This week’s 11 x 11 crossword from the Guardian intended to teach cryptic crosswords, found here
This week’s puzzle is the 9th puzzle by Dice, 10th including a paper only special. Dice has started setting Quiptic puzzles as well as the Quick Cryptics in the Guardian. All the puzzles set by Dice in the Quick Cryptic have had an additional trick – one had a Nina around the outside, another was a pangram and the rest have been themed. This puzzle has a theme, and has anagrams, naked and hidden words where all the letters are present, plus deletions where the solvers have to find the words.
The whole point of these crosswords is support and encouragement of new solvers, so special rules for these crosswords apply – see here – those rules include not posting solving times.
This blog was developed in response to suggestions. We hide the answers and the wordplay descriptions (parsing) too. To find the solution click on “Answer” and to find how the word play works, click on “Parsing” which will reveal the hidden information. You can choose to reveal everything using the “Expand All” button. If you have partially revealed the page, refreshing it will clear that, and allow you to expand all. The definition is in bold and underlined, the indicator is in red.
For additional help click here
There is a summary of the tricks used in the first six months here and a Guardian Crossword blog called the ultimate beginner’s guide has tips which may be useful for some solvers.
For abbreviations and clue tips click here
Fifteen Squared uses several abbreviations and jargon tricks, there’s a full list here, of which I’ve used the following in this blog:
- underlining the definition in the clue – this is either at the beginning or end of the clue
- indicators are in red.
- CAPITALS to indicate which bits are part of the answer, e.g. haVE ALtered for the example.
- anagram – letters being used shown in brackets (SENATOR)* for the clue below to give TREASON.
- anagrind – anagram indicator – in the case below it is “arranged”
- soundalike – is indicated by “Wilde” – so in the example, Oscar “Wilde”, the playwright and author, is indicating the soundalike WILD.
- charades – the description below only gives the example of words being added together, but charades can be more complicated, adding abbreviations or single letters to another word. Examples previously used in this series are: Son ridicules loose overgarments (6) S (son) + MOCKS (ridicules), Get rid of dead pine (5) D(dead) + ITCH (pine) – D ITCH, and early on DR (doctor) + IVE (I have) to give DRIVE.
- reversals – the reversal element of a clue is indicated by < – so in the example clue below, VieTNAm <.
- CAD or clue as definition– where the whole clue gives the definition, sometimes called an &lit. These are rare.
- DBE or definition by example – e.g. where a dog might be clued as a setter – often using a question mark, maybe, possibly or e.g. to show that this is an example rather than a definition.
- surface – the meaning from reading the clue – so often cryptic clues use an English that could only be found in a cryptic crossword, but a smooth surface is a clue that has a meaning in English, which can be pointed or misleading.
TODAY’S TRICKS – from the crossword site – because the clues have moved on from the clue descriptions below, I am now adding more to the descriptions hidden above. Clues begin or end with a definition of the answer. The rest is one of these:
- Anagram Anagram of answer and hint that there’s an anagram
‘Senator arranged crime (7)’ gives TREASON – (SENATOR)* arranged - Hidden word(s) Answer hidden in clue’s words
‘Some haVE ALtered meat (4)’ gives VEAL - Deletion Remove letters from another word for answer
‘Car trip with no parking, bad thing (3)’ gives SIN from SpIN (trip) - Naked words Remove first and last letters of another word for answer
‘Called for citrus to be peeled (4)’ gives RANG, from oRANGe (citrus)
| ACROSS | Click on “Answer” to see the solutions | |
| 1 |
Help Lassie use sty without limits (6)
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AnswerASSIST |
Parsingnaked words (without limits) from lASSIe uSe sTy – a different way of using naked words here, but something seen in the full fat cryptics. |
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| 4 |
Speak no words, somewhat understand (4)
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AnswerKNOW |
Parsinghidden word(s) (somewhat) from speaK NO Words – some misleading tricks here, the definition reads as if it could be “speak no words”, especially as it ties into the theme of words. |
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| 8 |
Government quitting land – drinks for everyone! (5)
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AnswerROUND |
Parsingdeletion (Government quitting, so remove a G) from gROUND (land). “Government quitting” is an instruction to remove a G. G for government comes from G-man according to Chambers, (it’s how it’s listed in the abbreviations). |
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| 9 |
Come in, get into here, no outsiders! (5)
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AnswerENTER |
Parsingnaked word (no outsiders) of gEt iNTo hERe – the same way of using naked words as above. |
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| 10 |
From inside, watches crab bleakly claw about (8)
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AnswerSCRABBLE |
Parsinghidden word(s) (from inside) in watcheS CRAB BLEakly – and I suspect this is thematically the word game. |
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| 13 |
Speech from old Bangui sages, not taking sides (8)
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AnswerLANGUAGES |
Parsingnaked word(s) (not taking sides) from oLd BANGUi sAGEs – and again the same technique as above, taking the centres of the words in the clue, but not just the middles. |
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| 16 |
Cold, missing female is stiff (5)
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AnswerRIGID |
Parsingdeletion (missing female) from fRIGID (cold) where “missing female” is an instruction to drop F – F for female comes up often. M/F on forms, for example. |
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| 17 |
