This chapter is a tour of the mental gymnasium, a breezy intro to the various pieces of cryptic equipment on the ground floor. You’ve already met anagrams, the most common of the brain-benders. Soon we’ll grapple with that formula at greater length—just to etch a neural pathway for all those hours of future puzzle-play—and then continue the circuit, testing our wits on seven other exercises, from charades to homophones.
Once you get a grip on all eight categories, you can either try your luck with the puzzles in Part Three straightaway, or, alternatively, for a full-body workout, you can graduate to ‘Guru yoga’, the advanced solving session.
Care to flex before we start? Grab a glass of water, a sweat towel, a quick banana? Your grey matter is set to stretch to snapping point—in a good way, of course. I’m only trying to train your cortex for the main event to come. Take a deep breath and let the brain-stretching begin.
I love how SNAKE holds SNEAK, or NOSTALGIA is a blend of LOST AGAIN, or GREASEPAINT hides in PAGEANTRIES. This is the simple reward of anagrams, where so many words can hide their alter ego, like TREADMILL whispering I MELT LARD, or FAD DIET confessing DIED FAT!
I totally dig how LANDSCAPING is made up of SCAN, PLAN and DIG—the holy trinity of rejuvenating a garden. Or how FIDGET SPINNER—the momentary madness of 2017—conceals its customary location: FINGERTIP’S END.
Though not every anagram reflects its source. RESCUED may well nestle in SECURED, just as PARENTAL can generate PATERNAL, but linking ASTRONAUT to ROAST TUNA seems a giant leap, and let’s not touch ADULTERY and TRUE LADY.
Still, the game is addictive, and underpins this popular formula. We’ve already met a few bugs in this vein, from the NICEST INSECT to an EARWIG, I WAGER. And if you recall, both example clues included a signpost that told you to mix—the anagram indicator.
You see the same thing in this clue from Orlando, a long-time setter for The Guardian:
Shopkeeper bursting into tears (9)
Previously, you might have been fooled by this clue. Fed a diet of quick crosswords and paperback novels, you may have fallen for the narrative. Awww, the poor shopkeeper—is he alright? Why’s he weeping? Did his cat die?
Not now. Now your brain is adapting to a new way of thinking. Now you sift the language for signs of the lurking anagram. Orlando’s clue has two possible signposts—bursting and tears. (And don’t think the salty sort of tears, but rips and scratches. Reject the story and rethink the potential of each and every word.) So then, which sign do you obey?
Asked another way, which indicator sits adjacent to the likely batch of nine letters, the raw materials to build the solution? Shopkeeper has ten letters, so we can rule that word out as fodder (crossword-speak for the letters needed to make the anagram, the pieces that deliver the whole). If tears was the signpost, then there’s no adjacent fodder to jumble that owns the right amount of letters.
Hence the spotlight lingers on the phrase into tears, a neat nine letters. Could they be our fodder?
If so, then they hide a nine-letter word. Better still, if our theory is sound, that word means shopkeeper, the only part of the clue yet to be assigned a role.
Those earlier bug clues showed that no word is wasted in a cryptic clue, not a scrap, not a syllable. Every word has a secret mission to fulfil. Your job as solver is working out what those roles are.
Have you found that missing shopkeeper? Mixing nine letters in the brain is probably about three letters too many for most mortals. It can be extra difficult when distracted, so fetch some paper and a pen. Jot down those nine letters: INTOTEARS.
Notice I said nine letters, not two words. Because INTOTEARS may as well be TIRONSTEA, or NESTITORA. Why abide by their original order? The phrase is not a phrase anymore, but an overlong Scrabble rack, the clue telling you to burst the batch into something new—a shopkeeper.
SIENATROT. TSOAIRNTE. AEINORSTT …
Another approach many solvers try is the wheel method, spinning the fodder into a loose array, the easier to see the letters’ potential:
Does that help?
Unless the answer is a brand, or notable retailer’s surname, the nine-letter shopkeeper is likely to be a job ending in IST, such as pharmacist or florist. Or maybe ER, like grocer or bookdealer.
We call this cluster theory. It’s handy in the anagram game. You look at the meaning of the mystery word—in this case shopkeeper—and surmise what shape the solution will take. If the definition is pasta, then try combinations ending in I or A. If sport is mentioned, don’t ignore BALL or ING. Tempos often end in O, just as beliefs finish with ISM, and dinosaurs, AURUS. Not always, but these patterns recur. Books and films, by the same token, often open with THE, while a slew of synthetics kick off with POLY or end in ENE. It’s hardly the stuff of a Nobel Prize, but testing out clusters can be a great shortcut in finding your answer.
And what is our answer? It’s time to unmask Orlando’s shopkeeper. After your anagram practice, should you need more paper, you may need to visit your local STATIONER.
Now let’s push the envelope further to see how you cope with eight more anagram clues from various sources, including a few of my own. As all eight entail the anagram recipe, look for the likely signposts (any words suggesting change or disarray), plus the likely fodder, which must sit immediately to the left or right of the signpost.
ANAGRAM (a sampling)
abroad
amiss
anyhow
awfully
bubbly
bung
burst
byzantine
comic
complex
compound
correct
corrupt
crude
derelict
deviant
disorder
distress
do
doctor
eccentric
failing
flaky
fluid
foreign
founder
fragments
fraudulent
Gaga
go off
ground
hammer
Harrow
impromptu
in a state
in error
invalid
jars
junk
knit
knot
liberal
marshal
misbehaving
mobile
mongrel
motion
on the loose
otherwise
out to lunch
plastic
position
potty
pound
prepare
pulp
rash
recollected
recreation
Reformation
renegade
rent
rogue
sabotage
sack
salad
Scrabble
shift
shiver/ing
shot
sorry
splurge
spray
stray
structure
stuff
stunning
supply (in a supple way!)
suspect
swimming
tangled
tattoo
trip
vagrant
WAGs
waves
wear/ing
wind
windy
wrought
To boost your anagram cracking, take time to browse the box above for common signposts, noting how some (like doctor or plastic) are slyly camouflaged.
