Day: March 8, 2022

Cryptic Roundup #4

Welcome back! As I solve more cryptics in a week, these categories get more competitive, so you may sometimes see me name more than one runner-up. Also, I skipped over a bunch of puzzles published this week in the Alphabet Jigsaw format, where each clue starts (and/or ends) with a different letter of the alphabet and you have to figure out how to put them into the grid. Not going to lie, especially for the UK-style grids, I need more immediate help on crossings than those allow–but we’ll get there! Anyway, this week’s solved grids, with a friendly difficulty rating (1 being the easiest) for those who might be inspired to attempt these on their own:

Homophone

Nostrils running, you say? Easily fixed! (2,5) [Everyman 3934]

I really like the conversational “you say” here, which doubles as the “sounds-like” indicator. There’s nothing stuffy or snotty about this surface either: nose wet? NO SWEAT to just grab a tissue. Also really good is Patrick Berry’s AVCX Cryptic offering, Seabird coop auditioned stool pigeon (8), which is proof that a surface doesn’t need to be realistic so long as it’s consistent. I’m imagining an avian Zootopia spin-off in which this hilarious scenario unfolds. I also love how flexible the words in this clue are. The seabird and coop are literal, for tern and cote, but the stool pigeon is a TURNCOAT, literally and figuratively. For those who need something more practical, Berry also has WWI pilot went over desert, I hear (3,5), which sounds perfectly plausible and unpacks to “read” (went over) “barren” (desert) for RED BARON.

Charade

Con is extremely carefree after escape (6) [Leo Cryptic 2, Payne]

A misleading surface, as you might expect of a rogue, because the “con” in this case is actually serving, in verb form, as the crossword clue. The “after” also helps to hide the charade a bit, switching the order of the components so that you get the tail (“ce” would be the “extreme” ends of the word “carefree”) before the head (“flee” for “escape”): in short, FLEE+CE. The runner-up, Joe Margolies, was perhaps in conversation with Patrick Berry’s homophone above, with the equally absurd Fashionable seabirds with fashionable job (10). The repetition there is rhythmically satisfying and works especially well because each instance is different: first it’s “in” then “hip,” with “terns” serving as that seabird: IN+TERNS+HIP. Margolies has another fun entry with Oscar-winning film at the top of Netflix is a gas (5), which is just a nice surface–and an accurate one, surprisingly so, as I do find Argo exciting. That’s ARGO+N, by the way.

Reversal

“Quite a party,” Jimmy reflected (5) [Leo Cryptic 2, Payne]

You often see reversals, like anagrams, paired with other mechanisms, especially when they’re short, because they’re otherwise straightforward at the risk of being dull. Trip Payne gets around this by making the indicator a critical part of the surface’s speech, and cleverly masking a verb as a proper noun. When you jimmy something, you lever it open; reflected, that’s a REVEL.

Hidden

Silk Armani bags: good or bad quality? (5) [Punnett Squares 3, Margolies]

That’s how you hide something! There’s such surface sense to “Silk Armani bags” and yet the first part is the phrase across which the answer is spread, and the second is the indicator. Managing to also relate the definition to that first part–yes, we would care about the “good or bad quality” of those high fashion items–can only bring this constructor the best of KARMA. But if that’s somehow not enough, Margolies doubles down with Guacamole has green and brown splotches (4), which is so subtle that you might miss that “green and brown splotches” is actually describing CAMO.

Container

Lance Armstrong’s activity includes liberal cheating (7) [Leo Cryptic 2, Payne]

The best cryptics are a combination of work(manship) and (word)play. It’s not difficult to take a word and break it apart using the various conventions of the form, but doing so while also smoothly describing a situation? That’s where the chef’s kiss comes in, and that Payne’s not just told a story here, but has accurately described the (old) news? Just a lovely reminder that leads to BI(L)KING. That on-the-money surface just narrowly edges out Margolies’s more general (but just as accurate) entry for his Punnett Squares, How boots might be bought and sold around Marine base (7), with “base” being a cute indicator for taking the last letter of “Marine”: TR(E)ADED.

Anagram

Excited to reveal relaxing music venue? (8) [Square Chase 5, Mossberg]

I almost automatically read surfaces with a sense of lengths, knowing as I go what chunks could theoretically be anagrammed, and looking afterward for the indicators that would justify them. Mossberg’s variety puzzle withheld enumeration, and that, along with the question-marked crossword clue “relaxing music venue” made this slower to unpack–and more enjoyable in the process. “Excited to reveal” is just butter-smooth, and the unexpected find of ELEVATOR, well, it elevates the whole thing. Also great is Patrick Berry’s contribution to the AVCX Cryptic, Is sex romance? Tricky question (5-7). Breaking chunks across punctuation, with “tricky” anagramming the entire question, is always appreciated, as is the actual find here: CROSS-EXAMINE.

Double Definition

Protest part of a sentence (6) [Leo Cryptic 2, Payne]

I like a political clue. By all means, let’s have the puzzle, that’s what we came here for, but if it gets a solver thinking about unjust prison sentences–even though we’re talking about grammar here–then that’s a bonus. Really, all double definitions should get you thinking about two entirely different things in the world, and how they might relate. There’s an object here, but it’s not one to OBJECT to. I can say the same for Everyman‘s Wear out car part (7), which reminds me that I should probably get the EXHAUST checked. The same for Square Chase‘s entry from Steve Mossberg, Cuddle sweet people? (6), which is an unneeded but welcome reminder to NESTLE my wife (after I eat this Nestlé).

