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all about cryptic crossword clues
all about cryptic crossword clues
Please use the comments form attached to this page for any general feedback relating to the site.
I enjoy this site and find it really helpful with pondering different clues. May I suggest you look into LetsEncrypt and move the site to SSL? I ask, because I keep getting browser complaints about the site not being secure.
Hi Darren
Thanks for your post. I’ll see what I can do – watch this space!
Update: it’s going to involve a change of hosting plan…I’m going to look into the available options.
Hi Darren
I have bitten the bullet and invested in an SSL certificate. Do let me know if you are still getting any grief from your browser.
Another potential anagram indicator.. “woven”
“Weave: To combine, mingle or work together into a whole”
Thanks, Johannes
Yes, I think ‘woven’ is fine, also ‘weaving’ based on weave[2] in Chambers. I’ll add them at the next update.
Hi. Today’s “Minute Cryptic” puzzle employed “rejection” as a reversal indicator, the reasoning being that if something is rejected, it
is returned, or sent back. How do you feel about that? I notice that the Cryptic Lexicon does not include Reversal as a valid use of that indicator.
Hi Robert, and welcome to the blog
Thank you for your question. The short answer is that I don’t feel good about it at all. Its Latin origins might suggest ‘throwing back’, but Chambers offers no English meanings beyond that of the verb ‘reject’,
“to throw away; to discard; to refuse to accept, admit or accede to; to refuse; to renounce; (of the body) not to accept tissue, a transplanted organ, etc from another source (med)”,
and I can’t think of any situation in English where it even implies reversal. If a delivery is ‘rejected’, it is refused; an item that is sent back would be ‘returned’. However, ‘rejected’ does come up from time to time in cryptics, and I have therefore added it to the Lexicon as an indicator of questionable pedigree. By the way, I think ‘rejection of’ is even less appealing than ‘rejected’, since even the meaning of ‘an act of throwing back’ wouldn’t be sufficient – it would need to mean ‘the result of throwing back’, along the lines of ‘reflection’.
Thanks for the reply!
Did you dismiss “worn out” as anagrind?
Ha! Hoist by my own thingummy! If I carry across my ‘shouted’ argument, then I probably shouldn’t allow ‘worn’ or ‘worn out’/’worn-out’ because any damage that they suggest is specifically the result of use or age. However, the rules (as you suggested) for anagram indicators tend to be looser than for other sorts, and I don’t think that they are likely to mislead (fairly or unfairly) in the way that ‘shrieked’, say, might as a homophone indicator. I’m happy to include them.
“drop” as advanced homophone indicator perhaps?
“To let fall (words, a hint, etc.); to utter casually or by the way. Also with object clause.”
Thanks, Johannes
That’s a tricky one. ‘Drop’ clearly suggests saying something in a particular way (casually or seemingly so). My problem is that if I accept something with that ‘profile’, I would have to include other words which similarly indicate a particular style of articulation – ‘shouted’, ‘murmured’, ‘barked’, ‘exclaimed’ and a whole lot more. The fact is that a true homophone ‘works’ regardless of the way it is uttered (unless the indicator is ‘mispronounced’), and implying that tone or style is significant strikes me as unfair on the solver. I wouldn’t be happy about ‘Number also sung’ for TWO (sounds like ‘too’), even though I couldn’t say whether Kajagoogoo were singing ‘Too shy’ or ‘Two shy’ on their 1983 hit. Does that seem reasonable?
Oh interesting, I didn’t notice the absence of words like “shouted”, I have to say I’m a little surprised that you take issue with them. We don’t have any problems with all sorts of colourful indicators for other operations, (the letters are “rearranged”, they don’t have to be “buffeted”). Is it a matter of homophones being a little tricky and therefor limiting the number of possible indicators is warranted?
This cryptics fandom list for example has “sung” and “mumbled”, but doesn’t have “shouted”, “whispered”, “barked” and no doubt numerous other possibilities.
Hmm..
I wasn’t wrong when I said it was a tricky one! I wouldn’t accept ‘buffeted aggressively’ or ‘buffeted gently’ as anagram indicators, which is why I don’t much like ‘yelled’ or ‘whispered’, but I do take your point. The only two homophone indicators that clearly suggest volume level or tone given by the Chambers Crossword Dictionary (not a favourite of mine, by any means) are ‘murmur and ‘mutter’. For the reasons I gave in my earlier post, this makes no sense to me – the only reason to include these but not a raft of others would be if they were intended to indicate not a homophone but a “Send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance” or “Good thing Wendy’s mouse looks stout” kind of thing, ie a mishearing.
