{"id":1084,"date":"2013-10-16T19:45:23","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T14:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/?p=1084"},"modified":"2013-10-16T10:24:56","modified_gmt":"2013-10-16T04:54:56","slug":"crossword-solving-the-hindu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/crossword-solving-the-hindu\/","title":{"rendered":"Crossword Solving – The Hindu"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is from S Rajaram’s blog<\/a> verbatim:<\/p>\n

The most common types of wordplay involved in Cryptic clues are mentioned below, with detailed explanations following immediately after.<\/p>\n

Anagrams<\/strong><\/p>\n

An anagram, lexicographically means \u201ca word or phrase formed by jumbling the letters of another word\/phrase\u201d. For example : anagrams of \u201ccat\u201d are atc,cta,act,tca,tac. These are the most common and the easiest ones to solve in a crossword.<\/p>\n

Consider this clue : Excitement as tension explodes (9)
\nThe answer to this is \u201csensation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sensation is an anagram of \u201cas tension\u201d. But , how do we know that the answer is an anagram of \u201cas tension\u201d ? The trick here is to look for words which suggest the presence of anagrams. \u201cAnagrams\u201d indicate jumbling up, so you have to look for words which indicate that and are hence called anagram indicators.<\/p>\n

Here, I will give a very brief list of words which I have come across, the rest you will identify with experience.The word may appear in any form in the clue i.e as a verb,noun,or an adverb.
\nSome examples are Confuse, stir, change, make, explode, wrong, rearrange, awkwardly, bad, play, broken, mad, crush and mend.
\nSo, here in the clue, you have to conclude that \u201cexcitement\u201d is the meaning and \u201cexplodes\u201d suggests anagram.<\/p>\n

A cheat code :: Whenever the clue contains absolutely arbitrary names like Ivan H. Foe or any other name with lots of initials, it is almost always an anagram clue. You can get more such examples with solutions in the \u201cAnagrams\u201d page.<\/p>\n

Charades<\/strong><\/p>\n

As in Dumb-Charades, here a word\/phrase is split across the clue.<\/p>\n

For eg: Loan installment charge in Dubai for example (7)
\nLoan Installment gives \u201cemi\u201d , charge gives \u201crate\u201d , so the answer is emirate. Dubai is one of the \u201cUnited Arab Emirates\u201d.<\/p>\n

A different kind of this clue could be..<\/p>\n

Friend follows fish part at last(7)
\nHere, friend == ally , fish part == fin , ally follows fin , so the answer is finally !!<\/p>\n

There is no particular way of identifying this type of clue. There are cases where particular words have to be substituted for other letters to solve these kind of clues.
\nThe word outside the bracket has to be interpreted (in most cases) as the word\/letters given inside the brackets.. about(re),prisoner(con),doctor(md,mb),former(ex),princess(di)\u2026<\/p>\n

A more comprehensive list can be found at the end of this tutorial.<\/p>\n

Double Definition<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are more like direct clues where two meanings of the required answer are given together as a clue.<\/p>\n

Give up and return(5)
\nThe answer is \u201cyield\u201d which means both \u201cto give up\u201d and \u201creturn\u201d.<\/p>\n

How do we identify such clues ??? Such clues are relatively short in length (5 to 6 words) and in plain english without confusing parts.<\/p>\n

Acquit without charge (4)
\nThe answer is \u201cfree\u201d.<\/p>\n

Containers<\/strong><\/p>\n

A container clue is on in which one word is embedded or contained within another.<\/p>\n

Abnormal Roman way in a depression (7)
\nHere you have to put the word via (\u201cRoman Way\u201d) inside the word dent (\u201cdepression\u201d) which makes \u201cdeviant\u201d.<\/p>\n

Words\/phrase which suggest this type of clueing include \u201cget together\u201d, \u201cconsumed\u201d,\u201dtaken by\u201d,\u201deaten by\u201d,\u201dalong with\u201d and any other phrase which suggests union. But, some care has to shown at this stage, the same indicators may also be used for a different type of clueing which is described next.<\/p>\n

