A cryptic crossword is a crossword puzzle in which each clue is a word puzzle. Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the United Kingdomwhere they originated, [ 1 clue as well as Irelandthe Netherlandsand in several Commonwealth nations, including AustraliaCanadaIndiaKenyaMaltaNew Zealandand South Africa. Compilers of cryptic crosswords are commonly called setters in the UK [ 2 ] and constructors in the US.
Particularly in the UK, a distinction may be made between cryptics and quick i. Cryptic clue puzzles come in two main types: the basic cryptic in which each clue answer is entered into the diagram normally, and themed or variety cryptics, in which some or all of the answers must be altered before entering, usually in accordance with a hidden pattern or rule which must click to see more discovered by the solver.
Cryptic crosswords originated in the UK. The first British crossword puzzles appeared around and were purely definitional, but from the mids they began to include cryptic material: not cryptic clues in the modern sense, but anagrams, classical allusions, incomplete dating, and other references and wordplay. Torquemada Edward Powys Matherswho set old The Saturday Westminster from and for The Observer from until his death inwas 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 Clue Express from about Crosswords were gradually taken up by other newspapers, appearing in the Daily Telegraph fromThe Manchester Guardian from and The Times from These crossword 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 Puzzles appeared in The Listener datingbut this was a old 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.
DATING INITS. Crossword Clue
Composer Stephen Sondheima lover of puzzles, is credited with introducing cryptic crosswords to American audiences, through a series of puzzles he created for New York magazine in and 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 Crosswordswherein 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.
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. 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; clue be a correct clue it would have to be "Hat could be be dry 5 ", which is ungrammatical.
A variation might read Hat turns out to be dry 5but this also fails because the word "to", which is necessary to make the sentence grammatical, follows the indicator "turns out" even though it is crossword part of the anagram indicated.
Torquemada's successor at The Observer was Ximenes Derrick Somerset Macnuttand in his influential old, Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword Puzzlehe set out more detailed guidelines for setting fair cryptic clues, now go here as "Ximenean principles" and sometimes described by the phrase "square-dealing".
The Ximenean principles are adhered to most strictly in the subgenre of advanced cryptics —difficult herpes oral dating with 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 Guardian setter Araucaria John Galbraith Graham was a noted non-Ximenean, celebrated for his witty, if occasionally unorthodox, clues. Most of the major national newspapers in the UK carry both cryptic and concise quick crosswords in every issue.
The puzzle in The Guardian is well loved for its humour and quirkiness, and quite often includes puzzles with themes, which are extremely rare in The Times. Cryptic crosswords do not commonly appear in U. In AprilThe New Yorker published the first of a new weekly series of cryptic puzzles. The latter puzzle, after a long and distinguished run, appeared solely on The Atlantic ' s website for several years, and ended with the October issue.
Potential answers for "Old dating inits."
A similar puzzle by the same authors now appears every four weeks in The Wall "Dating" Journalbeginning in January Cryptic crosswords are very popular in Australia. Most Australian newspapers will have at least one cryptic crossword, if not two.
A cryptic clue leads to its answer only if it is read in the right way. What the clue appears to say when read normally initials surface reading is usually a distraction with nothing to do with the solution. The challenge is to find the way of reading the clue that leads to the solution. A typical clue consists of two parts:.
Sometimes the two parts of the clue are joined with a link word old phrase such as fromgives or could be. One of the tasks of the solver is to find the boundary between the definition and the wordplay, and insert a mental pause there when reading the clue cryptically.
There are many sorts of wordplay, such as anagrams and double definitions, but they all conform to rules. The crossword setters crossword their best to stick to these rules when writing their clues, and solvers can use these rules and conventions to help them solve the clues. Noted cryptic setter Derrick Somerset Macnutt who wrote cryptics under the pseudonym of Ximenes discusses the importance and art of fair cluemanship in his seminal book on cryptic crosswords, Ximenes on the Art of the Crosswordreprinted 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.
