Cluemanship

I hold very strong views on this subject, and it is these views that have produced the cacoethes scribendi (“itch for scribbling” — Chambers’s Dictionary — in case this cliché has escaped you) which has produced this book. As I have already said, it was Afrit who converted me to my present way of thinking, and many of the details are his too. I am hoping, provided that other crossword composers do me the honour of reading this book, to do a bit of proselytising on my own.

Why? Sheer arrogance? No, honestly not. It is because I believe the principles laid down in this chapter can, if followed, make crosswords more satisfying. I know that as they are, with their various styles and methods, they entertain millions. But the fact remains that solvers, whether they know why or not, are often left, through no fault of their own, wondering whether an answer is right when they have put it in; or, when they fail altogether, they don’t say when they see the answer next day or next week, “Oh yes! How stupid I was!” but ‘Well, I really don’t see how I could have got that” or (even worse) “I thought of that but I rejected it as impossible’. And I maintain that unless certain musts and must-nots are established, this is bound to happen. There are, I know, plenty of uncritical solvers, who are happy to guess and don’t mind whether a clue is sound or whether they are right or not. But my belief is that they are outnumbered by those who are occasionally dissatisfied. I don’t begin to claim perfection or anything like it: I have erred, especially before I met Afrit, like everyone else. But if one is determined to stick to certain principles, it surely follows that one errs less often and that solvers can trust one more.

What is a clue? It is, according to Chambers, “a thread that guides through a labyrinth: anything that points to the solution of a mystery”. It guides and it points: these are positive actions; so in crosswords its action, however superficially misleading, must be positive. However superficially misleading: I repeat these words because it is of the essence of the cryptic clue not to mean exactly what it appears to say.

This brings me to what is, I think, the whole essence of the clue. I mentioned in Chapter I Afrit’s summing up of the clue-writer’s duty. I mean, and I’m sure he meant, every bit of the heavy type here used: “I need not mean what I say, but I must say what I mean.” That in itself is a little cryptic to the uninitiated; I’m inclined to put it the wrong way round myself when I don’t think! So let me interpret. “I need not mean what I say” in the sense that my words may appear, if taken literally, to mean something quite different from the meaning I really intend. “Rending granite all to pieces’ suggests, if taken at its face value, some Hercules in action; I don’t really mean that at all. What I mean is ‘a word meaning ‘rending’ whose letters are those of ‘granite’ out of their normal order”. The point is that I must, in however veiled a way, actually say that.

And I have. “Rending”’ is a definition of TEARING: “all to pieces” does mean “smashed, so that the parts are out of their normal order’. So I have said what I mean and given the solver two separate true indications of TEARING. When he has thought of TEARING, he can’t possibly be afraid to write it in: humanly speaking it must be right.

An important point arises out of this clue with regard to punctuation. If I am really saying what I mean, oughtn’t I to put a dash or a colon between “rending” and “granite” to indicate the two parts, as a careful writer would? Now here I’m in a weak position, because I believe Afrit would have said “Yes, you ought.” It spoils the misleading sense, and the clue would have to be reworded; but I think he, as a purist, would have insisted, and I have declared my devotion to his principles.

But this matter of punctuation is one of very few in which I have decided to be, as he would have said, weak. This is how I defend my position.

Punctuation in ordinary writing is a guide telling the reader where and how long to pause. But clue-writing is not ordinary writing, because the clue-writer, instead of seeking to make his true meaning as clear as possible, is seeking to veil it, so that an enjoyable penny may drop when that meaning emerges. This seems to me to justify the convention, universally used, I think, by all composers nowadays, that in a two-part clue the parts may stand side by side without punctuation between them. But this does not justify the introduction of misleading punctuation, which makes nonsense of the true meaning of the clue, simply to help the misleading sense. If I omit punctuation, I can claim that I have said what I mean, though perhaps in telegraphese: if I put in false punctuation, I can’t honestly make that claim.

