by David Astle
The hoax occurred in 1940, ensnaring thousands. For all his literary prowess, Beerbohm battled to solve the Times crossword, finding its clues ‘disastrous and devastating’. So he plotted revenge, making a cryptic that looked like the real thing yet made little sense on closer scrutiny. Next he persuaded the Times editor to collude, the bogus puzzle running in June as a replacement for the real McCoy.
The typeface was right. The pattern had symmetry. Everything seemed hunky-dory, even the tone and mood of Beerbohm’s clues. A Manx beverage, for one, had to be a deletion clue (since Manx cats have no tail), but where was the definition?
I’m in the old Roman bath was another booby trap, possessing all the container hallmarks, yet solvers across London found no joy in NIMERO, or CAESIMAR, or any other combo that might lead to a sensible solution.
Pitying the solvers in advance, the editor ran Beerbohm’s own confession on the same page as the phoney puzzle. As to whether every solver noticed the admission, that could be measured by the level of screams and teeth-gnashing across the capital. This was disorientation on a grand and sadistic scale.
Versus our current clue of course, a legitimate hybrid with BAMBOOZLED the lock-in answer by virtue of the letter pattern, plus the clue’s tense. Though before we delve into the intricate whys, let me continue to explore the idea of bafflement, as there are those times in Puzzleville, composing clues, when a dictionary can pull a Beerbohm on you, creating more questions than answers. As it happens, the prime example relates to the tall-grass world of horticulture.
WOOD FOR THE TREES – opaque definitions and Hookworm Syndrome
The word was imparipinnate. I turned to the Macquarie Dictionary, Third Edition (the Herald’s adjudicator), but the entry was less than lucid:
(adjective) pinnate with a terminal leaflet
Naturally I looked up pinnate, which wasn’t much better. The first definition made sense (shaped like a feather), but the second bamboozled:
(of a leaf) having leaflets or primary divisions arranged on either side of a common petiole or rachis
So I looked up petiole, which seemed pretty clear:
the stalk by which a leaf is attached to the stem; leafstalk
Inspiring me to check out rachis, only to enter more brambles:
the axis of an inflorescence somewhat elongated, as in a raceme
Adding further to my woes was the subsidiary definition:
b. (in a pinnately compound leaf or frond) the prolongation of the petiole along which the leaflets are disposed
To a mug gardener, that last bit sounds like the stem that veers off the stalk, holding the smaller leaves, but I could be wrong. You can’t approximate at the coalface. The solver needs to know if they’re chasing a stick or a leaf, and botanical term – the phrase – is so general as to be odious. In the end I scrapped IMPARIPINNATE, the only word to fit my tortured pattern, and trudged back to square one.
As a rule, composing definitions is the simpler side of the job, though brevity can be a challenge. Facing STEM CELL one day, I turned to the Collins Third Edition which gave me a mouthful in return: undifferentiated cell that gives rise to specialised cells, such as blood cells. Well and good if the cell-word wasn’t mentioned three times.
Because the other no-no, after long-winded definitions, is to define the solution using words that are actually within that very answer. Borrowing pinnate to explain imparipin-nate is equivalent to a clue-maker defining CAR BOMB as explosive device wired to car, or INCONSOLABLE as incapable of being consoled. I don’t mean to be churlish. Both Collins and the Mac are fine dictionaries, but even the best can err on the side of recycling.
Tiny words can sneak through the cracks, too. You can’t clue TIP OF THE ICEBERG as the small noticeable part of a more complex problem. Why? Because the definition carries two words (the, of) that also appear in the target phrase.
The other peril to avoid as a clue-maker is the Hookworm Syndrome. Back at uni I secured my first puzzle job crafting a crossword for the student newspaper. A big part of the credit must go to Mr Hammer. This was 1980. The media faculty was full of part-time Trotskyites and belligerent lesbians, those born with placards in one hand and megaphones in the other.
Fresh out of school, besotted by the anarchy, I was swept along by the constant protest. Less fees! More rights! One day we occupied Mr Hammer’s office, refusing to move until certain undertakings were met. I can’t recall the bugbear, nor the dean’s first name, but we sat in his suite and chanted angry slogans, most entailing radical wordplay.