Oh wait, one more thing before we meet the examples. Now and then, a standard anagram clue is made more advanced by adding a conjunction, typically ‘and’ or ‘with’. It’s nothing to worry about—just an extra hurdle to clear. One example comes from Times puzzle 10,977:
Mirror for one, old and a bit cracked (7)
It’s a beautiful subterfuge, the clue’s surface as polished as a factory-new mirror. But if that mirror is old and a bit cracked, then you’re wise to ignore the linking word of and, and so identify the seven-letter anagram fodder as OLDABIT. Equally, you’d be smart to unthink shiny surfaces and antique looking-glasses, despite the seductive story, and consider mirror in another setting. Look more deeply. Think more widely. Consider for one—the phrase—as a further clue, the wording inviting you to treat mirror as a category example, being one among others of its kind. Sure enough, Mirror with a capital M, say, is a very different object. Not cracked but racked, lodged on Fleet Street’s newsstands. Sure enough, the moment you crack OLDABIT—skipping the clue’s conjunction—you get TABLOID.
Anagram
1. Rocky terrain footwear (7) [Gila]
2. Bird place in resort (7) [DA]
3. Showed doctor he’s rude (7) [Arachne]
4. Urged on wild bear (7) [Imogen]
5. Stewed over rap song idea (8) [DA]
6. Halt cannon shot, showing composure (10) [Times 10,786]
7. Unwind with large one in pub (8,4) [Toro]
8. Fried dish cook made with a pan (8) [Times 10,348]
ANSWERS
1. TRAINER*, 2. PELICAN*, 3. USHERED*, 4. UNDERGO*, 5. AGONISED*, 6. NONCHALANT*, 7. WATERINGHOLE*, 8. EMPANADA*
[Note—the asterisk is used beside solutions to signal the anagram mode.
The information in square brackets after each clue reveals the setter/source.]
The final clue in the eight Anagram examples likewise relies on a conjunction. Just use the letter count to isolate the right fodder, and you’ll shuffle with minimal kerfuffle.
A bug can be a cockroach or a listening device. The same word can translate as a germ or a verb, a computer glitch or a Volkswagen model.
Double-definition clues exploit that polysemy, the fancy term for many meanings. English is notorious for polysemy, with so many entries in the dictionary owning multiple senses.
Tears can be eye dribble or holes in your jeans. Pen is a female swan, a sheepfold, a prison or something a stationer sells. Probing deeper, you’ll discover gig can mean a performance, a one-horse carriage, a racing boat, a fishing spear, a stickybeak or a data-storage unit.
You get the drift? (And by drift I mean the meaning, not the current’s tug, or the car’s deviation, or the snowpile …)
With more layers than a henhouse, English is custom-made for double-definition clues, a formula cinching two quick clues into one cryptic duet. Here’s one twosome:
Clever sting! (5)
This clue is care of Moley, an occasional setter with The Guardian. His exclamation mark seeks to dramatise the clue’s story and should be ignored, like a lot of punctuation in cryptic clues. (I’ll talk some more about punctuation in the chapter ‘Guru yoga’, with special attention paid to the curly question mark, and what it might suggest. But for now, let’s focus on Moley’s two words.)
That’s right—just two words. Brevity is a common feature of the double-definition formula. If a compiler is clever, she only needs to find the right two words where both selections denote the same solution.
Moley did just that, finding clever and sting to coin a false headline. (The exclamation mark seeks to sustain that newsflash veneer.) But really, all the clue is saying is: what one word means both clever and sting?
If the clue was a quick, you’d only get one of these two:
Clever (5)
Sting (5)
Neither of which will lead to a quick solution, since clever could denote WITTY, SMART, SHARP, CANNY or ADEPT, while sting may mean SCALD, PRICK, SMART, CHILL or PRANK.
Holy moly, did you notice something there? One word is on both lists: SMART is synonym to both clever and sting.
Compare that certainty to the freefall anxiety of a quick clue, where a single word points to several possibilities. Cryptic clues give you a double helping, allowing you to eliminate such doubts. Quick smart—put SMART in your grid. With ink.
Of course, where beginners need to exercise care is when nuance blurs the picture. A far more devious example of this clue style comes from Screw, also a Guardian setter:
In on (9)
Again the minimal length betrays the double-definition recipe. (This is useful to remember as you scan a bed of clues, wondering which recipes lie where, and which ones to unpick first.) And again, the clue’s brief length should tell you what you’re chasing—a word meaning both in and on.
Yet both words boast whole pages in the dictionary, so a solver must lean on their Sprachgefül (that German word from the ‘Vocabulary’ chapter, namely a feeling for language). What nine-letter word has both on and in as synonyms?
To ease your pain, the answer is HAPPENING: slang for fashionable (in), and a shorthand way of saying on—that is, being performed, or going ahead.
But don’t assume that every double-definition clue has only two words. As you’ll see, some can run to six or seven words. While this can make the formula harder to detect, the yin-yang principle is the same—two definitions coupling to denote one solution.
One more thing you’re bound to notice when tackling double definitions is the absence of a signpost. This makes sense: unlike the anagram mode, there’s no scrambling required. By dodging this obligation, the double-definition clue will be leaner than most.
So then, are you game? And by game I mean plucky, not a partridge or polo or a profession … Just remember, treat each part as a quick clue, and you should then make an:
Excellent guess (6) = DIVINE
Time for the twins.