While we are on the subject of punctuation, what should a query or. an exclamation mark mean at the end of a clue? Composers vary enormously about this. My own practice has varied too. I now think that a query, unless it occurs simply because the clue, or part of it, is in the form of a question, should usually mean one of two things: either that the idea is a fanciful one, referring to something which might be true, but probably, or certainly, isn’t, or that a possible example is being referred to rather than an answer to a definition. Instances will make both possibilities clear. 1. “Extortionate gang — of tennis players?” — RACKETEERS. They aren’t really tennis players — hence the query; but the suggestion of “racket” is a help to solution. Or: “Memorial to physician — something precious?” — TOMBSTONE (to M.B. stone). This time the statement might be true — a stone might be precious — but it needn’t be. 2. “Insincere sympathy, swelling the Nile?” — CROCODILE TEARS. Without the query, this statement would imply that crocodiles are found nowhere but in the Nile and cry there. Or: “Sticking out for the potato insect?” — PROTUBERANT (pro-tuber-ant). Again, there are other tubers besides potatoes. The point here is that it is not true of words that because A=B, B=A. “Tuber” is a definition of “potato”; “potato” is not a definition of ‘“tuber”’ but merely an example. This is an important point which clue-writers sometimes forget.

As to exclamation marks, I am grateful to a solver who once wrote (none too politely) saying, in so many words, that I sprinkled my clues with them with no other purpose pain that of crying out “Aren’t I clever — isn’t that a good one?” I was irritated, as one is apt to be, at first; but on further thought I had to admit that he had got something. Now I try to use much more restraint in this matter and to use them only when I se am exclaiming or for a technical purpose, to call the solver’s attention to the fact that I’m doing something particularly outrageous, perhaps by deliberately misunderstanding the meaning of a word. Here is a bad example, a clue of mine printed not nearly long enough ago: ‘“Colonel, it’s enough to give one a pain!” — coLITis. That isn’t nearly exclamatory enough » justify it. A justifiable one? “I’m wet, but I’m only half ga-ga! — ONEGA (one ga!). That’s a difficult Ximenes clue, anyway: “I’m wet” is a rather vague suggestion of a lake, and the other part is, I think, outrageous enough to justify the exclamation mark. This clue would hardly do for an everyday puzzle, but it tickled me and I couldn’t resist it. I hope it tickled solvers.

A problem of a similar sort to that of punctuation is that of capital letters. May one use a capital, where it isn’t necessary, in order to deceive? May one abolish one, where it is, strictly speaking, needed, in order to deceive? My answer to the first question is: Yes, at a pinch; but try, if you can, to put the word first in the clue or after a full stop in the course of it. My answer to the second is: No! If you do abolish it, you aren’t saying what you mean. Illogical? I don’t think so. Capital letters are often obligatory; but they are also used in certain contexts, especially in nouns, in words that don’t normally need them. So the composer may claim that he is making his context such a context. But there are extreme cases in which he really mustn’t do it — in verbs, for example. I was recently faced with a horrible word to clue,

CLENCH. What could one do with those letters? I arrived eventually at the fact that ‘“c.’’ and ‘‘ch.” are both short for “chapter”; LEN at once suggests Sir Leonard Hutton, and to clench is to close (one’s fist). Close! There was the connexion — Yorkshire cricket. But I really couldn’t bring myself to write “Close”, with a capital, in the middle of a sentence and expect solvers to arrive at the fact that in my concealed meaning the verb “to close’? was intended. So in this case it had to be the first word, and I reached “Close, two short chapters about former Yorkshire captain.” But with a noun I think more latitude is justifiable.

I must add one little point here, really for Ximenes solvers, but it may amuse others. Entrants in my monthly competition occasionally seek to dodge this difficulty by writing the whole clue submitted in capital letters! All I need say is that they never get away with it.