Hammer and Sickle. Claw Hammer. Sledge Hammer. We worked all the angles. I warmed to the puns, and next week composed a 15x15 grid for NEWSWIT, the campus rag, loaded with all the combos we missed: hammer and tongs, If I Had a Hammer, Hammer Horror and more. The lesbians loved it. Rabble-rousers stopped me in the hall to commend me on the HAMMERSTEIN clue, the hybrid that managed to blend our dean of studies, Boris Karloff and South Pacific.
The gig turned regular. I had free rein, and added all sorts of undergrad rubbish, slowly getting the feel for a puzzler’s responsibility. The art of losing gracefully. The Piñata Principle.
I dabbled with alcohol – the theme – and shaped Crosswit to resemble a beer bottle. I went wild with rebuses and learnt how to be subtle without being unfair. Partway through the series I ran a clue for HOOKWORM: Catch bait for parasite?
‘Nu-uh,’ said Baz, my mate-cum-critic. ‘Not a good clue.’
‘Bad taste?’
‘Bad clue.’
Hookworms, Barry reckoned, are called hookworms owing to their hook-like shape. So having catch as a clue for HOOK was weak enough, but plumping for bait to signal WORM was out-and-out shabby.
‘Might sound picky, but you’re really just defining each part without doing any wordplay. It’s like, it’s like … I dunno. It’s like HOOKWORM. Do something different next time.’
He was right – it did sound picky. But the comment stuck, and Baz’s wisdom has lingered, much like hookworm. (Five years later, for a brief while, I asked Barry to babysit my puzzle correspondence while I was travelling, until I discovered his standard reply to all enquiries was Dear Solver, Get a life. Yours, Wordwit.) But my friend knew his onions when it came to clue science, his snub on campus now a commandment: Thou shalt not use definition as wordplay.
Easy, you’d think, but the trap is subtle. You can halve PIGEON into PIG and EON, and experiment with ideas of glutton or porker (PIG), plus time and ages (EON), but don’t expect the same impunity when clueing GUINEA PIG. The fat little critter is named after the pig – so glutton and porker both seem a rehash.
On a subtler level, for a setter to toy with the LABOR chunk lying in ELABORATE is also dubious. Both notions draw from the one well. LABOR as toil (in its US guise) and LABOR (the Australian political party) share their root; while ELABORATE is also part of the work-related family, given its Latin meaning ‘worked out’. A delicate piece of filigree is elaborate for the very reason that it has been worked into shape. Ditto for an elaborate plot, a fancy wedding dress, or a hybrid clue for that matter.
HYBRID TANGO – wordplay sequencing
Disorientated, guided east of tall grass zone one slashed (10)
We know where the definition sits, as we know the answer. But how does the wordplay play out? Write BAMBOOZLED on paper and apply the logic in reverse, seeing how the answer renders the clue, rather than vice versa.
Fittingly, this clue is elaborate. Leaner hybrids will step a solver through each wordplay, much like the DON JUAN example: DON + JA(U)N. But this clue prefers to take two steps forward, then one step back. Let’s slash the definition and focus on the wordplay:
guided east of tall grass zone one slashed
Jumping out is tall grass. If you’re thinking BAMBOO, then you’re on the money. Now to reckon with the tail: ZLED. A practical way is to swap what we’ve already confirmed within the clue:
guided east of BAMBOO zone one slashed
Compass p
oints are frequent on the cryptic page. Whenever a word like point or direction appears in a clue, summon the map. Just as talk of notes and keys can signify the tonic scale (do, re, mi etc.), or A through to G.
Yet here, cruelly, ironically, east is tied to orientation. Anything east of BAMBOO will lie to its right. (A similar stunt was pulled in the QUIZ clue, where the word behind directed you to park the Z after the QUI.) But back to BAMBOOZLED, can you see how ZLED stems from the leftover wordplay?
Guided is another word for LED. This lies east of tall grass (or BAMBOO). But what about that pesky Z? How’s this explained in zone one slashed? The verb should nudge you in a deletion direction.