Double definition
1. Not in shape (6) [Times 10,987]
2. Resist money (4) [Arachne]
3. Was sulky a basic form of transport? (5) [Anax]
4. Sweet stall (5) [Mudd]
5. Abridge legal document (8) [Hectence]
6. Less sensitive figure (6) [DA]
7. Escape death in operation (4) [Citrus]
8. Preparing to twerk after rest (8,2,3,4) [Donk]
ANSWERS:
1. SQUARE, 2. BUCK, 3. MOPED, 4. FUDGE, 5. CONTRACT, 6. NUMBER, 7. LIVE, 8. BRINGING UP THE REAR
Like double-definition clues, the cryptic charade also lacks a signpost. The reason is simple: just as anagrams swirl and stir, the charade is more about subdivision, breaking answers into smaller units.
If you’ve ever played charades, you know the drill. With no speaking allowed, the old parlour game relies on gestures to signal a phrase or movie. Take Charlotte’s Web, for example. The common tactic is to break the name into chunks, turning CHARLOTTES into CHAR+LOTTES, and then acting out the pieces.
‘First syllable,’ says your guessing team. ‘Sounds like … sounds like car? Second syllable … many? Plenty? Heaps? Oodles … ?’
This fracturing routine is also maintained in a cryptic setting. MAINTAIN, say, can be sliced into MAIN, TA and IN. APPROACH breaks into APP and ROACH. Even ANAGRAM resembles a line of farm animals with A NAG beside a RAM.
In case that feels a lot like mixing, note that the charade is more about respacing than recycling. In scientific terms, charades splits ATOM into A TOM, while the anagram mode prefers MOAT. Instead of smashing PARTICLES into CLIP RATES, as anagram clues will do, the charade formula prefers P plus ARTICLES.
For the record, a charade answer can be short (CON+DO) or long (FORT+HERE+CORD). It could be a name (JUST+IN+TIMBER+LAKE), or even divide a compound like SIGNPOST into two fresh meanings of SIGN and POST.
Charades can also be difficult, perhaps the hardest of the introductory recipes. So don’t fret if they don’t unravel easily; it takes a little practice to detect a charade in the wild, and a lot more time to master them.
To see how these specimens read, let’s examine (EX+A+MINE) a charade clue from one of my favourite compilers:
Officer swindles board (9)
The clue hails from the late Henry Hook, a champion compiler from New Jersey who died too young in 2015, aged only 60. ‘I got into the [crossword] business to torment people,’ he once told the New Yorker magazine. Good as his word, Hook could turn an unsuspecting brain into knots.
Perusing Henry’s clue, how do you break down the elements? Swindles in another setting might serve as an anagram indicator, but that theory has to be abandoned for want of nine adjacent letters to serve as fodder.
With such a short clue, you might suspect a double definition. But your answer would need to be a synonym of officer swindles or swindles board, and neither adds up. (Can you see the reasoning behind that? If a double definition is in play, then two of Henry Hook’s three words needed to be paired into a single unit. Yet both pairings seem unlikely—officer swindles or swindles board—so we need to unlock this clue with a different key.)
With your brain humming, you consider the charade recipe, the idea boosted by the lack of obvious signpost. To test the waters you ponder synonyms. That’s the secret to cracking charades. Shrewd solvers will consult their mental thesaurus to see what other words can substitute for any in the clue. In Hook’s clue, there are three words. Try subbing them, testing out synonyms, with the emphasis on shorter replacements. By shorter I mean six letters or less, since your nine-letter answer will comprise two words.
Officer could be a major, a cop, a dean. Swindles could be cons or cheats, dupes or tricks. Board suggests plank or table, panel or embark …
Your best bet of that list is con (or cons), a fragment common to umpteen English words. Do you know an officer starting with CONS? Or a table ending with CONS?
Officer swindles board (9)
In rental jargon, full board means both accommodation and meals. Board is a quaint synonym for table, where those all-inclusive meals are served. Now add TABLE to CONS, or vice versa, and Hook’s undercover officer will flash his badge.
Charade clues demand a good vocab, plus the mental agility to see which synonyms click. Just to keep you guessing, the occasional charade will give you the actual fragment, rather than a synonym, such as:
Can adolescent make mess? (7) = CAN+TEEN
And if that’s not sly enough, a charade clue might also enlist a single letter among the pieces, or a cluster of letters that don’t necessarily spell a word. WORDS, for one, might be charaded this way:
Terms for women or dames outside = W+OR+DS
Spelt in full, that’s W (from women, the letter on toilet doors) plus OR plus DS (the outside letters of dames).
Fear not. You won’t be meeting such charades in the short term, but the time seemed right to show you how compact some sequences can be, relying on whole words and fragmentary letters to build the answer.
Sneaky right? See how you MAN+AGE—or COP+E—with these.
Charade
1. Posed wearing glossy fabric (5) [Columba]
2. UK actress Kate takes prize with permission (7) [DA]
3. UK model Naomi affected inventor (8) [DA]
4. Wild sheep breathe heavily (7) [Emily Cox & Henry Rathvon]
5. Confused by commercial break (6) [Portia]
6. Old Greek building standard formerly in operation (9) [Henry Hook]
7. Old Greek philosopher concerned with group of soldiers (7) [Orlando]
8. Old friend showing lack of resolution (9) [Phi]
ANSWERS:
1. SAT+IN, 2. WINS+LET, 3. CAMP+BELL, 4. RAM+PANT, 5. AD+RIFT, 6. PART+HEN+ON, 7. PLATO+ON, 8. STALE+MATE
Q: Did you hear the one about the homophone recipe?
