Never a cross word – 17

Tags

anagrams, crossword puzzles, cryptic clues, learning methodologies, words within words

Last week I left you with this clue to consider:

Welsh factories rebuilt in a straight line (2,3,4,5)

If you have been following this series you will have already guessed that the answer is unlikely to have anything to do with Welsh factories as such.  But the solution is an anagram of those two words.  How do we know?  The hint is in the word ‘rebuilt’.  The 14 letters in the words WELSH FACTORIES have been taken apart and rebuilt in a different order to give 4 words meaning ‘in a straight line’.

Did you get it?  The answer is:

AS THE CROW FLIES

As the crow flies is an idiom used for expressing the shortest distance between two points, a crow being a bird which supposedly flies in a straight line (although apparently it does not!).  Giving the distance from A to B ‘as the crow flies’ does not take into account the practicalities of how one would actually travel from one place to the other. See the Wikipedia entry here.  Thus one could say: ‘As the crow flies, it is 45 miles from here to London – but it is almost 55 miles by road.’

Two clues now from Daily Telegraph Crossword Puzzle No. 27,660 of 29th November 2014, both of which provide some interesting vocabulary to talk about.

The first is an example of a clue where letters are removed from one word to give another.  It reads:

I have withdrawn from repeated achievement (7)

As you know ‘I have’ is frequently contracted to I’ve.  So let us bear those three letters IVE in mind.

A word which could mean ‘repeated’ is ‘successive’.  Successive means in succession, or following one after the other – see the definition here.  It can be used in a sentence such as ‘this was their third successive holiday in France.’  ‘Consecutive’ is a good synonym for ‘successive’, and an informal or slang expression which has the same meaning is on the trot.  You could hear (but are unlikely to see in writing): ‘this was their third holiday in France on the trot’.

If IVE is now ‘withdrawn’ (removed) from SUCCESSIVE we are left with the answer – SUCCESS – which is a synonym for achievement, the remaining word in the clue!

The second clue is a little more straightforward.  It reads:

Unfashionable clothes seen in suburbia

A good place to start is to think of another word for unfashionable.  The first word that comes to mind is ‘unpopular’ but, despite being 9 letters long, it cannot be the answer since it has nothing to do with the rest of the clue.

So, back to the drawing board, and perhaps we should try to find a short word for unfashionable which can be added to a word for ‘clothes’ to mean ‘in suburbia’.

There is a short word for unfashionable, fairly often used in everyday speech, and that word is ‘out’ (meaning out of fashion).  What is in fashion one month (‘in’) may soon become unpopular and completely ‘out’ the next.  Of course not just clothes, shoes or hairstyles can be unfashionable. The word can apply to anything – for example an area of a city to live in, restaurants, or names for new babies.

Now let’s turn to ‘clothes’.  There are obviously many possibilities but one needs to think of 6 letter word which could logically follow ‘out’.  Something that perfectly fits the bill (meets those requirements) is ‘skirts’. Take OUT and put it together with SKIRTS and you have the answer: OUTSKIRTS.

We know immediately that is the correct solution since if you are on the outskirts of a town or city you are some way from the centre – in the suburbs or in suburbia.  For a definition of outskirts please see here.

Here is one last clue from the same crossword for you to ponder (think about) over the weekend.  It is not an anagram this time, but if you read last week’s post you should have no trouble with it.  The clue is:

Some devil erupts, getting more unpleasant (5)

Good luck!  More next week.

Never a cross word – 16

Tags

anagrams, crossword puzzles, cryptic clues, learning methodologies, words within words

Last week I left you with a clue but no hint. I wonder how you fared (how you got on; whether you managed to do it). In fact, there was a very tiny clue: the tags in the left hand column included the word ‘anagrams’.

The clue read:

Ran despite boils on foot (10)

How do we know an anagram is involved?  As always, there is a hint. In this case it is the word ‘boils’.  When a liquid boils it gets agitated.  Here, some of the letters in the clue have become agitated – in other words mixed up.

Since we are looking for a 10 letter answer it is logical to think that the solution is an anagram of RAN DESPITE.

