Cryptic crossword puzzles come in two main types: Cryptic crosswords originated in the UK. The first British crossword puzzles appeared around and were purely definitional, but from the mids they began to include cryptic material: Torquemada Edward Powys Mathers , who set for The Saturday Westminster from and for The Observer from until his death in , was the first setter to use cryptic clues exclusively and is often credited as the inventor of the cryptic crossword. The first newspaper crosswords appeared in the Sunday and Daily Express from about Crosswords were gradually taken up by other newspapers, appearing in the Daily Telegraph from , The Manchester Guardian from and The Times from These newspaper puzzles were almost entirely non-cryptic at first and gradually used more cryptic clues, until the fully cryptic puzzle as known today became widespread.

In some papers this took until about Puzzles appeared in The Listener from , but this was a weekly magazine rather than a newspaper, and the puzzles were much harder than the newspaper ones, though again they took a while to become entirely cryptic.

Torquemada's puzzles were extremely obscure and difficult, and later setters reacted against this tendency by developing a standard for fair clues, ones that can be solved, at least in principle, by deduction, without needing leaps of faith or insights into the setter's thought processes. The basic principle of fairness was set out by Listener setter Afrit Alistair Ferguson Ritchie in his book Armchair Crosswords , wherein he credits it to the fictional Book of the Crossword:. Here the composer intends the answer to be "derby", with "hat" the definition, "could be" the anagram indicator, and "be dry" the anagram fodder.

But "be" is doing double duty, and this means that any attempt to read the clue cryptically in the form "[definition] [anagram indicator] [fodder]" fails: A variation might read Hat turns out to be dry 5 , but this also fails because the word "to", which is necessary to make the sentence grammatical, follows the indicator "turns out" even though it is not part of the anagram indicated. Torquemada's successor at The Observer was Ximenes Derrick Somerset Macnutt , — , and in his influential work, Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword Puzzle , he set out more detailed guidelines for setting fair cryptic clues, now known as "Ximenean principles" and sometimes described by the word "square-dealing".

The Ximenean principles are adhered to most strictly in the subgenre of "advanced cryptics" — difficult puzzles using barred grids and a large vocabulary. Easier puzzles often have more relaxed standards, permitting a wider array of clue types, and allowing a little flexibility. The popular Guardian setter Araucaria John Galbraith Graham , — was a noted non-Ximenean, celebrated for his witty, if occasionally unorthodox, clues.

Most of the major national newspapers in the UK carry both cryptic and concise quick crosswords in every issue. The puzzle in The Guardian is well loved for its humour and quirkiness, and quite often includes puzzles with themes, which are extremely rare in The Times. Cryptic crosswords do not commonly appear in U. In April , The New Yorker published the first of a new weekly series of cryptic puzzles. The latter puzzle, after a long and distinguished run, appeared solely on The Atlantic ' s website for several years, and ended with the October issue.

A similar puzzle by the same authors now appears monthly in The Wall Street Journal. Cryptic crosswords are very popular in Australia. Most Australian newspapers will have at least one cryptic crossword, if not two. The Australian puzzle publishers "Lovatts" regularly puts out cryptic crossword puzzle books.

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In essence, a cryptic clue leads to its answer as long as it is read in the right way. What the clue appears to say when read normally the surface reading is a distraction and usually has nothing to do with the clue answer. The challenge is to find the way of reading the clue that leads to the solution.

A typical clue consists of two parts, the definition and the wordplay. It provides two ways of getting to the answer. The definition, which usually exactly matches the part of speech , tense , and number of the answer, is in essence the same as any 'straight' crossword clue, a synonym for the answer.

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It usually appears at the start or the end of a clue. The other part the subsidiary indication , or wordplay provides an alternative route to the answer this part would be a second definition in the case of double definition clues. One of the tasks of the solver is to find the boundary between definition and wordplay and insert a mental pause there when reading the clue cryptically. This wordplay gives the solver some instructions on how to get to the answer another way.

