Life on the West Island - Cryptic comments

Here at Life on the West Island, we love to pit our wits against the sadistic creators of cryptic crosswords, commonly known as “setters.” Most weeks, we buy the Monday and Saturday newspapers, giving us a full seven days to tackle the four challenging cryptic puzzles they contain. A small bonus is that Monday’s paper also has a lift-out television programme to guide our week’s viewing.

We’re not much into the endless violence or trashy romantic, sci-fi or historical dramas which clog up the streaming services – in fact we do not subscribe to any. (Anti)social media plays a tiny part in our lives, but we still find plenty of content on non-commercial free to air television to satisfy our viewing needs, plus the excellent range and depth of the various ABC radio networks. But we never miss having a go at the cryptic crosswords, most of which we are able to solve after a bit of mind-bending concentration.

Cryptic crosswords are almost 100 years old. The first standard crosswords were printed in British newspapers around 1923, but it was not until at least five years later that the more challenging cryptic puzzles began to appear. It has become a tradition that cryptic setters use initials or pseudonyms rather than their family names. This probably originated with the first cryptic setter, Torquemada, whose real name was Edward Powys Mathers.

He designed a puzzle which on first sight appears to be an ordinary crossword, with a grid of black and open squares, with fifteen lines across and fifteen lines down. A black square usually marks the end of a word, and there may be multiple answers on any line. Sometimes, a single word or phrase occupies an entire line. There are clues, numbered to show where in the puzzle the answer should be entered, commonly followed in brackets by the number of letters in the answer such as: 1 down: shipwrecked person (8). The answer to this – “castaway” would be entered downward at the square numbered 1. These simple puzzles are usually easy to solve, especially once the crisscrossing answers start to indicate letters in words from more clues.

Cryptic crossword clues, as initiated by Torquemada, are individual word puzzles requiring the reader to solve each one by analysing the meaning of the clue and the intent of the setter. Some people find the clues to be totally baffling mumbo jumbo, but with a mental effort and a degree of practice, they make total sense. Cryptics have now evolved to the extent that most follow a series of rules and conventions. Once these are understood, solving cryptic crosswords becomes a game between the setter and solver to identify what rules are being applied so as to complete the answers.

A little time ago, we attended a workshop on solving cryptics, convened by prominent author Tom Kenneally, who is a keen cryptic crossword fan. There were about 20 people there, and when Tom asked for a show of hands, almost everybody indicated that they found cryptic crosswords too obscure to complete. So he explained some of the normal conventions followed by setters. He quoted cryptic setter Alistair Ritchie:

You need not mean what you say, but you must say what you mean. This is a superior way of saying that I can't have it both ways. I may attempt to mislead by employing a form of words which can be taken in more than one way, and it is your fault if you take it the wrong way, but it is my fault if you can't logically take it the right way.

This was clarified by setter Jonathon Crowther:

A good cryptic clue contains three elements:

1. a precise definition
2. a fair subsidiary indication
3. nothing else.

There are at least 14 types of cryptic clues, so the trick to solving them is to get inside the mind of the setter to determine what type of clue is indicated.

A simple example might be an anagram – that is, a word or words in the clue where the letters can be rearranged to give the answer. A clue of strange thing appears in darkest hours (5) gives two hints at the answer. Strange “thing” indicates that the letters of the word can be rearranged to mean “darkest hours.” Thus the answer is “night.”

Another easy answer is when the clue includes the word “initially,” meaning that the solver can take the first (initial) letter of words in the clue to build the answer, which is also indicated in the clue. Clue: Initially snivel or bawl (3). The answer is “sob,” which also means “bawl”.

There are many other types of clues, such as double meanings (Clue: Pleasant French resort – answer “Nice”); reversals, where you look at a word backwards (Clue: Pans back for a photograph – answer “snap”); and phonetic clues indicated by words such as “sounds” or “heard” (Clue: Acute hearing in tents – answer “intense”).

Then there are Odd and Even letters, Spoonerisms, Acronyms, Hidden Words, Containers and Extremes, among others. Once you get the hang of them, solving cryptic crosswords can become quite easy.

So, at the workshop, Tom Keneally handed out cryptics photocopied from that day’s newspaper and worked with participants to fill in the answers. Within an hour or so, all the puzzles were solved. But the show of hands at the end indicated that nearly all in attendance remained mystified by these common daily enigmas. So, the famous author advised them to buy a newspaper two days in a row, and compare the answers given to the first day’s cryptic with the clues, to identify how they were reached. That’s the way we had learned years ago to solve these intriguing word games.

Naturally, we look forward to next week’s West Island papers and the exciting task of turning the cryptic comments into satisfying solutions. Why don’t you give it a try?