Stole from dealer’s car forecourt (5)
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AnswerSCARF |
Parsinghidden word(s) (from) dealer’S CAR Forecourt – and this is another tricksy playing with word meanings – the surface of the clue suggests “stole” as a verb, the past participle of “steal” or taking without consent, but the solution is using “stole” as a noun – the second meaning in Chambers. |
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| 18 |
Unites weak men lacking some energy (4)
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AnswerWEDS |
Parsingdeletion (lacking some energy) from WEeDS (weak men). Lacking some energy is an instruction to remove E (E for energy comes from scientific abbreviations, e.g. E = mc²). |
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| 19 |
Tea set laid out – it’s my property (6)
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AnswerESTATE |
Parsinganagram of (TEA SET)* with an anagrind of “laid out” and another cryptic definition. |
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DOWN
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| 1 |
So, cars needing repair on the other side (6)
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AnswerACROSS |
Parsinganagram of (SO CARS)* with an anagrind of “needing repair” and another cryptic definition – to get to the other side, or the other side of the puzzle. |
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| 2 |
Naked ass, squat, try and pee at a right angle (6)
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AnswerSQUARE |
Parsingnaked word(s) (naked) from aSs sQUAt tRy and pEe – with another little trick along the way. The list of words to be stripped includes the “and pee”, but the “and” has been added in to make the surface work. It conjures up the boys at my primary school using an outside wall as a urinal to see how high they could pee. |
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| 3 |
So sad bride dismantled items of furniture (10)
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AnswerSIDEBOARDS |
Parsinganagram of (SO SAD BRIDE)* with an anagrind of “dismantled”. |
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| 5 |
Perhaps fa or la some Slipknot enthusiastically (4)
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AnswerNOTE |
Parsinghidden word(s) (some) from SlipkNOT Enthusiastically. Fa and la are part of the sol-fa scale and Slipknot are one of the bands my daughter used to play at me at full volume as a teenager, when cross with me and the world. I’m not linking, because nu metal is not my favourite music genre. |
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| 6 |
Noun, perhaps, for blade, not small (4)
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AnswerWORD |
Parsingdeletion (not small) from sWORD (blade). S for small comes from clothing sizes. |
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| 7 |
In translation losing some modern words (10)
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AnswerNEOLOGISMS |
Parsinganagram of (LOSING SOME)* with an anagrind of “in translation” – Chambers defines the answer (singular) as a new word or new use of a word or phrase. |
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| 11 |
Captivated by Elphaba, Nan abandoned fruit (6)
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AnswerBANANA |
Parsinghidden word(s) (captivated by) in ElphaBA NAN Abandoned. The surface is riffing on “Wicked” with a link to the stage show, not the film, because I’ve seen the stage show and wasn’t impressed enough to want to see the film. At the time I was working with someone whose sister had seen Wicked repeatedly; apparently the staging I’d seen wasn’t the best cast, according to this fan who’d seen every cast change. |
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| 12 |
E-file’s malfunctioned – it was me, I snapped it (6)
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AnswerSELFIE |
Parsinganagram of (E-FILE’S)* with an anagrind of “malfunctioned” and a cryptic definition. |
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| 14 |
Take out odd prawn, peeled (4)
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AnswerDRAW |
Parsingnaked word(s) (peeled) from oDd pRAWn – for the definition think of preparing whole fish for cooking where the guts have to be taken out. |
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| 15 |
Charlie deserting locked-up geriatric (4)
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AnswerAGED |
Parsingdeletion (Charlie deserting) cAGED (locked up), where C deserting as an instruction to remove C. C for Charlie is not in Chambers, but adding later, see below, C for Charlie is part of the NATO phonetic alphabet. As additional information for crossword puzzles, C for cocaine is in Chambers, and both are drug slang for marching powder. |
Lots to like. Well-pitched. Helped me to practise naked clues. As a Scrabble lover, it is a great theme. 7D a new word for me.
Thanks Shanne & Dice.
I didn’t expect to see Slipknot referenced in a cryptic clue, it had me chuckling for a while 🙂 My offspring played Slipknot (and the Offspring as well) on high volume, too 🙂
Loved the grid, the clues definitely needed some thinking to annotate them properly, and I’m happy with the practice.
Ta, Dice & Shanne!
As I didn’t understand ‘naked words’ at from the trick description I managed most of the crossword but didn’t understand why the answers worked. Now from all the explanations I think I might manage naked words next time.
I also found some of the relations difficult. And I’d never heard of slipknot except in the naval cadets! Thanks very much for a challenging morning Dice and Shanne
Ouch! I struggled with the naked words – need more practice.
Enjoyed that one, only got stuck on Neologisms because I have never heard of that word.
Favourite clue was Naked ass, squat, try and pee at a right angle… hilarious
Nice puzzle. I still don’t see that there is a theme, I must be missing something. Quite a chewy set of clues and it took me some time to understand that all the naked word clues had all the letters present – I was looking for synonyms mostly. Luckily there were some good anagrams and hidden-words to get traction. Ta, Dice, good exercise, and thanks Shanne for your blog.