A: Know. Eye knead yore guy-dunce.
Above is a glimpse of the next mind-trip. Or maybe sound-bite is a better label, since the homophone clue dwells in the audio realm. In good news for novices, the recipe demands a signpost, which is often easy to detect. Top of the list is say and hear, but any word or phrase denoting sound is, well, sound. Check out the box below for other possible indicators.
The ‘reel’ trick with homophones is the two-step strategy you need to adopt. To break that down, you must:
(1) Identify the synonym being suggested.
(2) Say that synonym aloud to ‘hear’ the answer.
HOMOPHONE (a sampling)
acoustic
articulate
by ear
called
catch
commentator’s
declared/declaration of
dictator’s
eavesdrop
expressed
in conversation
in reception
in/voice
narrator’s
noisy
on tape
on the phone
oral
oration
outspoken
parrot
phoned
pick up
picked up
pickup
podcast
pronounced
quoted
read out
readout
registered
related
report
reporter’s
so-called
talking
tape/d
tell/ing
teller’s
The Conversation
The Voice
under discussion
verbal
vocal
It ‘mite’ be wiser to show you one in action. Below is a clue by a British setter called Mudd, whose real name is John Halpern, a modern dynamo of cryptic brilliance. Across the mastheads he’s known as Paul (The Guardian), Punk (The Independent), Mudd (Financial Times), plus he’s a prolific setter for The Times, a puzzle whose setters remain uncredited on the page. See how you ‘fair’ with this offering:
Sound Indian location for shop (4)
Said another way, ‘Sound out a place in India to hear a type of shop’. Unpacked like that, the cryptic clue becomes simpler, since only one obvious candidate emerges. It can’t be coal-cutter (Kolkatta) or Pune (pooh-neigh), so it must be Delhi. Utter the city’s name aloud and you have the shop: DELI.
The clue is more lenient than others, as it has the audio-signpost right before the denoted word, telling you which word—or synonym—to voice. Homophones get harder if the indicator occupies the clue’s middle, such as a recast of Mudd’s clue:
Ordered that way, you need to figure out what needs sounding, the word produced by the left or right side of the indicator. Should a solver wish to decipher this redrafted version, the thinking would follow along these lines:
(1) The possessive apostrophe is saying the sound belongs to the location, not the shop.
(2) The answer has four letters, so Delhi spoken aloud becomes DELI.
Whenever dilemmas occur, answer length is often a handy toehold. Here in Mudd’s rejigged clue, if the answer has only four letters, then the synonym (here, the Indian location) must likewise be short. It stands to reason that when single words are involved, the word you say is likely to have approximately the same number of letters, with several of those letters being shared.
Yet homophones can turn nasty when a solution is broken down into audio-bits, much like an acoustic version of charades, as heard in Mudd’s next booby trap:
Diatribe, outspoken Siamese attack? (6)
Homophone
1. Small area of land, I’ll say (4) [Henry Hook]
2. Shopkeeper pronouncedly less refined (6) [Rufus]
3. Broadcast praises English cricket ground (5) [DA]
4. Extent of audible moans (4) [Quantum]
5. Just a pioneer aviator in the air? (5) [DA]
6. Wants to sound negligent (5) [Rufus]
7. Fabric noisily moved back and forth (5) [Henry Hook]
8. Fool appearing busier, we hear (5) [Paul]
ANSWERS:
1. ISLE (sounds like I’ll), 2. GROCER (grosser), 3. LORDS (lauds), 4. SIZE (sighs), 5. RIGHT (Wright), 6. LACKS (lax), 7. SUEDE (swayed), 8. MORON (more on)
This is a much more evasive clue, with two synonyms to fetch and then vocalise. Sure enough, the moment Thai (Siamese) and raid (attack) are outspoken, TIRADE is heard. ‘Thyme’ now for your own hearing check, with the final clue in the Homophone Examples box another double-bunger, much like Mudd’s Thai-raid.
Otherwise known as sandwich clues, the container recipe is a popular device. To see how they operate, notice how OPERATE is ORATE around PE, just as JUST is S sandwiched by JUT. Did you see how I changed the emphasis in those examples? Simple as it sounds, you need to keep in mind that OPERATE can entail ORATE around PE—or can see PE occupy ORATE.
Seems a superficial difference, but the choice of description is critical when tackling containers. Solvers must BEWARE a BEE can fly around WAR, or WAR may interrupt BEE, with either scenario delivering BEWARE. Put another way, X can sit in Y, just as Y can hold X, leading to the same result. So long as you follow the clue’s instructions—inserting or embracing—you’ll arrive at a solution that resembles a nest of two words to make a new word.
Bearing these two modes in mind, the container clue recruits one of two signpost styles. If containment is the mode, then look for words suggesting holding or nursing. And if insertion is the game, then seize such signs as amid or among, breaking or filling. (The boxes below list more.)
To give you a taste of both recipes, let’s look at two clues. Here’s the first sample, served up by Firefly, a setter with London’s Telegraph:
Maiden’s in stupor with punctuation mark (8)
Firefly employs the most popular signpost in the container racket—the all-time favourite of in. Remember, when you see in, suspect insertion.
To translate the clue into plain English, when you put maiden inside a word for stupor, you fashion a punctuation mark. (Keep in mind that back in the Charades segment women could be abbreviated into W, as per the powder-room door.) By the same token, cricket fans will tell you that a maiden—a bowler’s over that produces no runs—is commonly reduced to M.
Yes, this shorthand language is a feature of cryptic puzzling, enabling a setter to say a lot with very few words. Soon, before the abbrevs run rampant here, I will be looking at the common candidates used to denote a single letter. (See the Deletions segment for more.) But let’s get back to Firefly’s stupefied maiden while the iron is hot.