To return to that word CLENCH. I said it was a horrible word to clue. Why? Because it has no anagram, and its letters can’t be fooled about with in any obvious way; nor can it be “hidden’’ (see later). Now the old-fashioned answer to this problem was a simple definition; and modern composers sometimes resort to that expedient still: many might write “Close [6]’ and leave it at that. I think that would be weak, if not unfair. I have just opened my Dictionary of Synonyms at ‘close’. It gives the following words of six letters: finish, clinch, closed, hidden, secret, stuffy, intent, stingy — and incidentally not ‘‘clench’’, though I can’t see why not. Any of those might be the answer.

I think the solver has a right to demand further guidance — remember the definition of a clue. So I insist, with very few exceptions, and those in cases where all these alternatives don’t exist, on a fuller clue, giving either references to at least two meanings of the word or a reference to one meaning plus some treatment of the letters of the word.

Now note that reference to the meaning of the word. When plain definitions began to give way to cryptic clues, composers, as I mentioned in Chapter II, often served up an indication of the letters of the word with no reference to its meaning. They do this far more seldom nowadays, but in some very reputable crosswords it is still occasionally done. One still occasionally meets something like ‘‘Son lent caption (anag.)” or “Fixed in a shaky pole” for CONSTANTINOPLE. I suppose, if we go back again to the definition of a clue, we can’t deny that these clues do guide the solver, and point to the solution, in their way.

But to my mind they do the job inadequately. I would go so far as to call their composers mean, inartistic, and even lazy! They’re mean because they withhold the one piece of information that it is surely natural for a person set to guess a word to demand; they don’t tell him whom or what he is trying to find. They’re inartistic because they haven’t presented a picture which catches one’s interest. And they’re lazy because they let themselves be satisfied with something that requires practically no effort.

CONSTANTINOPLE isn’t an obviously easy word to treat, but the second imaginary clue above hits on part of a perfectly adequate way of treating it. Start from ‘‘constant’’, and adapt its meaning to a famous city “standing firm”, perhaps. We’re left with INOPLE: “with no pile in ruins’’ isn’t brilliant, but it does make sense with “standing firm’. If you think ‘famous city’” is too easy a definition, use the double meaning of “capital’’ — words with more than one meaning are invaluable in clues — and say “Standing firm with no pile in ruins — that was capital.” Don’t put an exclamation mark at the end to pat yourself on the back. In any case this isn’t a very exciting clue, and it isn’t meant to be. It is simply meant to be adequate and it is sound.

Talking of laziness in clue-writing, there is another common type of clue which I think deserves that accusation, and that is the plain quotation with a blank for the required word and the author’s name in brackets at the end. I used to do this myself, I freely admit, falling in weakly with the practice of others.

Torquemada, whom I have described as a hero of mine, did this more than any other composer. But I have already shown that I think he was a law unto himself, and he did it, I’m quite sure, not through laziness but from a love of literature and a desire to make his solvers explore what he loved; and he did it in puzzles which were intended for solvers many of whom enjoyed the research involved and, what’s more, in puzzles with very full checking, so that those who, like me, don’t much like that sort of research could arrive at the required word by the aid of interlocking words. He didn’t do it, as some composers do, with every other letter, or even three out of five or four out of seven, unchecked. I have always hated meeting in a crossword a clue like “ ‘Oh lift me from the grass! I die! I faint! I ——!’ (Shelley)”, when all I can get from other sources is _ A_ L. Now three things are possible. Either I know it and write it straight in and get very little kick out of it; I know perfectly well that I was just lucky. Or I look in a dictionary of quotations and find it and write it in, and get no kick at all out of it plus a feeling that I’ve cheated; an everyday crossword is meant to be solved without books. Or I don’t find it or haven’t got the book handy, and I’m reduced to a guess between “fail” and ‘fall’, with “call” and even “wail” as possibilities. “Bawl’ is perhaps a little out of keeping; but I now see that Chambers gives “‘waul”’ or “wawl”, “to cry like a baby or a cat”: mightn’t Shelley have done that? Joking apart, I think that if these clues ceased, “they’d none of them be missed”. They can’t be called unfair when they’re chestnuts from well known poems like “I arise from dreams of thee” as this one that I imagined is; but one meets many that aren’t chestnuts at all, and memories do fade, as mine had in this case. I shouldn’t have been able to solve it without research.