Did you get it?  The answer is:

PEDESTRIAN

which means someone who walks – or is ‘on foot’.

Nothing to do with the clue, but while I have the word in front of me I might as well point out another meaning.  Pedestrian can also be an adjective meaning dull and uninspiring.  For a definition please see here.

I am now going to introduce you to a type of clue we have not yet encountered – in which the answer is hidden inside the wording of the clue itself.  It is right under your nose or staring you in the face, in other words obvious once you spot it.  The hard part is realising you are dealing with a clue of this type, especially since such clues appear infrequently (not very often).

An example will show you what I mean.  The clue, from Daily Telegraph Puzzle No. 27,693 dated 8th January 2015, reads:

Spread some caramel on gateau (8)

It is tempting to think that the answer has something to do with cake (gateau) but it does not: the answer relates to the word ‘spread’ and it is contained within caramel on gateau.  The solution, as the clue states, is ‘some’ of those three words.

Let me highlight the letters in question:

caramel on gateau

Yes, ELONGATE is the answer, a verb that means to make something longer (see the definition here).  I think, with great respect to the crossword compiler, that ‘spread’ as a definition of elongate is pushing it a bit (questionable).  He or she clearly chose ‘spread’ to deceive us into thinking that the clue really did have something to do with food.

Here is another clue of the same ilk (of the same sort).  It is from Daily Telegraph Puzzle No. 27,693 of 8th January, 2015 and reads:

Lovers usually embracing, playing (6)

The clue has nothing to do with lovers as such, but the words lovers usually are ’embracing’  – or holding – the solution.  The letters you should focus on are here:

Lovers usually

VERSUS is the right answer because, in a sporting context, when an individual or team is playing against another it is customary to speak of the match involving A versus B.  It sounds a rather antiquated (old) Latin word but it is used on a daily basis in the sports pages of any newspaper. In writing, versus is almost always abbreviated to v or vs, for example England v Australia or Chelsea vs Manchester City.  And lawyers will be familiar with the frequent use of versus in court cases, such as Kramer v Kramer.  The parties are not ‘playing’ each other of course, but one is fighting a legal battle ‘against’ the other.  You can read the definition of this useful preposition here.

There is just enough space to leave you with an anagram from the Daily Telegraph ‘Toughie’ Crossword, Puzzle No. 1286 of 4th November, 2014.

The clue is:

Welsh factories rebuilt in a straight line (2,3,4,5)

This will provide an interesting talking point for next week.

Good luck – and please let me know whether you are finding this methodology for exploring the English language helpful.

Never a cross word – 15

Tags

anagrams, crossword puzzles, cryptic clues, learning methodologies

The answer to one of the clues discussed in last week’s post was contract bridge (usually abbreviated simply to bridge).  If you are familiar with that game the solution to our first clue this week is a word you will definitely know.

A few years ago a number of readers of the Daily Telegraph, the newspaper from which most of the clues in this blog are taken, complained that the crossword was not difficult enough!  The result was the creation of a separate, much tougher, puzzle called the ‘Toughie’.

The Toughie is true to its name, so to ease you in gently I will adapt the clue slightly to begin with and will then show you the clue as it actually appeared.  My version reads:

Surpass mostly loyal politician (5)

Whenever you see the word ‘politician’ in an English crossword you should be on the lookout for the letters MP.  Why?  Because MP is short for Member of Parliament, the name given to an elected UK politician who sits in the House of Commons.  On 7th May this year some 650 men and women will be standing (putting their names forward) for election (or re-election) as MPs in what is expected to be one of the closest political contests in recent history.

Now back to the clue – and if we work on the assumptions (a) that the answer ends in MP; and (b) that it means ‘surpass’, we need a 3 letter word for ‘mostly loyal’.

If you are loyal to someone or something you are true – and ‘most’ of that word is the first three letters: TRU!  As far as the crossword setter’s mysterious mind is concerned, TRU is indeed ‘mostly loyal’!

Put TRU together with MP and you get TRUMP.

It is clear that that is the correct answer, since if you look up the word trump (defined here) you will see that one of the primary meanings (as a verb) is the first word in the clue – surpass – in other words be better than, or superior to, something or someone.