In so many words, what punctuation mark—the likely definition on display—has five letters, including an M. Even handier, what four-letter word for stupor can M occupy to help spell that missing mark?
CO[M]MA, of course. The clue is a golden example of the insertion command, where X goes into YY to create Y[X]Y.
The equation is again reflected in a Times construction, puzzle 11,123:
Pick up article in valley = GLE[A]N
Yet gleaning this style of container clue is only half the story. We need to see the other equation at work, such as in this clue by Busman, another UK Telegraph compiler:
Mole embraced single early settler (7)
(Busman is an alias of Tom Johnson, whose love for Malta’s esoteric bus-fleet provides his by-line. The same man is also Gozo—named for a Maltese town—in the Financial Times and Doc in The Independent, honouring a wordier namesake, the dictionary pioneer Samuel Johnson.) Sorry, let’s refocus on his clue:
Mole embraced single early settler (7)
To an experienced eye, the most telling word is embraced, that mainstay of container clues, where the ocean is engulfing the fish rather than the fish being in the ocean.
If that instinct is right, then a word for mole is embracing a word for single, the whole caboodle a synonym for an early settler.
See how I’ve sliced the clue for you? Tossing up between single early and early settler, the latter is more logical and the likelier definition, as long as embraced sits amid the wordplay’s container instructions. The clue can be parsed this way:
CONTAINER: HOLDING (a sampling)
about
absorbing
accept
accommodate
admit
adopting
around
assuming
astride
ate
bags
bandage
blanket
bottles
bound
boxing
cake
capture
carry
circle
clasp
clothes
clutch
collected
coming to grips with
couch
cover
detain
drink
eat
embrace
encompass
engulf
entertain
envelope
fencing
flanks
frame
gathering
getting around
gobble
grab
grasp
gripping
harbour
hedge
hold
host
house
home to
hug
including
inspire
jacket
keep
make a case for
mask
netting
outline
outstanding
over
pen
pinch
possessed
protect
restrict
robe
round
sandwiches
screen
seal
securing
seize
shackle
shelter
skirt
snare
stifle
stocking
store
suck in
surround
swallow
taking in
touring
trap
welcome
without
wrap
Mole around single = early settler
CONTAINER: BEING HELD (a sampling)
access
board
boards
boring
boxing
breaks
come into
cracking
don
feeding
fit
fit into
get [stuck] into
impede
in detention
introduced to
introducing
invested
laid into
lines
opening
parks in
parting
plug
resident in
stuffing
tuck into
tunnels
visit
visit/ing
CONTAINER EXTRA
Occasionally the container clue can play poetic, implying the act of cloaking (or being cloaked) by hijacking a common word or expression. For instance, any word or phrase starting with IN—such as INSTEAD, INDEED or IN CASE—could be enlisted for the task, though not always stated. As a foretaste:
Angry with me as a substitute? (7) = STEA[ME]D (me in-stead)
Wilier still, container clues could imply clothing or encasing, such as another homegrown clue:
Celebrate Oz dog, formally? (2,2,4) = GO[TOTO]WN (Toto in gown)
Rest assured, such constructions are rare. Nevertheless, it pays to put the more lyrical container clue on your watchlist.
Swap each of those three elements for synonyms, and you’re moments from boarding Busman’s chicanery. The answer, a synonym for early settler, in fact appeared a few paragraphs back, in reference to wordsmith Samuel Johnson.
Mole is neither a blemish, digger nor spy, but a structure extending into the water. Sure enough, build PIER around a word for single, and there you have it: PI[ONE]ER.
Now it’s your turn to get stuck into the next eight samples, a medley that commands you to insert as well as enwrap.
Container
1. Empty container found outside prison (6) [Quantum]
2. Complimented Fred drinking milky coffee (9) [DA]
3. Catches held in actual practice (9) [Columba]
4. Damp fog conceals nothing (5) [Henry Hook]
5. Keen to have creative work around office (6) [Mudd]
6. Married nursing assistant had babies (7) [Arachne]
7. Fight is eclipsed by all others (6) [Nutmeg]
8. Intrudes in health resort, breaking locks (10) [Gila]
ANSWERS:
1. VA[CAN]T, 2. F[LATTE]RED, 3. RE[HEARS]AL, 4. M[O]IST, 5. AR[DEN]T, 6. W[HELP]ED, 7. RES[IS]T, 8. TRE[SPA]SSES
You deserve a break, after breaking words down, uttering Indian cities, immersing maidens into comas. How’s the pulse rate? That was a lot of mental gymnastics in a few short pages, especially if you’re new to the sport. By way of relief—and reward—let’s meet the simplest recipe in the book. I’ve saved this as a deliberate pick-me-up, to give you a second wind.
It’s a bizarre story, but the so-called hidden formula delivers the answer intact, just as bizarre story hides ARREST and a LAD snoozes in formula delivers. The main challenge (which holds INCH) in solving a hidden clue is realising it’s a hidden clue. The moment you do, the solution is there in plain sight.
Helping you to make that discovery will be a signpost implying contraband, a nod towards the secret length of language being smuggled within the clue. See the box for the common indicators, including the most common trio of some, part and partly—plus the fourth musketeer, of.