Pun/Heteronym

How to buy LEGO resources (6) [Square Chase 5, Mossberg]

There’s a fine line between double definitions and heteronyms–NESTLE and OBJECT are both pronounced differently in the examples above. For my purposes, I categorize clues in this set by repunctuation–funky prefixes, unexpected spaces (not to be confused with charades), and the like. I like this one because it’s so succinct; you get these items AS SETS, which are resources. For a longer example, look no further than Out of Left Field, where Joshua Kosman & Henri Picciotto bring you In addition, a count of lithe fellows? (14), or with the right spacing, a SUPPLE MEN TALLY. I also appreciated Paolo Pasco’s New Yorker clue about a News aggregator created by one fearing payment? (4,6), which would be a FEE DREADER.

Spoonerism

Spooner’s expressed imperial desire to be like Saudi Arabia (3-4) [Everyman 3934]

I still wish there were a better, cleverer revealer than “Spooner,” which gives the game away, but at least the wordplay always packs a punch. That’s especially true with this surface, which suggests an envious oligarch and his royal itch to be a OIL-RICH. (This one’s especially fun because the components are so differently spelled that they’re almost unrecognizably related.) Steve Mossberg, over at Square Chase, has a slightly more strained surface with Like Alice’s story (British kid’s character, pastry) per Spooner (3,4) but it’s hard not to love that parenthetical summary of a Pooh tart, which leads to the equally apt description of the Alice books as TWO PART.

Deletion

Alternate histories’ quality of happening at the opportune moment . . . almost (9) [Punnett Squares 3, Margolies]

Stunning, just stunning. The use of the ellipses here is heartbreaking, with that “almost” speaking miles about how different two fates (or words, in this case) can be from the slightest change (or deletion). It’s also a lot more succinct to watch this than Sliding Doors or the recently canceled Ordinary Joe: TIMELINES[-s]. There’s nothing wrong with Patrick Berry’s AVCX Cryptic offering of a Rivet’s head removed from drill bit (5), but that’s telling a more mundane story of a PIE[-r]CE.

Letter Bank

Distribute letters from goalie, an expert on the behavior of spherical objects (7,7) [OOLF101, Kosman & Picciotto]

It’s hard enough to find a letter bank (I recently used FIANCE and CAFFEINE) let alone with with a better ratio between letters in the original and in the answer. So what a tour-de-force to see six-letter “goalie” turned into a 14-letter name, all while cheekily, vaguely cluing the indicator as if he’s mailing out a treatise (“distribute letters”) about “spherical objects,” which is just enough about football (don’t call it soccer) that the cosmic intent of GALILEO GALILEI scores a massive goal. Stella Zawistowski has a nice ratio of her own with Element 117 made from redistributed components of stein (10), but that’s a much more straightforward approach, yielding the relatively newly named TENNESSINE.

Combination

Makeup has camouflaged a ballpark figure (5,4) [AVCX Cryptic 3/3, Berry]

I know it’s not really “makeup,” per se, but I kept thinking about those lines (eye black) you sometimes see on an athlete’s face and that sense kept me distracted for a good while from the fact that we’re not talking about a physical player (or a vendor, or a coach) but rather an estimate. That’s a ROUG(HID)E+A, which is a combination that wastes not a single part of the surface–including that article. I also liked the idea (from Out of Left Field‘s Kosman & Picciotto) of a Border overrun by illicit cash for rulers (7), which is to say that I like the wordplay, not what’s going on in Ukraine. This timely reference actually refers to a different set of rulers, the CA(LIP)HS*. And finally, back to Berry for Amid banquet, band struggled to make arrangement with studio (5,4], which is a neatly misleading way to come up with M(O+VIED)EAL.

Miscellaneous

Where to find apps/starters for dinner every Sunday? Kelly’s Tavern outside PIttsburgh (7) [Punnett Squares 3, Margolies]

Like the hidden mechanism, initialisms are generally really easy to spot–unless they’re masked by the common language of a menu. I fell in love with puzzle hunts via the Black Letter Labs, which took physical objects (baseball cards, album covers, sheet music, ticket stubs, receipts) and packed them full of puzzles, and I suppose that curiosity and joy of discovery is how I came to embrace cryptics. That’s a long-winded way of me saying that “starters” is a terrific indicator, made even better by the fact that “apps” is also being used in a difference sense, giving us a stellar clue for DESKTOP.

As always, I certainly hope that anyone who read this far enjoyed themselves, and a reminder to you that if you’re solving (or constructing) any weekly/monthly cryptics that aren’t on my list, I’m happy to check them out. And if you found other favorite clues, I’d love for you to share them. This is a deeply subjective list, and while I’ve tried to justify my reasons for including each, it delights me to hear what other solvers enjoy.

And finally, check out the 1Across weekly construction contest; there are bunch of people who host their own versions of this on Twitter, but the easy archiving of this one really helps to show how many ways there are to put a clue together.

by Aaron Riccio