I think the appropriate compromise here is to enhance the introduction to the Homophone Indicators page by adding that there are many other words which could indicate articulation of a particular word or words, and as such could potentially introduce a homophone. There are just too many to list individually (‘shrieked’, ‘declaimed’, ‘ventured’, ‘expressed’, ‘phrased’, ‘bayed’, ‘squawked’, ‘bellowed’, ‘sighed’, ‘ranted’ etc etc), although my preference would certainly be for those that clearly suggest the words being delivered (i) specifically by sound (so not ‘phrased’), (ii) in a way that they can be clearly heard (so not ‘mumbled’), and (iii) with their normal spoken pronunciation (so not ‘barked’, which suggests distortion, as in “‘shun!” for “attention!”). So ‘shouted’, for instance, would tick all those boxes. What do you reckon?
Update: George Ho’s database suggests that ‘shouted’ and ‘sung’ are the only two homophone-indicators-with-attitude likely to be encountered, so I will add them together with a covering note as outlined above.
Is “infinite” as last letter deletion indicator commonly used, or should it perhaps be marked as advanced?
Hi Johannes
Thanks for that. I can find very few examples of it being used in ‘back page’ cryptics, and, although it means ‘without end or limit’, can that really translate into the omission of something that would otherwise have ended the thing being described? Arguably, ‘endless’, ‘interminable’ and ‘unending’ all have the same problem, as none of them are quite the same as ‘unterminated’. However, for the moment I think I’ll keep things simple and, as you suggest, change ‘infinite’ from ‘standard’ to ‘advanced’.
Quick question regarding a clue I’m writing..
Would it be possible to justify “quarter final” as an indicator for the last quarter of a word?
I know final can be used as a noun to refer to the last part of something, but wonder if it’s too cheeky with that ordering? Could I expect the solver to read it as “quarter (final)” for the wordplay?
It’s generally considered that using punctuation to mislead the solver in the cryptic reading of a clue is unacceptable, but how often do I see something like ‘animal one lost’ for BE(a)ST, even in puzzles where accuracy is prized. Here, though, we’re talking about two missing commas (or a pair of missing parentheses), assuming that the indicator precedes the word(s) acted on. As so often, I think it all depends on the likely expectations of the solvers of the series of puzzles in which the clue appears – for the Listener, it wouldn’t get past the first vetter, but Guardian back-page regulars (say) are perhaps more inclined to expect – and enjoy – the unexpected, and might relish it. For me, it’s too much of a stretch, and the fact that in the surface reading it ought to be ‘quarter-final’ would convince me not to use it.
So.. “stepping up” as a drag and drop indicator.
I’m using it to indicate a movement of a letter one position higher in a down clue.
I just came across it being using in an across clue to indicate movement in the other direction..
“John Evelyn and Pepys? One’s stepping up for farmers (8)” DAIRYMEN Mephisto 3189
I assume this would be based on one of the other many definitions of up in Chambers? “Towards a centre (such as a capital, great town, or university)” .. “To a finish”?
Thanks, Johannes
There’s a substantial gap in the Drag and Drop section when it comes to the movement of one or more letters. We have a few, such as ‘x promoted’, but I can see that numerous other possibilities, particularly for down clues, are absent, such as ‘x rising/climbing’, ‘x taken/stepping/put up’, ‘x given a boost/lift’ etc. I will aim to address this when I do my next update (I probably won’t include all the ones which are close to being synonymous).
I think that the setter of the clue that you quote is probably relying on the Chambers definition of ‘step up’ as ‘to come forward’. On the face of it, this is quite compelling, but while ‘coming forward’ is definitely valid, I think that ‘stepping up’ is used specifically to describe someone emerging from the pack to a position of prominence. For that reason, although I wouldn’t use it myself, I would probably accept it in an across clue to indicate an element of a word being moved to the start, but not to an internal position nearer to the start.
Hi Doctor
I’ve only just noticed the apparent absence of ‘across’ in the containment indicators.
Seems quite common, and the similar ‘over’ is there, so it’s probably just an oversight.