For example, a clue from the late Yorkshire poet, Harold Massingham, better known to solvers as Mass in The Independent:
A creature of malevolence (4)
HIDDEN (a sampling)
a bit of
a little
a lot of
array
assimilate
attributes
bottled by
bridge
buried in
cake
captive
central to
characters in
components
concealed by
constituents
contained in
content
contributing to
elements of
encapsulating
essential to
essentially
extract
feature
feeding
fences
fragment
from
gems
harbour
held by
held in
hidden in
hostage
in
in part
join
letters from
lodger
nest
not entirely
not entirely visible
of
owned
part
part of
partial
passage
piece
piece of
pocket/s
prisoners
resident
sample
secretly
segment
series
shackled by
share
show
shows
slice
some
squirrels
stuffing
train
within
WOLF, maybe. CROC or ORCA also spring to mind. Or possibly BEAR or YETI, if your brain is locked into the literal. Whereas a cryptic thinker will start digging, looking at the letters of malevolence, burrowing for the answer like a VOLE.
It’s easy when you know how, which is why hiddens can torment. Of all the recipes, this black duck gives me the most grief, as I often overthink the ruse, looking for synonyms or anagrams when all the while the letters are on display, if I know where to look.
Like all other clue categories, the hidden mode does not squander a word. Every hidden clue entails three elements—definition, signpost and fodder (where the answer is covertly lying). Now and then the signpost and fodder can fuse, making this formula tougher to rumble, yet the principles remain inviolate. To illustrate that last point, here’s one of mine:
Bed inscribed (4)
How can two words carry three elements? Simple—two of those elements have united. Thus CRIB (your missing bed) is in/scribed. Watch out for such stratagems, and see how you cope with these eight examples.
Hidden
1. Type of pop provided by band is corny (5) [Shed]
2. Lunched daring, consuming cheese (7) [Times 10,786]
3. Musical creation of Sullivan, The Mikado (6) [Paul]
4. Scary figure in gym on steroids (7) [Qaos]
5. Building doomed if icebound (7) [DA]
6. Apply a bit of simple mentoring (9) [Hectence]
7. In winter a liaison, amongst other things (5,4) [Falcon]
8. A bunch of pseudos of the art editor kind (4-7) [Arachne]
ANSWERS:
1. DISCO, 2. CHEDDAR, 3. ANTHEM, 4. MONSTER, 5. EDIFICE, 6. IMPLEMENT, 7. INTER ALIA, 8. SOFT-HEARTED
Back in 1989, Cher longed to turn back time, if she could find a way. Thanks to this next cryptic recipe, the pop diva needs look no further. In the reversal formula, turning back is the key, a method that makes AVID out of diva making a comeback, or turns back time into EMIT.
Signposts for a reversal include words like reflect or reflection, or anything implying a switch in direction, such as the box below reveals. This is the recipe that celebrates the fluke of turning tops into SPOT, or that LAPTOPS arises from a capsized spot-pal.
That last gimmick highlights an added extra trick of solving this formula, as sometimes the answer may involve multiple words to switch. PINE NUT, for one, may hail from tune and nip or PINE GAP from page plus nip.
The other skulduggery to note is the answer’s location in the grid. For Across clues, the signpost will range among recalling, retiring, recoiling and so on—any verb to suggest letters ebbing from right to left, or heading in a westerly direction. Meantime Down clues will carry an indicator to signal climbing, rising, turning up, travelling north. Thus the signpost honours the motion within the diagram, whether the horizontal entry is moving back, or the vertical entry is travelling up.
Let’s meet one of each type to grasp the reverse gear. Firstly, an Across answer from veteran ocean sailor and compiler Gaff (alias Peter Willmot) in the Financial Times:
Sign that clownfish is back (4)
Finding the answer is a cinch if you consider Finding Nemo, the Pixar hit of 2003. But wait, is your answer NEMO, or the fish’s backwards cousin OMEN? Look at Gaff ’s clue—the wording is telling you. The clownfish is back to create the sign—OMEN is your answer.
Turning our attention to a Down clue, you’ll notice my signpost takes a turn upwards:
Explosive or metal upended? (5)
REVERSAL: UP AND BACK (a sampling)
about
all round
arising
around
ascend
ascendant
ascending
back
back-to-front
backfiring
backing
backslide
backtrack
backward
boomerangs
bring back
bring up
brought about
brought up
building
capsized
cast up
clambered
climbing
climbing up
come about
come back
come up
comeuppance
coming back
coming up
contrary
counter
cutback
cycle
drawn up
elevated
elevation
erect
escalating
flip
flipped
flipping
from below
from the bottom
from Down Under
from the south
go around
go back
go round
go west
going back
going north
going round
going up
head over heels
held up
hiking
hoisted
hold up
in circulation
in lift
in recession/ retirement
in retrospect
in return
in turn
inversion
invert
keel over
keep back
knock back
laid-back
left
lift
lifted
lifts
looking back
looking up
make a comeback
mounted
moved up
northbound
on the contrary
over
overthrow
overturn
overturned
perversely
picked up
pivot
promoted
put up
raised
raising
rear
rebuffed
recall
recalled
recede
recess
recoil
recurrent
reflect
reflection
reject
repulsed
retire
retired
retiring
retreat
retreating
retrograde
retrospective
return
reversal
reverse
reversed
reversing
reversion
reverted
review
revolution
revolutionary
rise
rising
rolling
rose
rotate
round
scaling
send up
sent back
sent up
serve up
set back
set up
setback
shoot up
shown up
soars
spun
stuck up
subversion
suffer setback
switch
take up
the wrong way
topsy-turvy
turn
turn back
turn over
turn up
turned
turning
turnover
turns
twisted
up
up-and-coming
upended
uplift
uplifting
uprising
upset
upside down
upstanding
upturn
upward
used up
withdraw
written up
Question: what’s the smallest metal name in the periodic table, even before considering symbols? It’s TIN, while OR-TIN (or metal) when upended makes the explosive NITRO. Kaboom!
