Next, we’ll take a five-letter country name down to four. So here’s Picaroon (a novelist among other things):ġ7dBetter country with 20% less stock (7)īefore any chopping, we swap “better” for a synonym (CAP). But it’s not always that simple …Īdding or removing the x% may not give us the whole answer. We take “salaries”, replace it with a word we happen to have mentioned in the previous clues (WAGES) and lose 20% for AGES (“a long time”). Here’s Qaos, who’s a mathematician and quite fond of a “%” in a clue:Ģ5dFor a long time, salaries drop 20% (4) In fact, if it might look insultingly easy to give us the word we’re to chop, we might get another that means the same thing. This time, we remove the first halves of YOUR and WAGE, leaving UR + GE: URGE (“strongly recommend”). Here’s sometime academic and bookseller Arachne:ġ1dStrongly recommend 50% reduction in your wage (4) Is it always to be the first half of some word? It is not. Philistine hopes we will take the first halves of the words “Take pies or cake”, giving us TA + PI + O + CA: TAPIOCA, defined by the rest of the clue (“starch”). Here’s an example, from heart surgeon and crossword compiler Philistine:Ģ4aTake pies or cake – all 50% starch (7) Sometimes, setters are considerate enough to tell you precisely how much to chop. The Shipping Forecast Puzzle Book by Alan Connor, which is partly but not predominantly cryptic, can be obtained from the Guardian Bookshop.Solving crosswords entails a lot of finding words and chopping them up. Individual letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M. Seasoned solvers: do you have any favourite examples? Beginners: any questions? More guidanceĬryptic devices: hidden answers double definitions cryptic definitions soundalikes initial letters spoonerisms containers reversals alternate letters cycling stuttering taking most of a word naked words first and last letters middle letters.īits and bobs: Roman numerals Nato alphabet Greek letters chemistry abbreviations for countries points of the compass playing cards capital letters boys and girls apostrophes cricket alcohol the church Latin royals newspapers doctors drugs music animals cars cities rivers boats when the setter’s name appears when the solver appears “cheating”. In the Brendan puzzle cited, every clue ends in “, say” as a masterclass in the ambiguities to which we all willingly and repeatedly subject ourselves. Finally, the word “say” in a clue unlocks many more possibilities than the two mentioned above. We’ve looked at examples as definitions, but they can also of course be part of the wordplay, as in this from Picaroon …ġ0aChecks possibly amber clothing at home (5,2) Newspapers have had various rules on this kind of thing down the years and sometimes an example seems to work as a definition without any embellishments when it does and does not is the kind of thing that some setters and solvers enjoy discussing at great length.įor now, though, two final things. Here’s Vlad with some more birds …Ģ1aAngry report on Dirty Duck? (8) The quickest way of doing this job is the question mark.

Here, Brendan uses “saloon” as an example of a CAR, but new solvers should be aware that “say” in a clue might also indicate EG ( more Latin tips here) – and “eg” in a clue might also mean you’re being given an example of the answer. The setter might also use “say”:ġ9aCoke and rum originally served in saloon, say (3) If Qaos had used, say, “periods of 366 days”, we’d be writing in LEAP YEARS without any of the pleasure of manipulating PLAYERS and REAL. Here’s Qaos:ġ2aPerhaps 2000 or 2020 players struggle to control Real’s midfield (4,5) This is especially useful when a definition would take the fun out of the exercise. The entry for “bird”, though, does not single out the EMU.Īnd so when Vulcan clues BIRD, he does it like this:ġ0aPerhaps hawk’s attempt to catch rook (4) īy itself, “hawk” would not be helpful, because we’re not looking for a hawk we’re looking for the sort of thing a hawk is.

If we look up EMU in Collins Dictionary, we discover – among such extra details as its number of toes – that the EMU is indeed a bird. Here’s a recent example from Pasquale in the quiptic, the Guardian’s puzzle “for beginners and those in a hurry”:ġ1dBird seen in the museum (3)

Crosswords for beginners