
Although don’t have an issue with an excess of them in straightforward clues like ETCHING and ROUND UP. Look here for an excerpt from the book, and reader reviews.
It is easy to customise the template to the age or learning level of your students. Crosswords are a very effective and fun way to improve your mental health according to science. Multiple studies have demonstrated the positive effects of playing crosswords on the brain.
Morality
This clue raises another point which divides serious cruciverbalists. Some would argue that as a link word “in” is directional, e.g. that a clue can only be presented in the form in . It is true that the answer is to be found in the wordplay rather than the other way round, and some setters try to adhere to this concept. Yet several other setters – some of them devoted Ximeneans – treat “in” as a bidirectional link word. Clue (“and literally so” — the term goes back to cryptic crosswords’ British roots).

Should be West as we’re referring to a proper name here, and even taking into consideration the spread of lower case advertising logos and of course text speak, a puzzle designed to celebrate the English language should not abuse it in this way. Enigma cryptics stick to MW abbreviations, generally making note of those not in 11C. The local mayor is a right-wing politico with national ambitions and a nationalistic credo.
Variety Cryptics
Learning these, or being able to spot them, is a useful and necessary part of becoming a skilled cryptic crossword solver. That should be all the information you need to finish the crossword clue you were working on! Be sure to check out the Crossword section of our website to find more answers and solutions. You can find posts with full details on our NYT Mini Crossword Answers and NYT Crossword Answers posts. We use historic puzzles to find the best matches for your question. This printable form of the crossword has been provided if you are unable to display the interactive version, or if you prefer to solve the puzzle on paper. Cryptic clues generally direct you to the type of wordplay involved.
I think this title is rather misleading since Araucaria is not the only opponent of strict rules and he has never actually set down an alternative set of rules or principles himself. Of course many setters and solvers have their feet in both camps.
- Learning these, or being able to spot them, is a useful and necessary part of becoming a skilled cryptic crossword solver.
- I particularly like the anecdote at the end of his article.
- However, the order of the parts is sometimes indicated with words such as “against”, “after”, “on”, “with” or “above” .
- The player reads the question or clue, and tries to find a word that answers the question in the same amount of letters as there are boxes in the related crossword row or line.
- You can narrow down the possible answers by specifying the number of letters it contains.
If you encounter two or more answers look at the most recent one i.e the last item on the answers box. With our crossword solver search engine you have access to over 7 million clues. You can narrow down the possible answers by specifying the number of letters it contains. We found more than 1 answers for Guiding Set Of Principles.
Definition Of Credo
I still think the wordplay is unfair but the definition does give the solver more of a chance, and the clue makes a true statement about the foolishness of taking dangerous drugs. A clue in the Daily Telegraph September 2018 started “Communist leader”, which would be expected to mean the letter C; but this time it was the definition, and the answer was CHE GUEVARA. If the two words are the same length, the clue should be phrased in such a way that only one of them can be the answer. This is usually done by having the homophone indicator adjacent to the word that is not the definition; therefore, in the previous example, “we hear” was adjacent to “twins” and the answer was pare rather than pair. The indicator could come between the words if they were of different lengths and the enumeration was given, such as in the case of “right” and “rite”. These clues tend to be short; in particular, two-word clues are almost always double-definition clues.

