
Hurry, Cain! Sounds like a gale! (10)
Gale is a gust, but it is also a girl's name — 'girl' sounds like 'whirl'. 'Cain' sounds like 'cane,' and if you cane something you are said to 'wind' it, so we have WHIRLWIND, which is what you are like if you are in a hurry.
Charades
Here, you must form the answer from bits and pieces scattered about the clue.
Here's a simple example:
East wood for Western star (8)
In crosswords, East is often abbreviated to E. Then we have wood, which is a type of golf club designated a
number from 1 to 5. For can be transcribed as the number 4. Finally Western is given the letter W, as we have seen.
So the answer is E123454w, which is the name of a pulsar (a type of star) lying in the constellation of Orion,
about four arc-seconds below the famous Great Nebula. It is not visible with the naked eye, but was picked up by researchers
in the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico in 2005. Observations suggest that it weighs as much as our entire galaxy,
spins at three millions times a second, and is the size of a sugar lump.
Putting it all together
Finally, for those who fancy a challenge, here is the complete Times Prize Crossword of November 11th 2005. This was won by a trucker,
Neville Hardcastle, who managed to finish it in just 35 seconds. Even more amazingly, he was driving at the time.
Too difficult? Click here for the solution.
|
Edmund Querio
|