Thinking outside the square is tough enough without thinking backwards outside the square, right? Don’t sweat. Reversal clues can be treacherous for a rookie to undo, but at least the formula’s signposts are reasonably clear, whichever way they point. Get that far, and the letters in the grid will help you see the right direction. That way you’ll discover an uprooted yam is MAY, while a golf setback is a FLOG. Time for your turn, with the last three clues entailing double-twists.
Reversal
1. Smack insect from behind (4) [Times 10,833]
2. Hamsters, perhaps, pace about (4) [Arachne]
3. Boat in waters going west (5) [Henry Hook]
4. Record reviewed for UK college (4) [Tramp]
5. Turn sack into puppet (4) [Columba]
6. Boy’s limb in lift (5) [DA]
7. Talk softly, overturning odds? (6) [Emily Cox & Henry Rathvon]
8. Mining district turns back Bedouin on border (7) [DA]
ANSWERS:
1. TANG<, 2. PETS<, 3. SLOOP<, 4. ETON<, 5. TOOL<, 6. NI+GEL<, 7. MUR+MUR<, 8. PIL<+BARA<
When Oliver loses face he produces LIVER. And when he fails to finish, the boy transforms into OLIVE. Or, when a H-dropping Cockney utters Harrow, a posh part of London, you end up with ARROW.
So goes the deletion formula, the last of the eight principal recipes. The key is clipping off a letter or more to fashion the solution. Sometimes that paring can be up the front, so learning graduates into EARNING. Or sometimes the bottom is scratched, so to speak, and Homer turns into HOME.
Note, there’s no mixing involved. It’s all about cherry-picking one piece from the pie, or picking out ce from piece to make PIE. Even DELETION can be viewed as a depleted version of depletion, losing its p—since subtractions can occur within a word’s midriff as often as either end. By the same measure, delectation or delegation can be reduced to DELETION when some central letters are removed.
Such an operation introduces a few new things to consider. The first is the probable array of deletion markers (see the signpost boxes below), while the second idea is called cryptic shorthand, the sort of sleight we’ve met before. Remember back in the Charades segment, when women led to W, as per the toilet symbol? Just as maiden was cryptic-code for M?
Deletion clues draw heavily on such ruses. To render ELATION from relation you need to remove its initial r. Often a setter will indicate this snip by saying things like topless or faceless, heading off or initially lost.
The other option is referring to that R in particular, calling on cryptic language to imply a single letter. R, in this case, can be denoted by river or Republican, right or resistance (as in physics), even rook and runs (from chess and cricket respectively). This may seem a bit of a stretch, but many of these codewords recur, giving you a chance to get fluent in the dialect. Check the abbreviations boxes below and you’ll soon get familiar with this secret cryptic alphabet.
Of course, a setter can turn creative too, straying from the shorthand staples to signify any given letter. Keeping with R, here’s a dozen other ways the letter might be singled out:
airbase (base of air)
computer terminal (‘terminating’ letter of computer)
Labor backing (the back of Labor)
lead to ruin
paperback
quarter-final (final letter of quarter)
rear end
restaurant starter
Romeo (from the phonetic alphabet used by radio operators)
rooftop
summer’s close
tenderfoot
While this type of guile won’t infest every puzzle, a rewired brain will be leery of such incognito indicators. Pencil lead may be graphite—or p. Bigfoot may mean sasquatch—or g.
DELETION: FIRST LETTER (a sampling)
after facelift
bar opening
behead
blow top
bow out
defaced
discovered
doff cap/hat
dropping head
fail to start
first to go
guillotine
headless
initiated
leaderless
lead-free
lost at The Front
masking face
needs no introduction
scratch head
skimmed
topless
topping
tops
veneer removed
wipe brow
DELETION: LAST LETTER (a sampling)
abbreviated
all but
almost
back away from
backdrops
baseless
briefly
clipped
contracted
cropped
docked
dropping behind
endless
Footloose
going short
inadequate
incomplete
last to quit
lose footing
Manx (no tail)
missing final
mostly
nearly
no closer to
no end of
one shy
scratching bottom
shortly
tip off
virtually
DELETION: MIDDLE OR CONTENTS (a sampling)
after vacation
content to go
discontented
disheartened
empty
evacuated
gutless
heartless
hollow
knocking stuffing out of
lose focus
not content
pitted
scratching belly
unfulfilled
unpacked
vacant
vacuous
DELETION: SIDES (a sampling)
exposed
fleeced
naked
no-frills
not taking sides
off-limits
peeled
shelled
side-splitting
skinned
unrestricted
unwrapped
Equipped as you’ll ever be, let’s see how you manage this deletion by The Guardian’s Arachne, alias Sarah Hayes, a former lecturer in Russian at Manchester University:
Gas in technical language, ignored at first (5)
Lecturers generally use technical language, the kind that bewilders the outsider. Can you name this particular lingo? And, going one step further, can you ignore that word’s first letter to reveal a gas?
The gas is inert, unlike your neurons right now. If they fire well, you’ll soon pounce on j/ARGON as your element.
This next example, from the late Albie Fiore (better known as Satori in the Financial Times), sticks with the periodic table but plays a different trick. Not only do you need to delete an end letter, but that same deletion accompanies an untouched word to make your second mystery element:
Deadly stuff when bum’s not quite pleasant (7)
The phrase not quite suggests falling short. A common synonym for pleasant is nice, and not quite nice is NIC. So we know the deadly stuff ends in those three letters, and begins with a synonym of bum.
Congratulations, you have extracted the poison. Better than that, ARSENIC represents your first hybrid clue, where Satori has combined a charade formula with a deletion, the chemical equation reading like so:
ARSE + NIC/e = ARSENIC
The next chapter, ‘Guru yoga’, will contort your neurons in extreme ways, getting you to regularly splice two formulas in the one clue. But let’s not get ahead of the game, not when we have a set of deletion delights to enjoy.