Can you see it? When ONE is slashed from ZONE, you’re left with a Z, the final step in a complicated dance. On paper it goes like so:
Disorientated (BAMBOOZLED), LED east of BAMBOO Z
Disorientated? That’s why I’m here to guide you. Don’t expect to undo these harder hybrids at first blush, or second blush. But glean what you can. And rely on the purer clues to give you the cross-over letters you need to tame the hybrids. After thirty years of grappling with tricky puzzles, I can promise you that tall grass is not the only place to get bamboozled, yet that’s half the fun.
QUIZLING 31.1
Grass skirt possesses a triple-S, as do these other solutions.
Cinderella souvenir (5,7) Holy burner (4,5)
Proles’ battle (5,8) Harvard for one (8,6)
Where queens lie (5,3) Sewer’s X? (5–6)
It’s dishwasher-proof (9,5) Fastener (5,4)
Tasmanian moat? (4,6) Horny bunch? (5,7)
Sheriff often (7–6) Where you swear (7,5)
QUIZLING 31.2
Call yourself clever if you can sever
An Italian city’s head,
And switch the remaining thread
To reveal the vernacular for spectacular.
QUIZLING 31.3
Can you switch one letter of Queensland’s AIRLIE BEACH to its immediate predecessor in the alphabet, then ‘develop’ the new combo to spell two African republics?
CHAPTER 32
Press disrupt opening about
Russian writer (8)
dizzy as a butterfly
with praise before
the catcher’s expectant mouth
love …
i love to love …
the holy attender understood
only music
as a rope down the throat
tied to …
a net
Peter Valentine broke his poem into three clusters for a reason. Every word in the first group, from dizzy to love, comes from the Across clues of the New York Times crossword published on 30 January 2006. The second verse ransacks the Downs, while the answer grid has provided the coda – a net.
The title of this curious work – love, once noticed – stems from either clue or answer. Crossword poems were invented by Valentine back in 2002. One day, tackling a tricky Thursday puzzle, Peter stared blankly at the page. He saw the rich wash of language and tried to create something beyond the day’s clues. ‘My poems pay attention to the incidental details,’ he told Nikki Katz, author of Zen and the Art of Crossword Puzzles.
You can read more of Peter’s magpie creations at www.hungrybutscared.com. Or maybe you’d like to craft your own crossword poem based on the Master puzzle. Here’s my own effort, entitled ‘Creepy Binoculars’:
Why laugh for ignorance?
Press on, absorbed in remedy,
one twister completed, bar final pains.
Weather chaos. Expose new means to focus.
Be partial and avidly get closer
To superb revolution.
Climb trapeze, more or less.
Emily-Jo Cureton, another New Yorker, has adapted crosswords in a different way, selecting answers to prompt an illustration. On 26 August 2008, for instance, two Down entries (BROCCOLI and HYSTERIA) prompted Cureton to draw the vegetable bound in a straitjacket, the image framed by the crossword-in-progress.
Cureton maintained her crossword fetish for most of 2008, finding inspiration in the least likely answers. The phrase ‘EAT UP’, in combo with ORBS, saw the puzzle morph into a video screen where Pac Man munches dots through the maze. On other days, conjoined twins infer SOME PEOPLE/MISS THE CUT. (To see more, visit the virtual garret at www.emilyjocureton.com.) But be prepared for chills. The artist’s gift is in finding darkness inside the black and white, for example in her image of the lamb standing frozen in a wolf’s gaze to represent OVINE and ALONE.
Talk of sheep leads us back to another poem, this time a ballad written by Bluey the Shearer. His real name is Col Wilson, a bush laureate who couches his opinions in rhyme. A few years ago, on country radio, Bluey recited a poem named ‘Friday Cryptic Crossword’. Here’s a grab:
This ‘DA’, the setter, he’s not in it for gain,
He’s a dedicated sadist who loves inflicting pain.
When he isn’t setting puzzles, how does he fill his day?
Dreaming up new tortures to be used by the CIA?
Seems one man’s aqua therapy is another solver’s water-board. Crosswords can do strange things to people, some of whom are tormented artists. Or Russian writers, maybe, like the shadowy figure cited in 4-Across. Time to migrate from New York lofts and outback sheds to Moscow, seeking the scribe embedded in our second last hybrid.
