Solving the National Post Cryptic Crossword Puzzle

Introduction

If you have an interest in the cryptic crossword puzzles published in the National Post, then this blog is for you. For those who are new to the world of cryptic crosswords, it will provide tips and techniques to help you become a skilled solver of these puzzles. Veteran solvers will hopefully use it as a forum to discuss their hobby with like-minded enthusiasts while sharing their knowledge and experience with a new generation of cruciverbalists.

To the uninitiated, cryptic crosswords can be quite intimidating. However, as with many things, with a little knowledge and a lot of practice, one can master the art of solving them. I, myself, am a relative newcomer to these intriguing puzzles, having begun solving them only a year or so ago. Prior to that (like many people -- I suspect), I was quite proficient at solving regular crossword puzzles, and was often tempted to try the cryptic crosswords which appeared next to them in the newspaper. However, I could never make much headway with them. In fact, I would be lucky to get one or two answers correct.

Then, about a year ago, I began researching the principles and conventions used in cryptic crosswords. Now, by applying this knowledge, I am usually able to solve most of the puzzles, although I may occasionally miss a few answers. Sometimes, I get the right answer but have no idea as to why the wordplay in the clue leads to that answer. That is the thing with cryptic crosswords -- it is not enough (at least for me) to get the right answer, I must also understand why it is the right answer.

Therefore, the objective of this blog will be two-fold. The first is to share the knowledge that I have gained in doing cryptic crosswords with others in the hope that it may enhance their cryptic crossword puzzle solving experience. The second is to provide a forum within which fans of the National Post cryptic crosswords can share their knowledge. Hopefully, readers of this blog will be able to fill in the gaps when I draw a blank or correct any errors that I may make.

In addition to providing an explanation of answers, I plan to add links to resources that I have discovered on the web. I welcome your comments.

Tip of the Day: Parsing the clue - the key to finding the solution

Each day, I will try to provide a Tip of the Day. This may be a tip or technique for puzzle solving, commentary on some aspect of cryptic crosswords, information on a tool that I use in helping me solve puzzles, or a link to an interesting website related to cryptic crosswords.

Today, I will discuss parsing the clue which is fundamental to solving cryptic crosswords. Clues typically have two parts, each of which provides a clue to the answer. Clues can often be read in a straight-forward manner that may be (intentionally) misleading. Achieving success in finding the solution usually lies in properly parsing the clue.

For example, take the following clue from today's National Post puzzle:

23ac Utter "thing" word when upset (9)

On the surface, the meaning may appear to be "Say 'thing' when angry". However, when properly parsed, one finds that this clue actually consists of two parts each of which means DOWNRIGHT. The first is the word "Utter" used in the sense of "total" and the second is the phrase "THING WORD" which is an anagram of DOWNRIGHT. The phrase "when upset" is, in fact, a cryptic instruction to the solver that the words preceding it form an anagram.

There are often multiple interpretations possible for clues and successfully parsing the clue is an art that is honed with experience.

A note on notation for representing cryptic solutions

It is useful to have a shorthand notation for representing cryptic crossword solutions. From my experience, there does not seem to be a standard notation for this purpose, so I will be utilizing one of my own invention (incorporating bits and pieces from others that I may have encountered). The notation is based on annotating the published clue to illustrate the wordplay involved in solving the puzzle. I have tried, to the extent possible, to make this notation consistent with that used on other web sites to which I may make reference. This notation will undoubtedly evolve over time, as circumstances dictate. Hopefully, use of this notation will prove to be enlightening rather than confusing. Please feel free to comment on this or any other aspect of this blog.

I will attempt to illustrate this notation using, as an example, the following clue which appeared in today's puzzle in the National Post:

5d Returned informant's permit for satellite? (7)

I will walk through the the process of solving this clue while building the notation, element by element. To solve the puzzle, we must first identify the component parts of the clue. In this case, they are "Returned informant's permit" and "satellite" which are linked by the joining word "for".

To differentiate the parts of the clue we introduce the first element of our notation:

Element 1 (E1) - Forward and reverse slashes "/\" separate the parts of the clue. The joining word, if any, is placed between the slashes.

Inserting E1 in our example produces,

5d Returned informant's permit /for\ satellite? (7)

In the example, the word "returned" is used as an instruction, indicating that the order of the letters must be reversed. To identify instructions, we introduce:

Element 2 (E2) - Instructions are written in italic font within curly brackets "{}" and may include an explanation (in parentheses) in cases where the instruction itself is "cryptic"

After adding E2, we have,

5d {Returned (reversed)} informant's permit /for\ satellite? (7)

The letters that form the solution may be letters that appear in the clue itself or letters that are substituted for letters that appear in the clue. In our example, to solve the clue we first substitute "RATS" for "informant's" and "LET" for "permit" and combine these to form the string "RATSLET". We then reverse the order of the letters in the string "RATSLET" to obtain the solution "TELSTAR". This leads us to:

Element 3 (E3) - Letters to be substituted are inserted into the clue following the words for which they are substituted (e.g., "informant's [RATS]"). Letters forming part of the solution are written in upper case font. Unless the letters formed part of the published clue, they are written within square brackets. In cases where letters must be reordered to complete the solution, the unordered letters are written in upper case non-bold font and the ordered letters in upper case bold font.