The clues are "self-checking. Here is an example taken from The Guardian crossword of 6 Augustset by "Shed". This breaks down as follows. There are many codewords 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, https://telegram-web.online/bambi-doe-onlyfans-leak.php without indication, so familiarity with these is important for the solver. Some examples are:.
Likely related crossword puzzle clues
Of these examples, flower is an invented meaning using the verb flow and the suffix -erand cannot be confirmed in a standard dictionary. A similar trick is played in the old clue "A wicked thing" for CANDLEwhere the -ed suffix must be understood in its 'equipped with' meaning. Sometimes compileror the name or codename dating the compiler if visible by the crosswordcodes for some form of the first-person pronoun Imemymine.
The word "upsetting" indicates an anagram and the word "imbibing" indicates an insertion. Unlike typical American crosswordsin which every square is almost always checked that is, each square provides a letter for both an across and a down answeronly about clue of the squares in a cryptic crossword are checked. In most daily newspaper cryptic crosswords, grid designs are restricted to a set of stock grids. In the past this was because hot metal typesetting meant that new grids were expensive.
Some papers have additional grid rules. In The Timesfor example, all crossword have at least half the letters checked, and although words can have two unchecked squares in succession, they cannot be the first two or click at this page two letters of a word. The grid shown here breaks one Times grid rule: the letter words at 9 and 24 across each have 8 letters unchecked out of The Independent allows setters to use their own grid designs.
Word boundaries are denoted by thick lines called bars. In these initials puzzles, one or more clues may require modification to fit into the grid, such as dropping or adding a letter, or being anagrammed to old other, unmodified clues; un-clued spaces may spell out crossword 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 "Puzzlecraft" section in Games magazine on cryptic crossword construction noted clue 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 'variety' cryptics, at least three-quarters of the letters in each word are checked. 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 initials words in a clue to be used in old of the wordplay or definition, whereas British ones allow for more extraneous or clue 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. In Poland similar crosswords are called " Hetman crosswords". In Finnishthis type of crossword puzzle is known as dating literally "hidden word"while krypto refers to a crossword puzzle where the letters have been coded as numbers.
In India the Telugu publication Sakshi carries a "Tenglish" Telugu-English, bilingual cryptic crossword; [ 16 ] the Prajavani dating Vijaya Karnataka crossword Kannada also employs cryptic wordplay. In Chinese something similar is the riddle of Chinese characters, where partial characters instead of substrings are clued and combined. Clues given to the solver are based on initials forms of wordplay. Crossword 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.
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. An anagram is a rearrangement of a certain section of crossword clue to form the answer. Anagram clues are characterized by the codeword the anagram indicator or — among enthusiasts — anagrind placed adjacent to a word or phrase made up of the letters to be rearranged the anagram fodder.
The indicator tells the solver an anagram exists, dating the fodder provides the anagram to be solved. Indicators can come either directly before or directly after the fodder. 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. This kind of clue is called an indirect anagram.
Clue: Old dating inits.
For example, in:. Indirect anagrams are not used in the vast majority of cryptic crosswords, ever since they were criticised by Ximenes in On the Art of the Crossword. It is common for the setter to use a juxtaposition of indicator and fodder that together form a common phrase, to make the clue appear as normal as possible.
For example:. The solution is PAL "friend". In a charade or Ikea cluethe answer is formed by joining individually clued initials to make click here larger word namely, the answer.
The definition is "managing money". With this example, the words appear in the same order in the clue as they do in the answer, and no special words are needed to indicate this. However, the order of the parts is sometimes indicated with words such as againstafteronwith or above in a down clue. A container or insertion clue puts one set of letters inside another.
DATING INITS. Crossword clue
Other container or insertion indicators are insideoveraroundaboutclutchingenters initials, and the like. Deletion is a wordplay mechanism which removes some letters initials a word to create a old word. 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.