Never a cross word – 46

Tags

anagrams, crossword puzzles, cryptic clues, English for speakers of other languages, learning methodologies, words within words

Last week I left you with this clue:

It’s audible although surprisingly I won’t hear this (6,7)

The first thing to check is whether the answer could be an anagram.  You should do this in two ways:

(1) Count the number of letters in whole words in the clue.  Here it is significant that the thirteen letters we need (in total) might be found (ignoring apostrophes) in:

I WON’T HEAR THIS

(2) Look for a word that hints at letters being jumbled up.  Here, ‘surprisingly’ suggests that the letters immediately following it should be arranged in a surprise order.

Having concluded that an anagram is involved, I am afraid there is no magic formula other than writing the letters down in a different order and hoping for inspiration.  Of course you should analyse the remainder of the clue to deduce the meaning of the solution.  In this case, it seems quite clear that the answer means: ‘It’s audible’.

The answer is the idiom:

WITHIN EARSHOT

If something is within earshot it is close enough to be heard, or is audible;  see here.  The opposite is ‘out of earshot’.

The strange expression ‘earshot’ is thought to be a natural progression from the old word ‘bowshot’, being the range (distance) one could shoot an arrow from a bow.

A similar example of word derivation occurs in this clue from Daily Telegraph Crossword No. 27,884 dated 19th August 2015:

Fixer who’s corrupt to others protecting currency? (14)

Like the within earshot clue, this is an anagram but this time only a partial anagram, which makes it a little more tricky since it is not obvious how many of the 14 letters are involved.

The hint that an anagram is involved is the word ‘corrupt’, suggesting that something has gone bad.  If you have a computer file which has become corrupted the information contained within it is ruined or unreliable and it may be impossible to access or read it.

What has become corrupt in this clue are the words:

TO OTHERS

If those letters are mixed up and used to protect (surround) some sort of currency then we should obtain a word meaning ‘fixer’.

The currency (money) is that used in Russia, namely the rouble (or ruble).  There is nothing in the clue telling you that – you just have to mentally run through a list of possibilities, discounting Euro, dollar, pound, yen etc. until – in a split second (very quickly or in a flash) your brain spots the answer. The Russian ruble was, incidentally, the world’s first decimal currency; see here.

Putting ‘rouble‘ inside the anagram of ‘to others’ we arrive at the solution:

TROUBLESHOOTER

A troubleshooter is someone who traces and fixes (corrects, mends) faults; see the definition of the verb ‘troubleshoot’ here.

According to this link, the term originally arose when telegraph lines were being built in the USA in the mid to late 1800s.  A troubleshooter threatened to shoot anyone who interfered!

If you have ever bought a piece of equipment you will have seen at the back of the instruction booklet a ‘troubleshooting guide’ telling you what steps to take if it does not work properly.  If it is a piece of electronic equipment, usually the first thing is to check it is turned on!

That brings us to our next clue where the word ‘on’ is used as a synonym for ‘working’.  The clue (from the same puzzle as above) reads:

Drunk restricts working when stars are out (7)

This looks like it might be an anagram (the word ‘out’ frequently acts as a hint).  However, that idea can be quickly rejected because ‘stars are’ has the wrong number of letters.

There are many, many ways of saying that someone is drunk (has consumed too much alcohol).  In fact there are hundreds – mostly slang expressions; see here!

A popular word for being slightly drunk is tipsy; but the word we are looking for is tight, which means being rather more inebriated (there are many other meanings of tight of course, one of which is being reluctant to pay for anything).

If the word ‘tight’ restricts (traps, prevents from moving) the word ‘on‘ (meaning ‘working’) one gets:

TONIGHT

which is when stars are out (assuming it is a clear night)!

Being drunk normally results in confusion, so in some cryptic clues the word ‘drunk’ is a signal that an anagram is involved. With that strong hint, try this from Daily Telegraph Puzzle No. 27,890 dated 26th August 2015:

Pay close attention to verbose drunk (7)

You don’t even have to know what verbose means, although I will tell you next week.

Good luck!

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Never a cross word – 45

Tags

anagrams, crossword puzzles, cryptic clues, English for speakers of other languages, learning methodologies, words within words

Last week I left you with this anagram to solve:

Do legacies show off this fruitless pursuit? (4-5,5)

You probably guessed by counting the number of letters that the solution is an anagram of DO LEGACIES SHOW. Perhaps you also recognised the hint that an anagram is involved (the word ‘off’), and that the answer means ‘fruitless pursuit’. But I wonder if you got:

WILD-GOOSE CHASE

A wild-goose chase is a pointless search for something that can never be found. Carrying out the exercise will never bear fruit (result in success) and the pursuit is therefore destined to be fruitless.