Hidden words<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are clues in which the answer is itself given in the clue albeit in a hidden form.<\/p>\n

In the clamp , I once saw a source of light (7)
\nThe answer is \u201clampion\u201d which is hidden in \u201cclamp I once\u201d .<\/p>\n

Relaxed, in a surcease,dreaming (5)
\nThe answer is \u201ceased\u201d which is hidden in \u201csurc-ease d-reaming\u201d.<\/p>\n

The most obvious indicator of this type is \u201cin\u201d, others are \u201cpart of\u201d, \u201chides\u201d,\u201dinside\u201d. First, take the number of letters of the answer, look for probable hidden answers, if you are not able to find any , then proceed to look for container clues.<\/p>\n

Reversal<\/strong><\/p>\n

These type of clues are those in which the answer can be got by reversing a sequence of letters.<\/p>\n

The Llama went back to the shopping complex ( 1,4 )
\nHere, reverse Llama to get \u201d a mall\u201d.<\/p>\n

These types of clues can be identified by the presence of \u201creversed\u201d \u201cwent back\u201d, \u201cuphill\u201d ,\u201dflipped around\u201d etc.<\/p>\n

Homophones<\/strong><\/p>\n

A homophone definition is a definition of a word that sounds the same as the answer, but is spelled differently i.e the words rhyme.<\/p>\n

Her feet, we hear are as light as this (7)
\nThe moment we see \u201cwe hear\u201d or \u201ci hear\u201d , the clue definitely consists a homophone. For the above clue , we have to look for a rhyming word for feet, which is feat, then the anagram of \u201cher feat\u201d gives \u201cfeather\u201d which is the answer.<\/p>\n

Deletion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many new words can be formed from existing words by taking off letters from them and this is the concept applied in these kind of clues. There are mainly four types of deletion clues: Ones where letters are taken from the head , ones where the letters are taken from the end, ones where the first and the last letters are taken and ones where the letters are from the middle.<\/p>\n

Star-turn, extremely hasty, is worthless (6)
\nStar-turn \u2013> Anagram of star. Extremely hasty = Extremes of hasty = hy, giving trash, meaning worthless!<\/p>\n

Wages out west aren\u2019t keeping with the times (4)
\nHere , out west means \u201cw\u201d is removed which gives \u201cages\u201d.<\/p>\n

Some other examples: German Capital = G, Company Head = C, account briefly = ac.<\/p>\n

Hope the above explanations were useful. Do check out the archives of the Hindu Crossword Solutions, for you might interesting clues with explanations.<\/p>\n

Below, i have tried to give a exhaustive list of abbreviations, substitutions normally used in crosswords.I will add in more as and when I encounter them.<\/p>\n

All roman numerals ..Fifty == L, Hundred == C
\nHesitate == er , about == re
\ndoctor == mb,md,doc
\nPrincess == Di
\nModel == T ( from the ford model T )
\nfirst lady == Eve , first man == adam
\nSymbol of elements ..silver == ag , gold == au
\neditor == ed , learner, student , beginner == L
\nFrench == de,le,la\u2026 German == der (The French = the in french, The german = The in german)
\nchurch == ch
\nworker == ant
\nsailor == ab
\nFormer = ex
\nDirection = n,e,s,w<\/p>\n

These are not to be always implemented, but they work in most cases !!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is from S Rajaram’s blog verbatim: The most common types of wordplay involved in Cryptic clues are mentioned below, with detailed explanations following immediately after. Anagrams An anagram, lexicographically means \u201ca word or phrase formed by jumbling the letters of another word\/phrase\u201d. For example : anagrams of \u201ccat\u201d are atc,cta,act,tca,tac. These are the most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"book_review_cover_url":"","book_review_title":"","book_review_series":"","book_review_author":"","book_review_genre":"","book_review_isbn":"","book_review_publisher":"","book_review_release_date":"","book_review_format":"","book_review_pages":"","book_review_source":"","book_review_rating":"","book_review_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crossword"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/photo-1547139559-c89c59d117611.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1085,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions\/1085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}