Thanks, CG
I’ve never been entirely convinced by ‘over’ or ‘across’ as containment indicators, as it seems to me that the justification for them is thin. I can’t think of a situation in real life where they would truly suggest containment, so the question is whether the sense of ‘bridging’ is sufficient. This would require us to accept the continuity of the container being maintained when the contents are in place. However, as you say, ‘across’ is commonly encountered, and on balance I feel that it should probably be included alongside ‘over’ and ‘crossing’ (the alternative would be to exclude all three) and the need for consistency also means that ‘bridges’ should be there. I will make the appropriate changes.
Thanks.
I think I’d have stayed shtum if I hadn’t seen that you’d included ‘over’, which I know not everyone will accept – possibly on the grounds that the bridge analogy would mean that ‘under’ could be an insertion indicator!
I can’t decide whether to include them in the main list or put them only in the Lexicon as indicators which will be encountered in puzzles but are of questionable soundness. All thoughts welcomed!
How about “came across” / “comes across as” for homophone indicator?
“intransitive. To reach an audience or the public with a certain degree of success; to make oneself or itself understood or appreciated. Also more generally: to be perceived in a specified way; to give a specified impression.”
Hi Johannes
I like that, specifically the form including ‘as’, eg ‘Programme that comes across as vulgar’ for COURSE. An alternative phrasing would be ‘How programme comes across? Vulgar’, though I wouldn’t accept, say, ‘Lad came across floating marker’ for BUOY, because this really requires a non-existent passive form of an intransitive verb. In this respect, ‘comes across as’ is roughly equivalent to ‘sounds like’. I think ‘perceived’ is probably also valid, though, so ‘Lad perceived floating marker’ would work.
“Encase” as an addition to the containment indicators?
Hi Johannes
Yes, definitely. I can’t imagine using it in the active voice, but ‘encased in’ could certainly prove useful. Similarly ‘enrobe’, which I associate fondly with chocolate!
“enshrine” as well perhaps?
oh, and “enswathe”
I like ‘enshrine’, particularly for the passive form.
I’ve no problem with the soundness of ‘enswathe’, and I’ll add it to the Lexicon, but I’m not going to include it in the containment/insertion list because I can’t think when one would want to use it in preference to ‘swathe’.
Ah yes of course, didn’t notice “swathe” was already there 👍
Good day Dr Clue
In the Letter Selection list, under First and Last letters, we have the entry ‘heartless’, exemplified by “heartless chap = CP”. I’m all but certain that I’ve been ‘corrected’ in the past for not restricting this device to only middle-letter/letters removal in words of odd/even length. By that rule, we’d have “heartless champ = CHMP” whereas my reading is that the lists sanction “heartless champ = CP”. Same goes for ‘gutted’: whenever I’ve gutted a grouse, goose or rabbit, I’m definitely left with more than just the skin! For me, something akin to vacation/emptying is required for a ‘FLindicator”.
Any thoughts on this most welcome, thanks.
Good afternoon to you, and thanks for that
I suspect that I took my lead from Azed on this, as I did on quite a few indicators when initially putting the lists together. I can see from the archive that he has accepted (inter several alia) ‘heartless compiler’ for CR and ‘heartless Ebenezer’ for ER. He also allowed eg ‘square at heart’ for QUAR, but I think that HEART is correctly – but inconsistently – shown in the list as indicating only the middle letter(s). I’m absolutely with you – even the heart of a hearty lettuce doesn’t account for 75% of it. Unless anyone can provide a compelling argument to the contrary, I will re-categorize HEARTLESS, LACKING HEART and DISHEARTENED accordingly.
While I agree about the gutting of game, a gutted building is an empty shell, and the second and third definitions of ‘gut’ (vt) in Chambers support this interpretation. But, taking your point, I don’t think that GUTLESS is valid as a FLindicator, ‘guts’ and ‘heart’ coming to much the same thing (except for surgeons). Again, I will update the core lists, marking the alternative sense as questionable in the Lexicon. GUTS, which appears in the deletion list (all except first and last) should also, I believe, be recategorized to align with ‘heart’, ‘core’ etc.
I wonder about CORED, DISEMBOWELLED and FILLETED – would you agree that they similarly fail the FLindicator test?
BTW, I don’t think that I’ve ever used any of the foregoing for F/L selection, which suggests that I wasn’t entirely convinced by them!