The term ‘wild-goose chase’ was introduced into the English language by Shakespeare (in Romeo and Juliet).  But in Shakespeare’s day the expression had a different meaning: please see the fascinating account here.

Animals often feature in cryptic crossword clues and here are two examples from Daily Telegraph Crossword No. 27,875 dated 8th August 2015.  In the first, the reference to the animal is in the clue:

A bird with mother somewhere in Egypt (5,3)

This is difficult because there are so many possibilities for a bird.  In fact the bird is a swan (there is no way of knowing other than making an inspired guess); and the mother is a dam (a rather unusual meaning of the word, defined here). The answer is therefore:

A SWAN DAM … or

ASWAN DAM

which is an important dam across the Nile river in Egypt.  A dam in this sense has the more usual meaning of a barrier built to hold back water, see here.

In the second clue the reference to an animal is in the answer.  It reads:

Right pickle to follow small first bite (4,9)

Only a native English speaker would get this I’m afraid – and it would probably leave even a North American reader bemused (puzzled).  However this column exists to bring you authentic modern-day language, so I will tell you that the answer is:

DOG’S BREAKFAST

Why on earth is that right?  Here’s why.

In informal British English a right pickle (sometimes a right ‘old’ pickle or a ‘pretty’ pickle) is a difficult situation – as in: ‘If you lose your passport while you are abroad you’ll be in a right pickle’.  It can also mean a mess, as in: ‘You have made a right pickle of painting that wall – there are paint splashes all over the floor.’  A complete mess is also what a dog’s breakfast means, see here, so in that sense the two expressions mean the same.  A dog’s dinner can also be used to mean a mess – but this depends on the context.  Oddly enough, if you are dressed up like a dog’s dinner you are smartly dressed, see here!

We now know that right pickle defines the answer but how does the rest of the clue point to dog’s breakfast?  The reason is that another word for ‘to follow’ is to dog.  If you dog someone you follow them closely and persistently – see the definition of dog as a verb here.  The clue says ‘to follow small’ so if we add the abbreviation S for ‘small’ we get:  DOG+S = DOGS.  Finally your ‘first bite’ of the day is your BREAKFAST!

Working out these clues is not rocket science (something only highly skilled and clever people can do) but it does take a lot of practice built on a thorough knowledge of the English language.  That is why I believe using cryptic clues as a teaching method is so valuable.  Please let me know if you agree.

This has nothing to do with animals, but try the following clue from the same puzzle:

It’s audible although surprisingly I won’t hear this (6,7)

All will be revealed next week.

Never a cross word – 44

Tags

anagrams, crossword puzzles, cryptic clues, English for speakers of other languages, learning methodologies, words within words

Welcome back. Here we go again – off on another magical mystery tour inspired by cryptic crossword clues. Last week we started in Aberdeen, stopped over for some caviar and ended up with a spot of surfing. This week our first port of call is Oxford University.  But you would not believe that from the clue I left you which read:

Old King circling stage in Worcester perhaps (7)

The answer is:

COLLEGE

Why?  You have to go through three mental steps to understand this.

First, we have the Old King.  The answer to that part is COLE.  Practically every child who has grown up in the UK will have heard the nursery rhyme (a poem you learn when you are very young) about Old King Cole.  It starts:

Old King Cole was a merry old soul …

Secondly, we have the word ‘stage’.  This had me fooled for some time until I realised that stage can mean a part or section of a journey. The word leg is frequently used in this context, see under point 3 here. For example you could say ‘the first leg of my journey was from London to Paris’.

If COLE is ‘circling’ LEG it means that it is wrapped around it, as shown here:

COL LEG E

But why does that answer – college – have anything to do with Worcester, best known as a city in the Midlands of England?  The third step in the reasoning is to realise that Worcester is one of the colleges in Oxford.  The clue says ‘Worcester perhaps‘ meaning Worcester is one of several examples of something more generic (general): the clue could equally well have said ‘Christ Church perhaps’ or named a Cambridge or other university college.  Worcester College (founded in 1714) is one of the less well known of the 38 colleges in Oxford but well worth a visit, not least for its beautiful gardens.

Another example of a clue using ‘perhaps’ to hint at a generic word appeared in Daily Telegraph Crossword No. 27,866 dated 29th July 2015.  It reads:

Perhaps mother should have time for runs?  It’s evident (6)

A mother, like a father, is an example of the more general word parent, which is 6 letters but cannot be the answer.  If it were, the clue would simply stop after ‘perhaps mother’! The trick is to recognise that you have to take the word PARENT and replace the letter R (short for runs in cricket) by the letter T (short for time). If you do that you get the answer:

PATENT

This is the solution because patent as an adjective means easily recognisable, obvious or evident, see here.  When I was training to become a patent attorney, it seemed to me a little paradoxical (seemingly absurd) that when one is trying to obtain a patent (in the sense of a legal right) one can only do so for an invention which is not obvious!