I caught on to the naked words clues quickly and did them first. The deletions took longer and I needed crossers to come up with weeds for weak men. I was puzzled by stole for scarf though only because I was stuck on thinking of possible alternative meanings of the verb steal. Good clue. Thanks, Dice and Shanne.
For a change an easy one. I am sure tomorrow will be another story…
18 loi. I am not familiar with that word usage.
thecronester @6 in SCRABBLE the WORD game, you DRAW letters, ENTER them on SQUAREs on the BOARD, hopefully placing higher scored letters on coloured SQUAREs with double or triple letter or WORD scores, adding later, because I can, either ACROSS or down the BOARD, crossword fashion. If the WORD is challenged, they can be checked in the agreed dictionary for that game, internationally in Collins Scrabble Words, which is faster at including NEOLOGISMS than the American version. Different SCRABBLE BOARDS exist in different LANGUAGEs (the German board doesn’t score Z at 10), but house rules sometimes include rude SCRABBLE or any other variant that group plays.
(It’s word generally, I think – but SCRABBLE is word game.)
Shanne#9 I know Scrabble is a word game, my wife is an avid player 🙂. I just didn’t see all the other associations (apart from maybe board) but yes I see what you’re saying about drawing letters, and squares and word. Thanks.
I had the same initial difficulty as thecronester #6, but then I spotted that it wasn’t a synonym I was needing and that the answer was spread across adjacent words. I think my favourite was ENTER. Nice puzzle; thanks Shanne and Dice.
Thank you Shanne and Dice, some great clues and explanations, including SELFIE which I only got right at the end
Never heard of Slipknot, loved Selfie and the squatting and peeing clue made me laugh out loud although the answer wasn’t funny.
Thanks Shanne and Dice
15D – surely Charlie is from the phonetic alphabet
Sorry Hugh Gibson @14 – you’re right. I’ll correct it.
I was initially stuck on the naked words, because I was following the model in the example at the top and thought that I needed a word not in the clue. However 13A jumped out at me (I could see “language” in “old bangui sages”, and why would the setter use “bangui” except to give us some letters, it’s really obscure). After that I got the idea and found the other naked words easily.
To get to government = g in 8 across, I thought of the abbreviation HMG for His Majesty’s Government …. See here https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/hmg
This was a fun one and much easier than the last one I looked at. I liked NEOLOGISMS and all those nakeds.
Thanks Dice and Shanne
Nope. As someone who is neurodivergent (and therefore takes things very literally) the fact the naked words explanation said to remove first and last letters of ANOTHER WORD and made no mention of the possibility of it, in fact, being multiple words was incredibly misleading and unhelpful. I was constantly trying to find single words to remove first and last letters from. Not fun at all for me today.
Mac @18 – sometimes Cryptic puzzles do require the solver to find another word to make naked. Other times the instruction means to remove the outer letters of words in the clue – both exist.
The instructions on the Guardian puzzles are not great – I’ve added to their instructions above in both the hidden additional support and the brief instructions, because:
* the original charades instructions didn’t include abbreviations.
The opacity of other instructions:
* swap a letter uses MOG to FOG when you need to know that MOG is a name for a cat,
* insertions uses insert R for republican into PO for Post Office,
* deletions uses SpIN, spin is defined as a car ride, and the P to be removed is Parking.
But the whole game of cryptic crosswords is twisting our brains into odd pretzels to see things differently. As someone who blogs these puzzles regularly, sometimes explaining how the setters instructions work to make it clear for people who don’t get it is a challenge.
I do the Guardian quick cryptic every week. It’s the only cryptic I can manage. I had to ‘cheat’ language (13 across) but once I did I twigged all the others fairly easily. Neologisms? That confounded me. Overall I think this was my favourite ever. Thankyou Dice!
Mac@18 Cryptic crosswords must be very challenging for people whose brains are wired so as they tend to take things literally, so well done for persevering. Do you find that it helps you to think more laterally? That’s assuming, of course, that you want to think more laterally!
Overall, I thought that this puzzle was an excellent workout for intermediate solvers wanting to practice on some of the more difficult types of clues but I do wonder where actual beginners should be signposted to. Back to the early days of the quick cryptic?
By a process of elimination, I eventually got 7D neologisms as I had all of the crossers by then. Laughed out loud at 2D ..
Sorry the Guardian has made itself inaccessible. I won’t accept cookies and am not prepared to pay a sub just for this. So, farewell Shanne, and thanks for all the help.
What was the theme?
Jill @24 – SCRABBLE and WORD games – there’s a discussion in the comments, see @9
I had to really tax my brain until I realised that the naked words spread across a few words. Having said that I still can’t understand the parsing on 18A. I am a relative newbie although generally can get through the Quick Cryptics now so am annoyed at this one as had to reveal the word.
Repgirl @26 – some weak men are called WEEDS, it’s UK informal in dictionaries. If I remove an E (lacking some energy) we get WE[e]DS or WEDS and to wed someone is to unite with them in matrimony.