Good evening Dr C, and thanks for confirming my worries: I’d have been gutted had you not.
I do indeed agree that the suggested trio aren’t FLindicators (so might instead augment, along with ‘gutless’, the Mindicator list). I also agree that “gutted” can be interpreted as either middle-only deletion (eg fish or game) or terminal-only retention (eg derelict building).
While we’re on this LSI topic, the inimitable RJH long ago convinced me that ” ‘endless’, ‘interminable’ etc should indicate last-letter deletion only, with ‘boundless’, ‘limitless’ etc reserved for first-and-last-letter deletion. “
Excellent – thanks.
And how embarrassing! I have on more than one occasion (once in quite a vigorous exchange of views on fifteensquared) railed in print against the use of ‘endless’ to indicate the removal of the first and last letter – I believe that it only ever describes something that has a beginning but (seemingly) no end – and then I find that it is there in the list of FLindicators! Not for long, it isn’t!! I guess it’s been there mocking me since day 1.
I would agree about ‘interminable’, the only problem being that Chambers gives one of its synonyms as ‘boundless’. I can’t find an example of it ever being used to describe, say, lone and level sands stretching far away, so I’m going to take an executive decision and treat it identically to endless. Two more iffy ones for the Lexicon.
Good evening Dr Clue. With wonderful wafts of bank-holiday dinner emerging from the kitchen, I am minded to ask whether — unless I’ve missed something — ‘chops’ and ‘slices’ should be added to the insertion section of the C&C list. Thank you.
Hello Monk, and thank you.
I’ve been scratching my head over those two. Their only appearances in the current lists are ‘chopped up’ and ‘chopping’ to indicate an anagram, and ‘slice of’ for first letter selection (only the first of which I’d be likely to use myself).
Chambers gives ‘chop’ as ‘to abolish’ (Collins: ‘to dispense with’), so I think it’s fine as an expulsion indicator. It also has ‘chop’ as ‘to eat (vt)’, which seems to make it valid as a containment indicator, albeit an ‘advanced’ one.
Regarding the insertion aspect, I think ‘slice through’ and ‘slice into’ are definitely ok. There is a single example of ‘slice’ on its own being used as an insertion indicator in the Azed archive, but there’s also an example of it being used (uncompounded) to indicate expulsion, which I’m not at all keen on; there’s also one example of ‘chop’ being used for insertion.
Based on the Collins definitions, I’m inclined to accept ‘slice’ (‘to divide or cut (something) into parts or slices’), but I’m not entirely convinced about ‘chop’ (‘to cut (something) with a blow from an axe or other sharp tool’) – is the tool ever the subject of the verb, I wonder? I’m certainly open to persuasion.
BTW, I am delighted to report that in your honour I will also be adding ‘cowls’ as a containment indicator (of the advanced kind).
Thank you Dr Clue. I had in mind “chopping wood”, which in my mind — and DIY activities — indicates an act of division that is isomorphic to “cutting wood”. I think this is one of those cases wherein a practical application may not be first port of call as a definition for more academic lexicographers. And how lovely to see cowls making a brotherly appearance. I’ve always wanted Chambers to include a definition for a monastic carpenter: a dortour-door salesman 🙂
😄
For some reason the monastic carpenter put me rhythmically in mind of those late arrivals (back in the day) at the Home Furnishers’ Ball, Mr and Mrs Wall-Carpeting and their son, Walter.
I just don’t know about ‘chop’ – you could say that an axe can cut a log or split a log, but could it chop a log? Or would that only be the person wielding it?
😀 I fondly remember such wonderful puns in ISIHAC.
I see what you mean re ‘chop’, but my gut feeling is that, in the cryptic sense, ‘axe chops log’ and ‘man chops log’ are isomorphic. It’s only when we consider a realistic surface sense that the latter becomes ‘axe wielded by man chops log’. Subtle ground indeed! Interested to hear yours and others’ views.
I hoped you would know what I was talking about!
One could argue that nothing is entirely clear-cut in crosswordland, but there’s a point where I think that consistency becomes the overriding consideration. I have ‘wedge’ in the list of insertion indicators, and I think that ‘chop’ has very similar credentials. I’m minded to include it unless there are any objections.
…a question for you, if I may.