After inserting E3, we have,

5d {Returned (reversed)} informant's [RATS] permit [LET] /for\ satellite [TELSTAR]? (7)

To better indicate how we arrived at the solution "TELSTAR", we add the next element:

Element 4 (E4) - Reversal of the order of letters is indicated by the operator (symbol) "<" After introducing E4, we have:

5d {Returned (reversed)} informant's [RATS] permit [LET] /for\ satellite [TELSTAR<]? (7) To provide additional clarity, we introduce the following two elements: Element 5 (E5) - A vertical bar is used to separate the component parts of the solution

Element 6 (E6) - Curly brackets are used, when necessary, to show that operators act on a group of component parts of a solution

Adding E5 and E6, produces the following:

5d {Returned (reversed)} informant's [RATS] permit [LET] /for\ satellite [{TEL|STAR}<]? (7)

In the above case, note that the instruction {Returned} acts on the group of components "RATS|LET". Therefore, the curly brackets are necessary to show that the operator "<" acts on a group of component parts of the solution and not on an individual component part. It may help to understand this aspect of the notation if we consider how one might use it to parse a slightly different clue. Suppose, the clue were to read: Returned informant's permit for up-and-coming actress? (7) For this clue, the solution would be: {Returned (reversed)} informant's [RATS] permit [LET] /for\ up-and-coming actress [STAR<|LET]? (7)

In this case, no curly brackets are required as the operator "<" acts on only one of the component parts of the solution. Note that there is generally no way - other than from the context - to know whether the instruction acts on a single component or a group of components.

Another frequently encountered element of cryptic solutions is the anagram.

Element 7 (E7) - Anagrams are indicated by the operator (symbol) "*"

E.g., DRIVE = VERDI* indicates that VERDI is an anagram of DRIVE

Note that the example above does not come from today's puzzle. Although the word VERDI is a solution to one of the puzzle entries (7d), the setter has actually used a "hidden word" clue in this entry.

Element 8 (E8) - Insertion points are indicated by the caret operator (symbol) "^" and inserted text is surrounded by parentheses

Insertion points are found in clues of the form:

"[ABC^FG] {outside} [DE]" or "[DE] {inside} [ABC^FG]",

where the answer, in either case, is [ABC(DE)FG] (for an example, see 13ac in the solution to today's puzzle below).

Finally, in the published clue, the number in parentheses at the end of the clue indicates the number of letters in the solution. If there is more than one word in the solution, the number of letters in each word will be shown, separated by commas. If the answer is a hyphenated word, the number of letters before and after the hyphen will be shown, separated by a hyphen.

This should be enough on notation to allow us to get started. We will introduce additional elements of the notation as the need arises - which I am sure it will.

Now, Let's Get Down to Business

To illustrate how parsing works, I have fully parsed all the clues in today's puzzle. This should give you a good idea of how parsing works. In future blogs, I intend to provide only the solutions for most of the clues. Parsing will only be provided for especially complex or difficult clues or to elaborate on some specific aspect of interest.

Since you may no longer have a copy of the puzzle at hand by the time you read this blog, I have included a copy of the puzzle so you can reference it as you read through the solutions.

National Post Cryptic Crossword - Saturday, May 2, 2009

Across

1ac {Cast (anagram)} GO REST WITH /\ author behind the scenes [{GHOST WRITE}*] (5,5)

6ac Czar [IV|AN] /is\ the Fourth [IV] one [AN] (4)

10ac Anti-art [DA(DAIS)M] /\ platform [DAIS] {adopted by (inside)} mother [DA^M] (7)

11ac Lady [L] dined [ATE] with [RON] Howard /\ after a while [L|ATE|R ON] (5,2)

12ac Morsel of food [VI|AND] /for\ six [VI] plus [AND] (5)

13ac Catholic branch [LAT(IN| RI)TE] /\IN Rhode Island [RI] {getting into (inside)} gourmet coffee [LAT^TE] (5,4)

14ac Maroon /\ thread [STRAND] (6) - (double meaning)

16ac Tore [RIPP^ED] {around (outside)} lake [L] /and\ made waves [RIPP(L)ED] (7)

19ac Wagon [CAR^T] {carrying (outside)} wheel [O] I had [ID (I'd)] /for\ large vessel [CAR(O)T|ID] (7)

