This Puzzle Is Full of Clues Like Nesting Dolls
The foundation for cryptic crosswords: Envelopes, reversals, and charades
N.B. This is the fourth in my series explaining the different types of cryptic clue. For the first, go here.
I’ve also created a new section explaining each puzzle, which you can find here.
I have made you another puzzle. Like our anagrams puzzle earlier, this one is entirely made of just one type of cryptic clue, what I call a “Bits and Bobs” type of clue. Bits and Bobs clues are the sine qua non of the cryptic — they’re the engine that drives most cryptic crossword puzzles — and it must be said that they can be absolutely nasty little beasts when they want to. To show you how they work, it’ll be helpful if I reverse engineer how one might come up with a Bits and Bobs type of clue as a compiler. To start, you’d look at the word or phrase you want to clue, and try to figure out what words, partial words, or abbreviations could be added up (or in some particularly devious cases, subtracted) to create the solution. I’m feeling terribly witty and arch today, so let’s have a bit of a Jane Austen theme as we explain this. If I were to try to come up with a Bits and Bobs clue for …
PRIDE
… I might go about it the following way. First, I’d note that the word PRIDE is the word “rid” inside the abbreviation P.E. (as in Physical Education). Putting those bits together, I might clue the word as follows:
Exercise outside of shed is a deadly sin (5)
The surface of the clue is (as usual) nonsense, though it does conjure up kind of a funny notion, but the mechanics of it are quite simple. Take exercise (“P.E.”), put it “outside of” a word that means “shed” (“rid”), and you’ll get the deadly sin of Pride. (Note the slight misdirection achieved by using “shed” as a noun in the clue when you need to see it as a verb to find the answer.) Repunctuated slightly, that’s:
“Exercise” outside of “shed” is: A deadly sin [Pride]
If I were to try to come up with a Bits and Bobs clue for …
PREJUDICE
… I would note that it is made up of the prefix “pre” (meaning “before”) and the word “juice” with a D inside. There are a few things that “D” is a common abbreviation for, including “day,” (as you might expect in the formulation DD/MM/YYYY) “daughter,” (as you might expect in a genealogical table), “Duke” (a common abbreviation for the title), or “500” (as in the Roman numeral), which gives us plenty to work with. Putting it all together, I might clue the word as follows:
Inclination for early drink with Duke indoors (9)
All the pieces are here — you just have to follow the context to figure out how to put them together: “early” is “pre;” “drink with Duke indoors” is “juice” with “D” inside; and “inclination for” is “prejudice.” Repunctuated slightly, you get:
Inclination for: “early” + “drink” with “Duke” indoors [Prejudice]
In addition to creating new words by putting smaller words inside or around one another, Bits and Bobs clues will sometimes include words with missing pieces. The tip-off that this is happening will usually be an indicating phrase like “without a head,” “endless,” “missing a tail,” “limitless,” or “empty.” Respectively, these are telling you that a word is missing its first letter (without a head), its final letter (missing a tail), its first and final letters (limitless), and all of its middle letters (empty). A similar trick of subtraction can be accomplished using common abbreviations — thinking back on the Duke from the clue above, if you ever see a phrase like “Duke’s gone missing” in a clue, you’d be well-advised to think about removing a “D” from something or other. Here’s an example in keeping with our Jane theme:
Quandary after heads of daughters in law removed for Ms. Wodehouse (4)
What this clue is asking you to do is to take a word that means quandary, then remove the first letters, respectively (heads) of “daughters,” “in,” and “law” to arrive at something that means Ms. Wodehouse (Emma, to her friends). “Dilemma,” which means quandary and begins with d, i, l, is our likely culprit, and it does indeed yield an Emma when these letters are removed. Repunctuated slightly, this is:
“Quandary,” after heads of “daughters,” “in,” “law” removed, for: Ms. Wodehouse [Emma]
The versatility and variability of this type of clue is considerable, so I won’t go over every possible permutation, but here are a few of the more common tricks you’ll see.
The appearance of words like “odds,” “even,” “regularly,” or “every other” often indicate that you’ll need to do something with the odd or even letters of what comes next.
As we saw with hidden clues the other week, words like “back,” “around,” or “in reverse” are often telling you to spell something backwards. (N.B., “around” is a tricky little beast, because it also means “encircling,” and it’s sometimes used as an anagram indicator, so you’ll have to deduce its meaning from context.)
In addition to concepts like “head,” “tail,” “top,” and “bottom,” you’ll often see words like “initially,” “at first,” “at the outset”; or “finally,” “at last,” “in the end” to suggest you do something with the first or last letter of a word or words.
The list of standard cryptic abbreviations is very long, and sometimes quite obscure. I’m going to try to confine myself to the more common ones, but a lot of cryptic setters are not so gentle. I find it helpful to keep a running list that I refer to, and you can find one here that will give you a sense of how it all works and what to expect.
By “Bits and Bobs,” I’m deliberately conflating a few specific clue types that are often used in tandem. If it’s more helpful to separate them out in your mind, they are: The Envelope clue (putting one word inside another); the Reversal clue (spelling a word backwards); the Charade (combining two or more words or abbreviations to make a new word); Subtraction clues (removing parts of a word); and Letter Indicator clues (singling out a specific letter from a word).
Bits and Bobs clues can be harder to spot than other types of clues we’ve talked about in the past, so the only real way to get good at them is to do a lot of crosswords, which, well, I’m here to help with that. With that in mind, I’ll finish with a few additional examples inspired by Ms. Austen just so you can see some more in the wild before we get to the puzzle I’ve made for you.
1. In retrospect, interminable sound by a yankee congressman creates a strong belief (10)
“In retrospect” is asking you to spell something backwards. That something is an “interminable sound” — in this case, it’s “noise” without the final letter (which is what “interminable” is telling you) — by (as in “next to”) “a,” “yankee,” and “congressman” — “a” “U.S” “rep” — to wind up at your “strong belief.” Putting it all together, that’s NOIS + A + US + REP, reversed, to arrive at “Persuasion.” Repunctuated, that’s:
In retrospect — interminable “sound” by “a” + “yankee” + “congressman” — creates: A strong belief [Persuasion]
Whew! That was legitimately a nasty one. Here are two that are a little bit more straightforward.
2. Leave car at the end of Guy’s meadow to get a novel (9, 4)
There’s not so much trickery about this one — you just need to get the right synonyms: “Leave car” is “park” and “Guy’s meadow” is “man’s field” and hey presto, Mansfield Park. Repunctuated, that’s:
“Leave car” at the end of “Guy’s” + “meadow” to get: A novel [Mansfield Park]
3. Unfinished work repairing computers on beach before I type out notes, initially (8)
The “unfinished work” is Jane Austen’s novel Sanditon, which is made up of “repairing computers” (I.T.) on “beach” (“sand”) before I Type Out Notes initially (meaning “taking the initials of”). That’s:
Unfinished work: “repairing computers” on “beach” before I Type Out Notes, initially [Sanditon]
OK! That’s a lot, but it all starts to make sense when you try it out, so here’s a puzzle I’ve made for you that has (hopefully helpfully) a theme that is very much about this type of clue.
The puzzle image is below if you want to print it out like our forebears used to, but you can also fill it in with a click!
For the final installment of this series explaining cryptic clues, go here.