ALPHABET SOUP – unique sequences and database skewing
With a V to end the answer, the Russian mention should come as no shock. Here’s the clue we need to consider:
Press disrupt opening about Russian writer (8)
When Mikhail Gorbachev stood down from power in 1991, I sighed. Not just the engineer of perestroika, the leader had such beautiful letters. So many Western statesmen own a glut of namby-pamby Os and Rs, but Gorby could hit a puzzle with both barrels. He still can, of course, emeritus-style, but I lament the exit of any V-ending bigwig. English can’t make enough.
Brezhnev, Kasparov, Nureyev, Pavlov – Mother Russia has been generous. My heart sinks when a red star rises on the horizon, someone like Putin or Sharapova, only for their surnames to end with a whimper. In the crossword caper, the tail is critical, as the wilder a word’s finale the more leeway you gain in the interlock. Putin (input switch) and Sharapova (A-Sharp medley + over, we hear) aren’t too shabby, but small potatoes compared to that exhilarating V.
It can get pathetic, trust me. I live so much for crisscrossing that I cheer on any horse in the Melbourne Cup, Australia’s biggest race, that owns unusual letters. One November, back in 1986, the publican presumed I’d won the trifecta when the winner was announced. How could he imagine I was prancing the bar for purely verbal reasons, a horse like AT TALAQ giving future grids new hope?
Movie titles with odd patterns (Antz, X-Men, EdTV) get me going too, as do TV shows with peculiar sequences: CSIMIAMI, NYPDBLUE, NIP/TUCK. If they last a few seasons, that’s all the better, cementing their future as grid fill. Like At Talaq, the prime weirdos are proven stayers.
In America, where interlocking is even more intense, the hunger for quirky combinations is acute. Best way to show you is by placing our last two ten-letter answers on top of each other like so:
M O R E O R L E S S
B A M B O O Z L E D
Pretend that this block is the bottom-left corner of a grid, no spaces between them. To make a crust, the US constructor needs to create words that flow downward into each column, ending in the letter-pairs of the ten vertical slots the pairing offers. Savage business. That’s why you need a welter of eccentric phrases. Let’s step through this exercise to get a feel for the interlocker’s art.
Reading left to right, looking at the vertical couples we have as end-pairs, we have the softer combinations (MB, RM, EL and SE), and then the gnarlier (OA, EB, OO), and finally the real hair-pullers (LZ and SD). Keep in mind that American puzzles require a setter to use each square twice, both horizontally and vertically.
&n
bsp; LSD will do for the last couple, while the LZ obstacle could be leapt by SCHULZ, the creator of the Peanuts comic. Or maybe SKILLZ, the gamer slang for proficiency. Now you see the importance of gathering stuff with offbeat patterns, and why the Russians are in a class of their own.
Eric Albert, an enterprising compiler from the US, has a strong nose for rare combinations. Back in the early 1990s, when computers were anvil-sized, Albert fed his database with umpteen words and names, each one rated according to their individual make-up. In the case of SCHULZ or GORBACHEV, both entries scored zero, the optimal ranking known as Fabulous in Albert’s system, a category set aside for words and well-known names abounding in strong consonants. NEW YORK, on the other hand, rated a single point, filed under Great: a common place name with less common letters, though not as bold as the first two examples. This radical approach, coupled with Albert’s computer program, was a giant leap forward in crosswording.
Prior to the Albert model, most American setters relied on grey matter only, or on limited software tools that filled a grid with little sense of panache. Say you wished to create an interlock to occupy a 5×5 grid. Ask your brain, or ask ye olde computer, and the outcome may look like this:
S T U N G
T E N O R
U N T I E
N O I S E
G R E E T
Not too bad. But due to Albert’s hard work, giving two points to JAWBONE (Very Good) or seven to ELLS (Boring), US setters have acquired alphabetic muscle. Thanks to this new system, where Fabulous fill scores zero and Very Yukky (Phil C, say, for Phil Collins) rates twelve, the software has a deeper challenge – not just to fill blanks, but to attain the minimal score. Updated, the 5x5 may pop out this way:
C L U M P
L U N A R
U N Z I P
M A I Z E
P R E E N
As a cryptic-setter, I use computers for a puzzle’s stubborn junctions, where nothing in my lists or imagination seems to end in LZ, for instance. A quick key-tap, entering the letters in any crossword finishers (a growing niche of sites and software deals), will see the Peanuts creator save the day.