It is in this sense that the word ‘trump’, as a verb or a noun, has a specific meaning in bridge.  A trump is a card which will ‘beat’ (or ‘trump’) a card of a different suit even if that card has a higher face value.  Selection of which suit, if any, will be ‘trumps’ during the playing of a particular hand is a key feature of the game.

Note that ‘trump’ may also be used figuratively.  Holding a trump card not only relates to the game of bridge but also means having something valuable that may be used to gain an advantage – for example a piece of evidence or a winning argument.  One often keeps this up one’s sleeve (secret) ready to use as a surprise.  And, in a related idiom, if someone comes up trumps he or she is particularly helpful in achieving a good result, especially when not expected to.  See here for an example of the use of this expression.

Given that another meaning of ‘trump’ is the noise an elephant makes (if the children’s song Nellie the Elephant is to be believed), you can see it is a versatile word!

I told you earlier that I had adapted the Toughie clue to make it a little easier.  The original version did not use the word ‘surpass’; it used the word ‘eclipse’.  The clue as it appeared in Puzzle No. 1247 dated 27th August 2014 read:

Eclipse mostly loyal politician (5)

The answer is still TRUMP for all the reasons given above.  But one has to take the additional mental step of recognising that ‘trump’, in the sense of surpassing something or someone, is one of the meanings of the verb ‘to eclipse’.  Eclipse (defined here) is more usually encountered as a noun to describe an astronomical phenomenon, for example an eclipse of the moon.

Another idiom for you now from the same Toughie crossword: the clue is:

Change opinions, hit with a pair of taps? (4,3,3,4)

What do you immediately think of when a ‘pair of taps’ is mentioned?  That’s right – a hot tap and a cold tap.  And what is another word for ‘hit’?  It could be the word blow (defined here), as in: ‘the boxer took a heavy blow to his body’.

Put all that together and you get the answer –  BLOW HOT AND COLD – which is an idiom meaning to keep changing your mind or to change opinions.  There is some interesting information about the extremely ancient origin of the expression here.

The word ‘blow’ can also be used in some other useful phrases – one being to give a blow-by-blow account of something, meaning to give a highly detailed description.

There is just room in this post to squeeze in some ‘homework’.  The clue, from the (allegedly easier) Daily Telegraph Puzzle No 27,693 dated 8th January, 2015, reads:

Ran despite boils on foot (10)

Oh dear!  I have run out of sufficient space to give you a hint!  Good luck.  The solution will appear next week.

Never a cross word – 14

Tags

anagrams, crossword puzzles, cryptic clues, learning methodologies

There are many advantages to using cryptic crossword clues as a springboard for discussion of the English language.  A ‘springboard’ (defined here) can serve not only as a jumping off point, but also something that can be of assistance in achieving an overall aim or objective – in this case improving the vocabulary of ESL learners.

One such advantage is the number of idioms that are found, particularly in the longer answers.

A good example occurred during the holiday period in Daily Telegraph Puzzle No. 27,686 published on New Year’s Eve (31st January 2014).

The clue read:

Understand what paparazzi must do (3,3,7)

As noted last week, it is a good idea to first analyse the clue to see if it is likely to contain an anagram.  Here it is safe to conclude that it does not since there is no wording suggesting that any letters are mixed up.

The next thing, obviously, is to be sure of the meaning of paparazzi.  This is an example of a word that, like many others, has been ‘borrowed’ from another language – Italian.  It refers to photographers who take pictures of celebrities, often intrusively.  The singular is the word paparazzo, used as the name of a character in the 1960 film La Dolce Vita – a fact I did not know until today.  Yet a further advantage of cryptic crosswords is how educational they can be!  The definition and phonetics may be found here and an interesting discussion in Wikipedia here.

So, going back to the clue, we know that what paparazzi must do (to earn a living by selling their work to newspaper and magazine editors) is to ensure, when presented with a chance of taking a photo (often these days called a photo opportunity), that they get the picture.