What do you feel about ‘internally’? Mindicator, all-except-FLindicator, both, or neither?
Not a problem.
Considering ‘internally’ as the (mathematical) complement of ‘externally’ — a letter string must comprise only internal and external components — I can’t help but see it as an A-E-FLindicator that allows selection of a well-defined but variable-length string, in which ‘well-defined’ is the technospeak for “saying what one means”. That’s why IMHO Mindies must indicate only 1/2 letters for words of, respectively, odd/even length.
It can of course get less-well-defined when substrings of words, possibly including a first or last letter, are to be indicated. For example, would you consider the following Monk clue (fresh out of the oven, for a future puzzle) to be sound: “Tough guy, smooth, wants threesome in romance (4,3)”?
PS In the above thread, could we have “karateka chops log” 😉
Thanks, Monk
That’s almost exactly how I saw it. ‘Feels’ right, as well. Incidentally, I was doing a pre-publication solve today of a puzzle for a forthcoming blog, and in one clue what did I find but ‘gutlessly allows’, leading to…AS.
Nice clue, which I consider 100% sound, with the only question relating to its fairness. At the (IMHO) unfair end of the spectrum would be, say, ‘letter’ for any single letter of the alphabet [pick any 1 from 26], with ‘small state’ for the abbreviated name of any state not far away. I’ve never liked ‘note’ for A/B/C/D/E/F/G [1/7] and ‘singleton in hearts’ strikes me as questionable for H/E/A/R/T/S – six possibilities for just a single letter [1/6]. But ‘pair in poker’ for PO/OK/KE/ER offers a considerably better ratio [2/4], while your ‘romance’ offers just five possible triplets. Given that those letters undergo no further manipulation (eg they aren’t part of an anagram), it seems entirely fair.
😃 Yes, I don’t see why not. Or ‘lamb chops Provençale’ (poor lady)
😆
“do up” as containment indicator?
OED: “2.a. transitive. To fasten (something) securely; to tie up, wrap up, make tight.”
“X does up Y”?
Hi Johannes
The problem for me is that the subject of the verb is always the person doing the wrapping rather than the wrapping itself – ‘He did up the parcel’, or ‘He did up the parcel with string’. I think it’s fine in the passive sense, though, where ‘by’ would indicate the agent and ‘in’ or ‘with’ the object of containment. So ‘X done up in Y’ or ‘X done up with Y’ would be valid.
Do you think there’s a case for disturbing/disturbs as an insertion indicator?
I’m not sure myself as it seems more suited to anagramming, but there was an example in the Times a few weeks ago:
Difficult week disturbing a protégé (7) AWKWARD
and I’m sure I’ve seen it there before.
Hi CG
The first Chambers definition of ‘disturb’ as ‘interrupt’ seems promising, but that still relies on the transitive relationship ‘disturb’->’interrupt’->’break in between’. The OED gives a group of meanings for ‘disturb’: ‘interrupt, derange, hinder, frustrate’, and I think that makes it clear that it is the sort of interruption that sleep, say, might suffer. I’m not convinced that ‘his sleep was disturbed by thoughts of a faulty clue’ really means that the thoughts are contained by the sleep, so I think it’s one of those that I’m inclined to add to the Lexicon as likely to be encountered, but not to include in the main lists.
Incidentally, the Chambers thesaurus offers synonyms for ‘interrupt’ under three headings – ‘interrupt a conversation’, ‘interrupt an event’, and ‘interrupt a view’. Several of the first group are certainly valid insertion indicators, but ‘disturb’ is in the second group, along with ‘disrupt’, ‘halt’, ‘suspend etc.
Thanks for the comprehensive reply.
I found another Times Quick Cryptic example later:
Nothing disturbing the playwright’s dog (POINTER),
but can’t see any examples from the other papers’ blogs, so I guess most editors currently lean towards what you are saying.
It’s a close one, but it doesn’t ‘feel’ quite right.
Your second example is interesting in the context of my brief item in the latest Azed notes about the inclusion of redundant articles. I would suggest that ‘playwright’ more accurately suggests PINTER than ‘the playwright’, and the surface would be perfectly good without it.
Unraveled as anagrind?
✅ unravels/unravelling/unravelled
Also ✅ Ravel (imperative). Ravels/ravelling/ravelled are valid, but I don’t include words that I can’t imagine ever being of use in a clue.