Where did I get it? At random from a quotation dictionary.

Less direct literary references are fair game and amusing when additional help is given, but they are, I think, outrageously unfair without it. I came across one very recently; I dare not quote it for fear of retribution, but I have concocted what I think is an exact parallel. “Loan no public speaker wanted [4]”.

We will suppose that the solver can reach _ A_ S from interlocking words — that doesn’t help much, and remember that he might only have got one of those two letters and have turned to this clue for further guidance. He might think of the right context; I have purposely made it even more of a chestnut than the one in the actual clue I am thinking of. Stop reading and see if you can solve it. I won’t give the answer till the end of this chapter.

Before, in the next chapter, we have a look at the various legitimate devices that are used in what in this book are regarded as sound clues, there are some types of inaccuracy and, in my view, unfairness that I want to preach against. One is failure to indicate the right part of speech. This most often happens when the word is an adjective. I have seen clues such as “Can the station be altered? He sticks his toes in [9]”. The first half, though it isn’t syntactically accurate — we’ll discuss that in a moment — may well contain an anagram: the number of letters, as usual, is eloquent. If you’re quick at anagrams, you may see OBSTINATE at once; but the definition is impossible: the answer to it ought to be a masculine noun. I have lately met another clue where this violence was done to a verb. Again I’ll try to produce as near a parallel as I can. “Put the swot in the river: that will burst him.” Answer: EXPLODE. The merits of the first half don’t matter here; the point is that “that will burst him”’ is no indication of a verb meaning “‘burst”. The clue-writer hasn’t said what he means.

Now for syntax: go back to “Can the station be altered?” I believe many composers would pass it, and many, many solvers wouldn’t bother about it. But analyse it in detail, and you find that for the clue to be sound — to say what it means — those five words have got to convey the meaning “The letters of ‘station be’ are to have their order altered”, or, to put it interrogatively, ‘What emerges if ‘station be’ is altered?” Now the clue-writer has got to veil his meaning; but the veil mustn’t be so thick that the words can’t bear the meaning intended. “Can the station be be altered?” might pass syntactically with an understood “Yes”; but that, of course, would be intolerable. The clue- writer feels this and gets out of it by making “be” do double duty, which he has no right to do.

The best I can do with the idea is “Station be altered? I’m determined not to budge”’, the first half being an indignant query, the second now indicating an adjective, with “I” representing the answer describing itself, in the time-honoured manner of old-time acrostics, charades and other word-puzzles — which brings me to the vital syntax of pronouns.

Many clue-writers make no distinction between the pronoun “I” and the letter “I”. Both may legitimately be used in clues, but I can see no valid reason for the prevalent disregard of syntax in referring to the letter. The pronoun, mostly used as I said just now to represent the required word, is naturally followed in the present tense by “am”. But why should the letter be? It is not the first personal pronoun, to which alone “‘am”’ belongs. When we clue the word PLAIN by “I am in the plot, that’s clear’’, we really mean “I is in the plot’’, so we aren’t saying what we mean. It may be urged in defence that this is a common convention which deceives no one, so why worry? My answer is that a common convention involving inaccuracy is a bad one; and in this instance it cannot be claimed, as for instance in the case of omitted punctuation, which doesn’t involve anything like such blatant inaccuracy anyway, that this insistence on the letter of the law cramps the style of the writer. In nearly every case the trouble can be got over by saying “I must be", “I can be’’, etc., or by using ‘‘one’’. Often even worse violence is done to syntax by “You’ll see me in the plot’: how can “I’’, whether it is a pronoun or not, be defined by ‘“‘me’’? The same thing, of course, applies to “we’’, “us’’, “he’’, “him’’, etc., but they are needed far less often.