And, with a flash like a flashbulb going off, the crossword solver should realise that GET THE PICTURE is the answer, since get the picture is an informal idiom for the first word in the clue – ‘understand’.  One often hears it used in speech as a question: ‘get the picture?’, or ‘you get the picture?’ meaning ‘do you understand?’

This should immediately ring a bell (bring back memories) for anyone who, like me, grew up listening to the 1964 Shangri-Las’ song ‘Leader of the Pack’. The second verse famously goes:

I met him at the candy store
He turned around and smiled at me
You get the picture?
“Yes, we see”
That’s when I fell for the leader of the pack.

(The full song lyrics are available on Lyrster here.)

The clue above is an example not only of an idiom, but also of a ‘pun’ (a little joke) based on a double meaning.

In a way, the next clue – from the same crossword – is a pun as well.  It reads:

Catch spanner needed for game (8,6)

Again, no anagram is involved.  It is not possible to find 14 letters in combinations of whole words that can be jumbled up – and it does not seem likely that a partial anagram (see Never a cross word – 11) is involved either.

If we conclude that the answer is a game of some sort, we need a synonym for ‘catch’ and a synonym for ‘spanner’ to put together.

Now it gets really tricky, since the words are not at all obvious.

Here the word ‘catch’ is not used in the simple sense of catching a ball.  Rather, it is used in the sense of catching (getting) an infectious disease.  There is a word for that which is the verb ‘contract’ – normally reserved for serious diseases.  In everyday speech one would refer to having caught (not contracted) a cold – but one might well say that someone had contracted pneumonia or tuberculosis.

It is well worth looking up the word contract (see here) as it can have many meanings, including one well known to lawyers.  Interestingly, the pronunciation changes depending on whether it is used as a noun or a verb.  As the reader will know, English is a stress-dependent language and this is a good example. When ‘contract’ is used as a noun the stress is on the first syllable (/’kɒntrakt/); but when it is used as a verb the stress is on the second syllable (/kən’trakt/).

We now turn to the second word in the clue – ‘spanner’ – and this is where the pun comes in.  Normally one would think of a spanner as a tool for tightening (or untightening) nuts and bolts (see here).

However, as is so often the case, we are being tricked again – the word spanner in the clue is intended to mean something that spans – in other words a bridge!  Bridges ‘span’ rivers, for example – and one can speak about a bridge’s ‘span’ (length). You would never use the word ‘spanner’ to describe a bridge in everyday speech: that would be quite wrong.  However, the crossword setter sees things in a different light: a bridge spans, so logically it can be called a spanner!

We can now solve the clue by putting together CONTRACT (disregarding the pronunciation) and BRIDGE to get CONTRACT BRIDGE, which is the name of a card game played all over the world!  You can read more about it here.

I cannot end without taking the opportunity to mention an idiom containing the word ‘spanner’ when used in its normal sense as a workman’s tool.  If a spanner is accidently dropped into delicate machinery it will clearly do it no good at all; it is likely to jam the mechanism (stop it working). This is the origin of the figurative expression to throw a spanner in the works, meaning to do something to stop a plan succeeding.  You will sometimes hear ‘put’ instead of ‘throw’ – and in American English the wonderful expression ‘monkey wrench’ (which is also a heavy tool) is used instead of ‘spanner’.

What a lot one can learn from two short cryptic clues!

More next Friday.

Never a cross word – 13

Tags

anagrams, crossword puzzles, cryptic clues, learning methodologies

Happy New Year!  If you are new to this blog, what follows may be double Dutch (i.e. not possible to understand or incomprehensible) without a word or two or explanation.

In short, this series of posts looks at the English language through the medium of ‘cryptic’ crossword clues.  I believe this to be a novel teaching methodology that will stretch the minds of reasonably advanced ESL learners and help them to learn new vocabulary; words or phrases you may wish to note are highlighted in bold italics.

If all this seems a bit far-fetched (unlikely to be true) please read one or two previous posts to get the idea and let me know what you think. For an introduction to ‘anagrams’, which are frequently found in cryptic crossword puzzles, please see Never a cross word numbers 3 and 4 posted in October 2014.