Here is a tour of the eight common types of wordplay, along with hints on how to spot them. The number in parentheses following a clue tells you how many letters are in the clue answer. The vast majority of Spoonerism clues swap the first consonants of words or syllables, but Spoonerisms are not strictly restricted to that form and some setters will take advantage of this. John Henderson once clued for the Spoonerism “light crick” from “right click”, which didn’t sit well with many solvers.
Combination Clues
That is not to suggest that Ximenes was dull – his crosswords were incredibly inventive – or that all of his adherents today are either. Mr Magoo and Dimitry, who both set for the Listener, and Pasquale, the only staunch Ximenean among the Guardian’s team of compilers, always provide fresh and entertaining puzzles. However I can’t Guiding set of principles Crossword Clue help feeling that the Listener and similar puzzles’ insistence on strictly Ximenean clueing does sometimes frighten some setters into playing safe to avoid rejection or excess editing, and this is apparent in some of their clues. I would cite my own first Listener puzzle, Europe’s Ports by Alberich, as an example of this.
- It is true that the answer is to be found in the wordplay rather than the other way round, and some setters try to adhere to this concept.
- Alberich’s 2nd article linked from the post talks about this.
- In it I look at what I see as the strengths and weaknesses of following a prescribed set of rules for compiling crossword clues.
- There are many sorts of wordplay, such as anagrams and double definitions, but they all conform to rules.
- Two articles about Ximenean clueing written by one of the most brilliant compilers I know of today.
The essence of Ximenes’ canons is to be fair to the solver at all times. His guidelines cover various aspects of crossword design – from making and populating the grid, to writing scrupulously fair clues. Crosswords feature prominently in the 1945 British romantic drama film Brief Encounter, scripted by playwright Noël Coward, which is number two in the British Film Institute’s Top 100 British films. The plot of “The Riddle of the Sphinx”, a 2017 episode of Inside No. 9, revolves around the clues and answers to a particular crossword puzzle, which had appeared on the day of the original broadcast in The Guardian. A cryptic crossword in the Sunday Telegraph on Easter Sunday 2014 had an anagram clue whose answer was EASTER SUNDAY, and its definition part was “today”. There are many “code words” 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).
I met a well-regarded Listener setter at the annual Listener dinner who told me that “it would be nice if we could throw away the straitjacket and write some fun clues sometimes” or words to that effect. These examples present cryptic clueing techniques in their pure form. For example, a clue may ask you to contain an anagrammed word within another word, or to read a hidden word in reverse. This means that, with a few exceptions, every clue either begins or ends with a definition of the answer. The catch is that you have to find the break between definition and wordplay. Cryptic clues may also use punctuation in whatever manner seems most likely to deceive; solvers are warned to ignore punctuation . In this variety cryptic crossword, 18 clue answers are garbage, to be treated according to the mantra “13-Across 6-Across and 40-across.” Specifically, six answers are too long for the grid; delete one letter.
Guardian 28,806
Cruel to turn part of Internet torrid The answer to this clue is ROTTEN. The phrase “to turn” indicates “to reverse,” and “part of” suggests a piece of “Internet torrid”. The Norse god Odin is hidden in “god incarnate”, as clued by “essentially”, but the definition of Odin is also the whole clue, as Odin is essentially a God incarnate. 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. Initially amiable person eats primate The answer would be APE, which is a type of primate.
- The Ximenean principles are adhered to most strictly in the subgenre of “advanced cryptics” — difficult puzzles using barred grids and a large vocabulary.
- Most Australian newspapers will have at least one cryptic crossword, if not two.
- Most of the major national newspapers in the UK carry both cryptic and concise crosswords in every issue.
- Of course many setters and solvers have their feet in both camps.
- Cryptic clues may also use punctuation in whatever manner seems most likely to deceive; solvers are warned to ignore punctuation .
So when people say that a clue, crossword grid or setter is Ximenean, they mean that the clue/grid/setter abides by the standards set by Ximenes. Likewise, an unXimenean (or non-Ximenean) clue/grid is one that violates Ximenes’ principles. Ximenes’ repute is not just for his puzzles, but for the standards he laid down for creating good crosswords. His principles of crossword composition were gradually recognized and adopted as a kind of model for setting by other daily puzzles too.
Cryptic crosswords often appear in British literature, and are particularly popular in murder mysteries, where they are part of the puzzle. The character Inspector Morse created by Colin Dexter is fond of solving cryptic crosswords, and the crosswords often become part of the mystery. Colin Dexter himself set crosswords for The Oxford Times for many years and was a national crossword champion. https://accountingcoaching.online/ In the short story “The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager’s Will”, by Dorothy L Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey solves a crossword in order to solve the mystery, while the solution to Agatha Christie’s Curtain hinges on an Othello themed crossword. Ruth Rendell has used the device in her novel One Across, Two Down. Among non-crime writers, crosswords often feature in the works of P.

There are many sorts of wordplay, such as anagrams and double definitions, but they all conform to rules. The crossword setters do 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 discusses the importance and art of fair cluemanship in his seminal book on cryptic crosswords, Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword .
A Matter Of Principle
The atmosphere has changed since then, but the credo of simple food and friendly service remains. That statement became the unofficial credo of anyone who believed in expanding access to firearms and everyone who bought into the notion that ever more powerful firearms were the solution to every problem. “About” is abbreviated “c” (for “circa”), and “little Desmond” indicates that the diminutive of Desmond is required. The “c” is “to come between” DES and ANT (a worker; note that compilers also use “worker” to stand for BEE or HAND), giving DESCANT, which means “discourse”.Compilers use many of these crossword abbreviations. Bird with tips of rich aqua, yellow, black Would be HAWK based on the letters at the ends of rich, aqua, yellow and black. Bird is cowardly, about to fly away The answer is RAVEN, which means “bird” and is craven, or “cowardly”, without the first letter (in this case c, the abbreviation for circa or “about”).
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It’s rather an exaggeration to say that his rules were the foundation of cryptic crosswords in his time – they were gradually adopted by the daily paper puzzles over a period of years after his book appeared. A few years ago, I came across the word ‘Ximenean’ in an esoteric discussion on a crossword forum. A clue was being scoffed at for being devoid of this quality. Having never read a book about cryptics or known anyone who could explain that, I was awestruck. (There is something about the word ‘Ximenean’ that has that effect.) A frantic search online followed, which led to my introduction to the art and precision that lies behind cryptic crosswords.
Guiding Set Of Principles Crossword Clue
Duplicate clue solutions are not entered twice so each answer you see is unique or a synonym. Derek Harrison’s page gets it right by adding the key word “modern” in front of “crossword puzzle” (though it forgets “cryptic”). I don’t know where the the Times journalist got the phrase from, but wiki seems to have just got it from the Times.