21ac Mat [TATA|MI<] /is\ so long [TATA], I'm [IM] {taken aback (reversed)} (6)

23ac Utter [DOWNRIGHT*] /\ "THING" WORD {when upset (anagram)} (9)

25ac Dog [PU^P] {ingests (outside)} stylish [IN] /\ calendar picture [P(IN)-UP] (3-2)

26ac Montana [M^T] {gains (outside)} SNIDE {new (anagram)} [=INDSE*] /\ attitude [M(INDSE*)T] (7)

27ac Becoming invalid [LAP|SING] /,\ drink like a dog [LAP] and croon [SING] (7)

28ac {Found in (hidden word)} minerAL SOil /,\ too [AL|SO] (4)

29ac {In (inside)} predicament [PL^IGHT], {troubled (anagram)} WARY [=AYWR*] /\ dramatist [PL(AYWR*)IGHT] (10)

Down

1d Travel [GO] with prima donna [DIVA] /,\ legendary lady [GO|DIVA] (6)

2d Celebrated painter's [{OLD MASTER}*] /\ {abstract (anagram)} ART MODELS (3,6)

3d Ego [I] {involved in (inside)} traditional [TR^AD] /\ small group [TR(I)AD] (5)

4d Sheep [RAM] ran [BLED] /and\ wandered [RAM|BLED] (7)

5d {Returned (reversed)} informant's [RATS] permit [LET] /for\ satellite [{TEL|STAR}<]? (7)

7d {In (hidden word)} DenVER, DIrect /\ big name in opera [VER|DI] (5)

8d Game giant [N(INTEND)O] /is\ mean [INTEND] {in (inside)} denial [N^O] (8)

9d Take nothing [S(TAN|D) PAT] /in\ argument [S^PAT] {about (outside)} bronze [TAN] medal's {core (middle letter) - of "medal"} [D] (5,3)

15d Star [AS(TERIS)K] /\ [TERIS (Teri's)] Garr's {put in (inside)} query [AS^K] (8)

17d Bewailing [LAMENTING*] /\ {bad (anagram)} ALIGNMENT (9)

18d Dorothy's aunt [EM] {introduced to (inside)} French colony [ACAD^IA] /'s\ scholastic life [ACAD(EM)IA] (8)

20d Tuner [DI^AL] {picking up (outside)} grand [G] - IT/'s\ in bits [DI(G|IT)AL] (7)

21d Add [TOT] friend [ALLY] /'s\ lock, stock, and barrel [TOT|ALLY] (7)

22d Southern [S] private eye [PI] acquired [GOT] /\ tap [S(PI)GOT] (6)

24d Orchestra section /\ meanders [WINDS] (5) - double meaning

25d Irrational number [PI] for each [PER] /\ musician [PI|PER] (5)

Striking a balance

The solving of a cryptic crossword puzzle is an art in which the solver matches wits with the setter. The setter, in creating the puzzle, employs devices that are meant to mislead the solver. Let's examine one such device.

In 21d, note the occurrence of the word "friend's" which, on first reading, would appear to be a possessive form. However, when properly parsed, one discovers that it actually denotes "friend is". Similarly, the word "colony's" in 18d denotes "colony is".

The situation in 20d is similar, but slightly different. In this case, "it's" clearly can only mean "it is" as the possessive would be "its".

In all three cases, the "'s" (i.e., "apostrophe-s") means "is" and serves as the joining word in the clue.

It may be of interest to elaborate a bit on the concept of the "joining word". The joining word is a word such as "is" or other word that conveys a sense of equality. In some instances, such as 14ac, the joining word is merely understood and does not appear explicitly.

In some sources, the "joining word" is referred to as the pivot. This comes from an analogy to a balance scale (or a teeter-totter). The two sides of the clue each convey the same meaning (i.e., "are of equal weight") and balance on the pivot. The "/\" symbol introduced in Convention #1 is meant to visually symbolize a pivot. Therefore, with rare exception, clues take the form of "(left hand side) /equals\ (right hand side)".

By the way, the exceptions are clues that are puns or some other form of a play on words. Even in such instances, the clue may sometimes be a sentence that is a double entendre with each meaning suggesting the same solution. In this case, the implied construction is "(meaning 1) /equals\ (meaning 2)".

Therefore, after this bit of digression, we return to our original thought. In 21d, expanding and parsing the clue results in:

Add friend /is\ lock, stock, and barrel (7)

We can see that substituting "apostrophe-s" for "is" is a device that the setter has employed in an attempt to mislead solvers.

Wrapping up

As I mentioned above, I plan to provide only the solutions to future puzzles. However, if you don't understand the wordplay from the solution, please post a question and I will be happy to provide further elaboration on the solution.

Finally, if you find this blog useful, please let me know. And please don't hesitate to participate in the discussion.