Let’s begin with the solution to the clue I left you to grapple with (struggle with) last time.  It read:

Area in front of stage where theatric pros will cavort (9,3)

I did help you by mentioning that an anagram was involved – although, as always, that was hinted at in the wording of the clue.

To approach the clue logically, ask yourself the following questions:

(a) What in the clue hints that we are dealing with an anagram?; (b) which 12 letters are mixed up to form the two words in the answer?; and (c) what word or words in the clue define what the answer means?

Let us address these questions in turn.

(a) The words ‘will cavort’ hinted at an anagram.  If you did not know the meaning of the not terribly useful word cavort, I hope you discovered that it meant ‘dance or jump around excitedly’.  In the context of the clue, 12 letters do just that: they jump around – and when put in a different order form two other words of 9 letters and 3 letters respectively.

(b) Which 12 letters dance around?  It seems logical that what immediately precedes ‘will cavort’ is what cavorts!  Sure enough, the words ‘theatric pros’ (‘pros’ being an abbreviation for ‘professionals’) contain 12 letters.

(c) By a process of deduction we can assume that the answer actually means the remaining words in the clue – ‘area in front of stage’. The challenge now is to find an anagram of ‘THEATRIC PROS’ which has that meaning.

Did you succeed?  The answer is:

ORCHESTRA PIT

An orchestra pit is, of course, the area just below the stage in a theatre where an orchestra is situated.

And now for something completely different, as the Monty Python team would say (for more information see the Wikipedia entry here).

In the last post I gave you some information about chess, and specifically the word ‘knight’.  This neatly leads to our next clue, from the Daily Telegraph Prize Puzzle No. 27,678 of 20th December, 2014:

Pawn and knight taken up in genuine act of revenge (8)

In any clue, one of the first questions to ask is ‘are we dealing with an anagram?’

In this case it is safe to conclude that we are not: there is no word that hints at any letters being jumbled up.

The next thing to consider is what the answer means.  It could mean pawn and knight, for example, and the first word that springs to mind – CHESSMEN – is indeed 8 letters.  However, there is no reason at all why that answer fits with the rest of the clue.  So let’s forget that idea and go back to the drawing board (start all over again).

An important point I should have mentioned is that this is one of a number of ‘down’ clues – written from top to bottom in the crossword grid (see also Never a cross word – 9).  That is significant when considering the wording ‘taken up’, which suggests that something is written backwards from bottom to top!

I am going to solve this for you now to show how devious crossword setters can be!

As we learnt in Never a cross word – 12, if you are a knight you have the title ‘Sir’.  Let’s proceed on the basis that sir is the word ‘taken up’ – giving us RIS.

We also learnt in that post that chess pieces can be abbreviated in a system known as ‘chess notation’.  The abbreviation for a pawn, not surprisingly, is P.  So ‘pawn’, followed by ‘knight taken up’ could be P+RIS = PRIS.

The next step is to think of another word for ‘genuine’.  Bearing in mind the solution to the clue is 8 letters, the 4 letter word ‘real’ looks an attractive synonym.  If something is genuine it is real.

If we now take the word REAL and split it – putting what we already have worked out ‘in’ it – we get:

RE  PRIS  AL

or, putting the letters together, REPRISAL

which must be the correct answer, since reprisal means an act of retaliation or revenge!  You can check the definition and phonetics here.

That was a difficult clue, but it is, I am afraid, not untypical (a classic English double negative).   It is more or less par for the course (an idiom borrowed from golf meaning ‘normal’ or ‘to be expected’).  Please do not despair if you found it tough: the important thing for the ESL learner is not so much to become a skilled crossword solver (although solving a clue by oneself is very satisfying).  Rather, this approach is intended to stimulate underused or new mental pathways as you work towards and understand the solution, thereby making new vocabulary more easily memorised.

Finally, as we have just seen, solving cryptic clues frequently involves seeing how words can be found within or around other words.  Accordingly, the ESL learner may learn something also about the ‘morphology’ (shape) of the language by following this blog.  Even if you don’t buy that argument (agree), I hope in any event that what you have just read provides food for thought (plenty to think about) and you will come back for another helping (another portion of food) next week.

All best wishes for your English language studies in 2015.