Deletion examples
1. Her pa heads off for a time (3) [Arachne]
2. Endlessly hopeful for painkiller (7) [Logodaedalus]
3. Monastery not on for expertise (7) [DA]
4. German poet leaves without finishing article (6) [Aelred]
5. Fur supplier has head shaved precisely (2,1,1) [Enigmatist]
6. Heartless gaoler gets the bird (6) [Mass]
7. Space traveller wasted from ride skipping outskirts (8) [DA]
8. Wife leaving, got bigger cut (4) [Nutmeg]
ANSWERS:
1. ERA [h/ER+p/A], 2. ASPIRIN/g, 3. M/on/ASTERY, 4. GOE/s+THE, 5. s/TOAT, 6. TUR/n/KEY, 7. ASTEROID [w/ASTE/d+f/RO/m+r/ID/e], 8. w/AXED
COMMON ABBREVIATIONS (a sampling)
A ace, ampere, answer, area, blood group, key, note
B bachelor, billion(s), black, blood group, book, born, boron, bowled, British, bye, key, note
C captain, carbon, caught, century, chapter, Charlie, clubs, cold, hundred, key, note
D daughter, Delta, Democrat, diamonds, died, duke, five hundred, Germany, key, note
E bearing, drug, east/ern, echo, ecstasy, energy, English, key, note, point, quarter, Spain
F false, female, fluorine, following, forte, foxtrot, France, frequency, key, note
G gallons, Germany, golf, good, grand, key, note
H hard, hearts, height, helicopter, Henry, heroin, horse, hospital, hot, hotel, hour, husband, hydrogen
I ego, India, iodine, island, one, single
J jack, judge, Juliet
K grand, kilo, knight, potassium, thousand
L fifty, lake, learner, left, length, Lima, line, litre, pound
M maiden, male, mark, married, mass, men, metres, Mike, mile, million, minutes, motorway, thousand
N bearing, knight, name, neutral, new, nitrogen, noon, north/ern, November, point, Pole, quarter
O circle, duck, hug, love, nothing, old, Oscar, ring, sign of affection, zero, zip
P page, Papa, park, pass, pawn, penny, piano, power, pressure, quiet/l
Q Quebec, queen, question
R king, radical, Republican, resistance, reverse, right, river, Romeo, rook, runs
S bearing, point, Pole, quarter, second, sierra, singular, son, south/ern, spades, succeeded, sulphur
T bone, model, shirt, tango, temperature, tense, time, ton, true
U horseshoe, posh, turn, uniform, united, university, upper-class, uranium
V against, chevron, five, verb, versus, very, Victor, volume
W bearing, point, quarter, tungsten, week, weight, west/ern, whisky, wicket, wide, with, women
X by, kiss, ten, times, unknown, vote, wrong
Y unknown, Yankee, yard, year, yen
Z unknown, Zulu
CRYPTIC ABBREVIATIONS (a sampling)
A airhead, arrowhead, Braveheart, catgut, first of all, inner peace, lead to arrest, malcontents, middle man, Obama’s right
B baseball cap, bathing cap, being upfront, bulkhead, burying head, led to believe, Lib backing, first blood
C coalface, commanding lead, copperhead, cotton top, head-on collision, lead in comedy
D back of beyond, dead-end, defendant fronting, Delta, desktop, dog’s lead, dunce’s cap, end-to-end, godsend, Howards End, lead in drama, red caboose, rushed behind, third base, touched base, turned stern
E athlete’s foot, back of Bourke, back of envelope, barefoot, become stern, close finish, dovetail, elected leader, electric lead, ending in haste, fin-de-siecle, home base, movie trailer, rearrange
F defender, defending, Family First, figurehead, Firestarter, flathead, traffic hub
G bigfoot, coming closer, dropping back, girl’s left, KGB hub, legend, pig’s arse, tight belly, touching base, wagtail
H approach from behind, cap in hand, end of epoch, hatchback, head of hair, head on pillow, heading for home, hilltop, hit head, touch base
I big heart, semifinal
J first of June/July, hook, jump-start
K back of truck, back-to-back, backpack, cocktail, kilo, kneecap, rock bottom, sharkfin, trick ending, weekend
L back from jail, discarded lace, fall back, head of lettuce, laptop, Liberal backing, naval base, startling, swollen belly
M end of term, film trailer, madcap, masthead, motormouth
N cottontail, end of autumn, fanbase, narrow opening
O apologist, boundless joy, cipher, himbo’s bottom, Maroon 5, photo finish, so pointless
P airport hub, apple core, base camp, empty on the inside, epicentre, lead in play, pencil lead, person’s debut
Q equal second, Qantas pilot
R airbase, backpacker, computer terminal, Labor backing, lead to ruin, mezzo-soprano, paperback, quarter-final, rainbow, raises head, rear end, restaurant starter, rooftop, silverback, summer’s close, tenderfoot
S back in business, back to basics, ending in tears, gets behind, head of steam, inglorious end, origin of species, salary cap, Scarface, speed dial, spinning top, steel cap, touches base, transport hub
T back on diet, back-to-front, first base, heading for trouble, hotfoot, opening in traffic, tabletop, thin on top, tight finish, toecap, treetop, wit’s end
U fruit core, hubbub, inside-out, shelled out, up-front, you texted
V centre of gravity, every second, lavender, violin bow
W last to know, network hub, rear window, waterfront, woollen top
X crossed lines, oxtail
Y army base, back from holiday, ending in disarray, piggyback, pussyfoot, sandy bottom, and Spanish, spy base, sticky end, Yankee
Z calzone filling, showbiz finale
