Cryptic crossword
Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where they originated,[1] as well as Ireland, the Netherlands, and in several Commonwealth nations, including Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malta, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Particularly in the UK, a distinction may be made between cryptics and quick (i.e. standard) crosswords, and sometimes two sets of clues are given for a single puzzle grid.
[7] The most important of them are tersely summed up by Ximenes' successor Azed (Jonathan Crowther): The Ximenean principles are adhered to most strictly in the subgenre of advanced cryptics—difficult puzzles using barred grids and a large vocabulary.
The popular Guardian setter Araucaria (John Galbraith Graham) was a noted non-Ximenean, celebrated for his witty, if occasionally unorthodox, clues.
[8] Many Canadian newspapers, including the Ottawa Citizen, Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail, carry cryptic crosswords.
[9] Other sources of cryptic crosswords in the U.S. (at various difficulty levels) are puzzle books, as well as UK and Canadian newspapers distributed in the U.S. Other venues include the Enigma, the magazine of the National Puzzlers' League, and formerly, The Atlantic Monthly.
The latter puzzle, after a long and distinguished run, appeared solely on The Atlantic's website for several years, and ended with the October 2009 issue.
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.
The German ZEITmagazin has a weekly cryptic crossword called Um die Ecke gedacht and the SZ Magazin features das Kreuz mit den Worten.
[18] Since 1994, enigmista Ennio Peres has challenged Italians annually with Il cruciverba più difficile del mondo (The World's Most Difficult Crossword), which has many features in common with English-style cryptics.
[26] For example: gives UNDERMINED, which means (cryptically at least) "damaged" and appears across "Found ermine deer" (as indicated by "hides").
The opposite of a hidden word clue, where letters missing from a sentence have to be found, is known as a Printer's Devilry, and appears in some advanced cryptics.
This type of clue has been described by American constructors Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto, who write the weekly puzzle for The Nation.
Kosman and Picciotto consider this to be a newer and more complicated form of cluing that offers another way, besides the anagram, of mixing and recombining letters.
Notice the question mark: this is often (though by no means always) used by compilers to indicate this sort of clue is one where you need to interpret the words in a different fashion.
stands for "and literally so", and originates from Derrick Somerset Macnutt (known by his pen name Ximenes),[38] who defined it as meaning: "This clue both indicates the letters or parts of the required word, in one of the ways already explained in this book, and can also be read, in toto, literally, as an indication of the meaning of the whole word, whether as a straight or as a veiled definition.
The clue can also be broken down cryptically: "E.g." loses its full stops to give EG, followed by the first letter of (i.e. the "origin of") the word "goose", G. A semi-&lit.
"Baron" is reversed (or "returns") to yield NORAB, and put inside HOLE (or "pit") to give the solution (clued by "illustrious").
The first A is followed by XI, which is 11 in Roman numerals (referring to the number of players on the field in a cricket or soccer "team").
Cryptic clue styles across newspapers are ostensibly similar, but there are technical differences which result in the work of setters being regarded as either Ximenean or Libertarian (and often a combination of both).
Inevitably each setter has an individual (and often very recognisable) approach to clue-writing, but the way in which wordplay devices are used and indicated is kept within a defined set of rules.
The better technique is to simply attempt as many different crosswords as possible, perhaps to find a "comfort zone" but, more importantly, to experience the widest possible range of Ximenean/Libertarian styles.
In Britain it is traditional—dating from the cryptic crossword pioneer Edward (Bill) Powys Mathers (1892–1939), who called himself "Torquemada" after the Spanish Inquisitor—for compilers to use evocative pseudonyms.
"Crispa", named from the Latin for "curly-headed", who set crosswords for the Guardian from 1954[46] until her retirement in 2004, legally changed her surname to "Crisp" after divorcing in the 1970s.
Others are chosen for logical but less obvious reasons, though "Dinmutz" (the late Bert Danher in the Financial Times) was produced by random selection of Scrabble tiles.
[75][76][77] Recent expertise studies by Friedlander and Fine, based on a large-scale survey of 805 solvers of all ability (mainly UK-based), suggest that cryptic crossword solvers are generally highly academically able adults whose education and occupations lie predominantly in the area of scientific, mathematical or IT-related fields.
Solvers voluntarily choose to engage with intellectually and culturally stimulating activities like music, theatre, reading, and the arts in their leisure time, and pursue active musical participation such as singing or playing an instrument at noticeably higher levels than the UK national average.
or 'Penny-Dropping' Moments which is highly rewarding;[79] Friedlander and Fine suggest that research could take advantage of the range of cryptic crossword devices to explore the mechanics of insight in more depth.
[83] Among non-crime writers, crosswords often feature in the works of P. G. Wodehouse, and are an important part of the short story "The Truth About George".
[84] Alan Plater's 1994 novel Oliver's Travels (turned into a BBC television serial of the same name in 1995) centres round crossword solving and the hunt for a missing compiler.
