The Clues in This Puzzle Are All Riddles or Dad Jokes
True Cryptics, Spoonerisms, and Double Definitions
N.B. This is the third 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. This one, I think, will feel a little bit more familiar if you’re accustomed to non-cryptic crossword puzzles like the New York Times Sunday puzzle, because each of the three types of cryptic clue featured in this puzzle is a kind of pun. Unlike other cryptic clue types, which can be more like treasure hunts for secret words and letters, the “cryptic definition,” “Spoonerism,” and “double definition” clue types are all, in their own way, riddles, which (if you squint) makes them relatives of the “theme clues” you might find in a non-cryptic Sunday puzzle. Let me explain these three types of clue using a theme of “animal idioms” to keep it interesting.
“Cryptic definition” clues tend to be pure, lateral thinking puns. They’re basically dad jokes. To find the solution, just reverse engineer the joke. It’s considered poor form to have too many cryptic definition clues in a puzzle, because it can become a bit tiresome, but deployed sparingly, they can be a nice change of pace from the usual fare. Here are a couple of examples in keeping with our theme:
Unfair trial for bouncer? (8, 5)
They lie and lie, and no one does anything about it. (8, 4)
See boxers deteriorate? (2, 2, 3, 4)
These are all puns, and they’re all trying to mislead you into seeing one meaning of a word when another, very different meaning is intended. Clue #1 is conjuring up an image of a burly security guard outside a club who’s been unjustly accused, when the real “bouncer” is a kangaroo, and the unfair trial is a “Kangaroo court.”
Clue #2 is trying (maybe a little bit too hard) to make you think about the type of lying that involves making a mockery of the truth, when the real “lying” that no one does anything about (famously) is the lying that “Sleeping dogs” do.
And Clue #3 is relying on the fact that most people think about punching when they think about boxers, unless they happen to have a boxer dog, in which case they might realize that “See boxers” and “Deteriorate” are both ways of saying “Go to the dogs.” I’ll note, somewhat confusingly, that this last clue could also be read as a “Double definition” clue. As you’ll see later, there’s a lot of overlap between these two clue types, since both tend to involve goofing around with words that have more than one meaning.
“Spoonerisms” are another type of clue that tends to be used quite sparingly, partially because there’s almost no way to write one without using some variation of “Spooner’s,” or “as Spooner might say,” which is kind of a dead giveaway. In case you’re not familiar with the Reverend William Archibald Spooner, he was a beloved philosophy lecturer at New College, Oxford, who became reluctantly famous for a particular verbal tic that involved muddling different words together when he spoke. A formal Spoonerism is when you take a discrete piece of one word in a phrase and transpose it with an equivalent piece of another word in the same phrase. Some examples of Spoonerisms:
“Chewing the doors” instead of “Doing the chores.”
“Nosey little cook” instead of “Cozy little nook.”
“A blushing crow” instead of “A crushing blow.”
You may note that in the first and second examples above, the sounds are transposed, though the spelling of the words is different. I mention this because many cryptic “Spoonerism” clues are also implied “Homophone clues.” Here are a few examples of this clue type:
According to Spooner, Madame Fortune is in final year of government (4, 4)
Spooner’s overweight bird causes an unseemly fracas (3, 5)
Spooner says challenging a pig is a hangover cure (4, 2, 3, 3)
The presence of Spooner in these clues leaves little doubt about what you’re being asked to do: Find a Spoonerism that means one part of the clue and yields the other part of the clue when it’s put right. In Clue #1, “Madame Fortune” is “Dame Luck,” which becomes “lame duck” (“final year of government”). In Clue #2, “overweight bird” is “fat kite,” which is how Spooner might say “cat fight” (“unseemly fracas”). And in Clue #3, Spooner is (somewhat awkwardly) recommending a “dare of the hog” instead of the “hair of the dog” as a hangover cure. That’s Spoonerisms. They’re silly and fun and by far the easiest type of clue to spot in a cryptic.
“Double definition” clues are much more common than either “Spoonerisms” or “cryptic definition” clues (though, as I mentioned above, they have a lot in common with the latter clue type). This type of clue is made up of two (or sometimes three or more!) words or phrases that all mean the same thing. The trick is to penetrate all the misdirection these clues tend to shroud themselves in and find out what that thing is. Basically: Find the common synonym. I’m going to abandon the “animal idioms” theme here for simplicity’s sake, but here are a few examples that all involve animals in one way or another.
Annoy a dog (5)
Spy small mammal in Mexican sauce (4)
Cower before little bird (5)
These are all fairly straightforward. The answer to Clue #1 is “Hound,” which means both “annoy,” and “a dog.” Clue #2 is made of three different ways to say “Mole,” which is a “spy,” a “small mammal,” and (with an accent on that final “e”) a “Mexican sauce.” And the solution to Clue #3 is “Quail,” which means “cower before” in addition to being a “little bird.”
I’ve made you a puzzle that’s entirely constructed from “cryptic definition,” “Spoonerism,” and “double definition” clues. 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! Once you’ve finished the puzzle, you can find a solution and explanation to each of the clues here!
For part four of this series explaining cryptic clues, go here.
