Whimsical indicators tell the solver to perform a manipulation which cannot be justified simply by reference to the dictionary. So in the clue “Suppress detailed report (3)” the last letter in BANG must be removed, producing BAN. While the verb ‘tail’ can mean ‘to provide with a tail’, there is no such word as ‘detail’ in the sense of ‘to remove the tail from’. However, this construction is frequently seen, at least in blocked crosswords.
Some of these indicators strike me as more appealing than others, and I have graded the entries in the list from category 1 (I would consider using these myself) to category 3 (very questionable indeed). The inclusion of a question mark (or something along the lines of ‘perhaps’) in a clue can help to point the solver in the right direction.
Note that there is also scope for similar whimsy in definitions, eg ‘unlocked’ or ‘distressed’ for BALD. It’s probably fair to say that whimsical definitions are generally viewed more favourably than their counterparts in wordplay.
I have not included words which need to be arbitrarily split in order to provide the instruction, eg ‘cleaving’ to indicate the removal of C or ‘lout’ for the omission of L; these fall into a separate category and their use in cryptic crosswords has no linguistic basis.
The list below can be sorted alphabetically on Indicator, in either ascending (default) or descending sequence. The Search box allows full and partial searching of the first column in the list.
Date last modified: 27/11/23
Nature of change: Baseline date established
Indicator | Action | Justification | Acceptability |
---|---|---|---|
childless | Removal of CH | 'without children' | 1 |
debased | Removal of E | 2 | |
decent | Removal of C | 3 | |
defaced | Removal of first letter | 1 | |
defined | Removal of F | 2 | |
degaussed | Removal of G | 2 | |
denoted | Removal of N | 2 | |
departed | Removal of PT | 2 | |
detailed | Removal of last letter | 'tail' = 'to provide with a tail' | 1 |
disclosed | Removal of CLO | 2 | |
disclosed | Removal of last letter | 2 | |
discontented | First and last letter selection | 2 | |
discovered | Removal of first and last letters | obsolete meaning = 'uncovered' | 1 |
discredited | Removal of CR | 2 | |
disfigured | Removal of FIG | 2 | |
disjointed | Removal of J | 2 | |
extra-special | Containing S (or SP) | 2 | |
extraordinary | Containing O | 2 | |
footloose | Removal of F | 3 | |
listless | Removal of first and last letters | 2 | |
powerless | Removal of P | 'deprived of power' | 1 |
replaced | Anagram | 2 | |
reposed | Anagram | 2 | |
represented | Anagram | 2 | |
reserved | Anagram | 2 | |
soft-hearted | Insertion of P in middle | 1 | |
stoneless | Removal of ST | 1 | |
sunless | Removal of S | 1 | |
timeless | Removal of T | 'independent of time' | 1 |
unanswered | Removal of A (or ANS) | 2 | |
uncrowned | Removal of first letter | 1 | |
undated | Removal of D | 2 | |
unearthed | Removal of E | 2 | |
unfathomed | Removal of F | 2 | |
unfocused | Removal of middle letter | 2 | |
unleaded | Removal of first letter | 3 | |
unlined | Removal of L | 2 | |
unlisted | Removal of first and last letters | 3 | |
unmarked | Removal of M | 2 | |
unnamed | Removal of N | 2 | |
unnumbered | Removal of N | 2 | |
unshipped | Removal of SS | 2 | |
untrained | Removal of last letter | 2 | |
upended | Reversal of last two letters (down clue) | 2 | |
weightless | Removal of W | 1 |
If discontented can be a selection of the first and last letters, can contented mean a selection of the contents of a word?
That question is between you and your conscience! With ‘discontented’, I think one could argue that there are analogous participles which do indeed carry the sense of something concrete having been removed, eg ‘disgowned’ and ‘dishoused’. I can’t come up with anything analogous to ‘contented’ that would have a parallel meaning to the one required; I suspect if one were to accept ‘contented’ to mean ‘having had some of the contents extracted’, one would also have to accept, say, ‘parted’ (fancifully, ‘having had a part extracted’).
Incidentally, I have seen ‘content’ used as a selection indicator in clues. I think this is an error – ‘contents’ is the term for something contained in entirety, whereas ‘content’ refers to a component – the contents of a book are quite different from the content of a book (“Lady Chatterley’s Lover has adult content”).
Your question has also prompted me to reconsider ‘disheartened’, which appears in the list of first/last letter selection indicators, but is a negative of ‘hearten’ and could only be used to describe the figurative removal of ‘heart’ (not ‘a heart’). It could easily find itself relegated to the whimsical list. At the same time, I think ‘downhearted’ should be added to the whimsical list as an instruction to move the central letter of a ‘down’ solution downwards.
Would ‘replaced’, cryptically read as re-placed(=repositioned), merit inclusion in this list; probably as a ‘2’? I look forward to a de-tailed response 😉
Thank you for that.
Yes, absolutely. I think ‘reposed’ and ‘reserved’ also should be there. An interesting one is ‘represented’, which currently is in the main anagram indicator list, but should (I feel) appear there with a hyphen and here without – even OED admits that its examples without the hyphen are ‘somewhat doubtful’.
As I was browsing through possible ‘re-‘ words, I also wondered about ‘repaired’ – would ‘Lena repaired section of motorway’ work for LANE? It might require a new ‘4’ category of its own!