Sometimes the two parts are joined with a link word or phrase such as "from", "gives" or "could be". 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 who wrote cryptics under the pseudonym of Ximenes discusses the importance and art of fair cluemanship in his seminal book on cryptic crosswords, Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword , reprinted Because a typical cryptic clue describes its answer in detail and often more than once, the solver can usually have a great deal of confidence in the answer once it has been determined.

The clues are 'self-checking'. This is in contrast to non-cryptic crossword clues which often have several possible answers and force the solver to use the crossing letters to distinguish which was intended. Here is an example taken from The Guardian crossword of 6 August , set by "Shed".

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. Learning these, or being able to spot them, is a useful and necessary part of becoming a skilled cryptic crossword solver.

Compilers or setters often use slang terms and abbreviations, generally without indication, so familiarity with these is important for the solver. Of these examples, "flower" is an invented meaning by back-formation from the -er suffix, which cannot be confirmed in a standard dictionary. A similar trick is played in the old clue "A wicked thing" for CANDLE, where the -ed suffix must be understood in its "equipped with a Sometimes "compiler", or the name or codename of the compiler if visible by the crossword , codes for some form of the pronoun "I, me, my, mine".

Unlike typical American crosswords , in which every square is almost always checked that is, each square provides a letter for both an across and a down answer , only about half of the squares in a cryptic crossword are checked. In most daily newspaper cryptic crosswords, grid designs are restricted to a set of stock grids.

In the past this was because hot metal typesetting meant that new grids were expensive. Some papers have additional grid rules. In The Times , for example, all words have at least half the letters checked, and although words can have two unchecked squares in succession, they cannot be the first two or last two letters of a word. The grid shown here breaks one Times grid rule: The Independent allows setters to use their own grid designs. Word boundaries are denoted by thick lines called "bars". In these variety puzzles, one or more clues may require modification to fit into the grid, such as dropping or adding a letter, or being anagrammed to fit other, unmodified clues; unclued spaces may spell out a secret message appropriate for the puzzle theme once the puzzle is fully solved.

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The solver also may need to determine where answers fit into the grid. A July "Puzzlecraft" section in Games magazine on cryptic crossword construction noted that for cryptic crosswords to be readily solvable, no fewer than half the letters for every word should be checked by another word for a standard cryptic crossword, while nearly every letter should be checked for a variety cryptic crossword.

In most UK "advanced cryptics" 'variety cryptic' , at least three-quarters of the letters in each word are checked. There are notable differences between British and North American including Canadian cryptics. American cryptics are thought of as holding to a more rigid set of construction rules than British ones. American cryptics usually require all words in a clue to be used in service of the wordplay or definition, whereas British ones allow for more extraneous or supporting words.

In American cryptics, a clue is only allowed to have one subsidiary indication, but in British cryptics the occasional clue may have more than one; e. In Poland similar crosswords are called " Hetman crosswords". In Finnish , this type of crossword puzzle is known as piilosana literally "hidden word" , while krypto refers to a crossword puzzle where the letters have been coded as numbers.

In India the Telugu publication Sakshi carries a "Tenglish" Telugu-English, bilingual cryptic crossword; [10] the Prajavani crossword Kannada also employs cryptic wordplay. In Chinese something similar is the riddle of Chinese characters, where partial characters instead of substrings are clued and combined.

Clues given to the solver are based on various forms of wordplay. Nearly every clue has two non-overlapping parts to it: Most cryptic crosswords provide the number of letters in the answer, or in the case of phrases, a series of numbers to denote the letters in each word: More advanced puzzles may drop this portion of the clue.

Crossword clues for 'DATING SITE INITIALISM'

An anagram is a rearrangement of a certain section of the clue to form the answer. This is usually indicated by words such as "strange", "bizarre", "muddled", "wild", "drunk", or any other term indicating change.

Anagram clues are characterized by an indicator word adjacent to a phrase that has the same number of letters as the answer. The indicator tells the solver that there is an anagram they need to solve to work out the answer. Indicators come either before or after the letters to be anagrammed.