Now try this, from Daily Telegraph Crossword No. 27,872 dated 5th August 2015:

To leave without finishing is a mistake (4)

Another way of saying ‘to leave’ could be ‘to go off’, as in ‘I am just going off to collect John from the station’.  To go off is one of many examples of phrasal verbs which seem to give ESL learners difficulty. This is not helped by the fact that ‘go off’ can have other meanings – for example food can go off if it turns bad; an alarm clock can go off (ring); and a bomb can go off (explode).  Some other phrasal verbs with ‘go’ are highlighted in this nice online exercise from 5 Minute English.

Anyway if ‘go off’ is written ‘without finishing’ (with the final letter omitted) you get the answer:

GOOF

A goof is an informal word for a mistake, chiefly used in North America- see here.   This should not be confused with the adjective goofy, which generally means displaying protruding (sticking out) front teeth, as in ‘a goofy grin’; see here.  Goofy with a capital G is of course an eccentric character in Mickey Mouse films.

And there we have it.  Thanks to the power of cryptic clues in leading us down unpredictable avenues we have gone from an Oxford College to Mickey Mouse in less than 700 words.  As the recently victorious English cricketers would say – sorry, Australian readers, to bring up (mention) this delicate subject –  ‘Owzat’!

It is some time since we have had a challenging anagram – so, with that hint, let me leave you with this, from the same puzzle:

Do legacies show off this fruitless pursuit? (4-5,5)

The answer, a fine example of an English idiom, will be revealed next week.

Good luck!

Never a cross word – 43

Tags

anagrams, crossword puzzles, cryptic clues, English for speakers of other languages, learning methodologies, words within words

Hello again.  I hope those of you who can are enjoying the summer weather and having a pleasant holiday (what Americans call a vacation).

The clue I left you to ponder (think about) last week was:

Break bread, even in Scotland (8)

As you might have guessed, the answer has nothing to do with eating.  The word ‘break’ is a hint that an anagram is involved.  The following word (BREAD) is broken up and the letters are then put back together in a different order.

In fact the answer is:

ABERDEEN

which is an important port in Scotland.

It comes from rearranging the letters of bread to give ABERD, followed by the Scottish word for ‘even’ which is e’en (see here). This is an example of a clue, not found very often, where part of it serves double duty (is used twice): the ‘in Scotland’ defines how ‘even’ should be written and in addition defines the location of the final answer.

The ESL learner does not need to know Scottish dialect, but it is at least worth knowing of its existence. And it is worth knowing a little about Aberdeen which is the third largest city in Scotland (for a Wikipedia entry please see here). The other two major cities are of course Glasgow and Edinburgh.  The famous Edinburgh Festival begins today and continues throughout August.

Talking of Scotland, try this clue from Daily Telegraph Crossword Puzzle No. 27,868 dated 31st July 2015:

Good person to encourage Scottish politician (8)

Whenever you see a reference to a ‘good person’ in a cryptic crossword clue you can be fairly certain that it means ‘Saint’ – abbreviated to St.  As, for example, in St Peter or St Joan.  You don’t get to be a Saint if you are not a good person!

We now need a word or words meaning ‘to encourage’.  To encourage means to give support, advice or hope to someone (see the definition here).  To urge on means much the same thing – if you urge someone on you encourage them to succeed – see here.

So – putting it all together – we have:

ST + URGE ON

or:

STURGEON

Those who have been following British politics will know that Nicola Sturgeon is a Scottish politician.  More than that, she is the leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) which succeeded in winning 56 out of 59 seats in Scotland at the 2015 General Election.  Winning in such a successful way (winning by a wide margin) is known as a landslide victory.

By chance, Nicola Sturgeon shares her last name with that of a large fish: the sturgeon (of which there are several species) is where the expensive delicacy caviar comes from, see here.

Changing the subject, try this from Daily Telegraph Puzzle No. 27,871 dated 4th August 2015:

Best place for a surfer, out in the open (5-5)

As with so many clues, the answer is idiomatic and relies on a little joke or pun.  The answer is:

ABOVE-BOARD

Obviously the best place for a surfer is above his or her surf board, but above-board (not always hyphenated) has another meaning in English.  As defined here, it can be an adjective or adverb and means legitimate or honest.  If you act in a way that is completely above board, you are being transparent in your dealings and could never be accused of fraud.  Put another way, everything is out in the open – the second half of the clue.

Finally, let me leave you this from the same crossword:

Old King circling stage in Worcester perhaps (7)

For a non-native English speaker (and even for a native one) this clue is very difficult but introduces some interesting points for discussion. The answer will appear next week.