and impossible for the novice solver but I aim to prove that this is not really the case.
In the meantime, this may be a good time to point out that trial and error and/or inspired guesswork are part and parcel of good solving. This is reinforced by the clueing practice of all good setters whereby the clue type will nearly always become clear on working backwards from the solutions. Indeed, when a solver sees the solution the following day, he or she should only rarely be left thinking (as Ximenes put it):
‘I thought of that but I couldn’t see how it could be right.’
We will now proceed to examine in detail all clue types and their indicators, with one and sometimes two examples of each type.
3: Clue Types and Indicators in Detail
‘Give us a kind of clue.’ W.S. Gilbert, Utopia Limited
Until Chapter 8, we’ll keep it simple with regard to clue types. In later chapters we will see that the clue types can and often do overlap, involving more than one sort of manipulation of letters or words within any one clue.
The first eight clue types
We will now examine each of the eight clue types in detail, together with their indicators, and offer some example clues. To give yourself solving practice, you may wish from now on to cover up the bottom half of the diagram that contains the solution and wordplay.
The first eight types are shown in the circular chart below, and we shall take each in turn, working clockwise from the top.
1. The anagram clue
An anagram, sometimes termed a letter mix, is a rearrangement of letters or words within the clue sentence to form the solution word or words.
The letters to be mixed (the anagram fodder) may or may not include an abbreviation, a routine trick for old hands but, as I have observed, a cause of some discomfort for first-timers.
ANAGRAM CLUE: Mum, listen for a change (6)
This next example is an anagram clue with a linkword:
ANAGRAM CLUE: Fish and chips cooked with lard (9)
The third example is one wherein the anagram fodder goes well with the definition to form a believable whole:
ANAGRAM CLUE: The new stadium designed for a football club (4,3,6)
For is a linkword here in the sense that the wordplay is to be arranged for the answer. The essential point for indicators of anagram clues is that they show a rearrangement, a disturbance to the natural order or a change to be made. There are very many ways of doing this, some reasonably straightforward but others requiring a stretch of the imagination. For example, words and phrases related to drunkenness and madness have to be taken as involving disturbance so that stoned, pickled, tight, bananas, nuts, crackers and out to lunch could all be misleading ways to indicate an anagram. I am often asked for a comprehensive list but, because there are so many, unfortunately there is no such list. The table that follows on the next page is designed to expand on the various categories of rearrangement by giving a few examples of each overleaf:
TOP TIP - ANAGRAMS
Early crosswords did not indicate an anagram; solvers were required to guess that a mixture of letters was needed. This is universally regarded as unfair on the solver so that there will always nowadays be an indication of an anagram.
| INDICATORS FOR ANAGRAM CLUES | |||
| ARRANGEMENT | sorted | somehow | anyhow |
| REARRANGEMENT | revised | reassembled | resort |
| CHANGE | bursting | out of place | shift |
| DEVELOPMENT | improved | worked | treat |
| WRONGNESS | amiss | in error | messed up |
| STRANGENESS | odd | fantastic | eccentric |
| DRUNKENNESS | smashed | hammered | lit up |
| MADNESS | crazy | outraged | up the wall |
| MOVEMENT | mobile | runs | hit |
| DISTURBANCE OF ORDER | broken | muddled | upset |
| INVOLVEMENT | complicated | tangled |
|