A few more instances of inaccurate types of wording may be helpful. Beginnings, middles and ends of words are apt to be treated very loosely. “Cylinder-head’’ may fairly indicate C, or ‘‘masthead’’ M; but why should ‘‘redhead”’ indicate R? It can’t mean ‘‘the top of red’’, and not even suggestions of cents and billiard-balls will convince me that it can. Middles should be exact middles: G is the middle of the night, ND is the heart of London, LOTH is the Heart of Midlothian; but IVE is not the centre, or hub, of the Universe. Both first and last letters are often too loosely indicated. I don’t like “Convivial occasion to separate with a happy ending” for PARTY; “a happy ending” doesn’t, to me, mean “the last letter of happy’’. One more point: how long can a beginning or an end, a head or a tail, be? It can obviously be one letter: in a compound word it can legitimately, I think, be the first or last member. But often it is used to cover two or three letters not forming a whole, or even for more than half the word. ‘‘There’s a horse in the stable with a lion’s tail” for STALLION is the sort of thing I mean: why should a lion have a tail three times as long as the rest of him?

Another form of looseness which I dislike is the use of ‘‘back” or “returns” or the like to point to the reversal of a down word or part of one. This, again, doesn’t say what it means. ‘Return of a star — nonsense!” is fine for an across word. (Note, incidentally, that we have here a justifiable exclamation mark: “rats!” is an exclamation.) But in down words the star must rise, not return, because that is what he, she or it actually does.

Two final hobby-horses, anagrams and “hidden” clues, and this chapter will be almost finished.

I feel three things very strongly about anagrams. First, they must be indicated, not by the dull “anag.” at the end, but by some reasonable sign that the letters are to be disordered. “The orchestra pulls a heavy weight” for CARTHORSE doesn’t say what it means: ‘Clumsy great creature puts the orchestra out of tune” does. This juxtaposition of anagram and definition, with no suggestion of mixture, is still a terribly common practice.

Once again, opponents may say that it is a convention: the number of letters is enough indication. To me it isn’t; I can’t see why a solver should be expected to look for an anagram when he is given no actual sign that it is there.

Secondly — and here, for once, I differ from Afrit — I hate what I call an indirect anagram. By that I mean “Tough form of monster” for HARDY (anagram of HYDRA). There may not be many monsters in five letters; but all the same I think the clue- writer is being mean and withholding information which the solver can reasonably demand. Why should he have to solve something before he can begin to use part of a clue? He has first to find “hydra” — and why shouldn’t it be “giant”? — and then use the anagrammatic information to help him think of “hardy”.

To make matters worse, this sort of thing is freely done with rare words in the connoisseur’s type of puzzle. As I said, I’m crossing swords with Afrit here; and I’m not forgetting how difficult his puzzles had to be. I never tried to convert him on this subject, because my own views then were so unformed, and I sometimes used indirect anagrams myself: I wonder if I could convert him if he were alive now? My real point is that the secondary part of the clue — other than the definition — is meant to help the solver. The indirect anagram, unless there are virtually no alternatives, hardly ever does. He only sees it after he has got his answer by other means.

Thirdly there shouldn’t be too many anagrams, or they will pall. Composers vary very much about this. Some use masses, some hardly any. I think, after long experience, that there is an ideal limit — three or four in a twenty-eight-word puzzle, never more than six in a thirty-six-word puzzle. Why do I suggest even as many as this, when there is a danger of satiety? Because I know many solvers rely on anagrams for a start; here, at least, there is something concrete — the letters are there, and the length pf the word, however skilfully the anagram is veiled, is apt to yield its secret. Part-anagrams, of course, are also common. These too should be used with restraint, more being allowable if there are few full anagrams among the clues. In the twenty-eight-word puzzle I would suggest two full anagrams plus three or four part-anagrams, or four full anagrams plus one or two part-anagrams as examples of a fair proportion.

What of “hidden” clues? These, unless the hiding is very skilfully done, are sure to be sitters for experienced solvers, especially if many are used. This is a pity for the lazy or rushed composer, for with short, dull words they are by far the easiest way out. But if he uses many of them, the solver will pounce on them every time, and the puzzle may become too easy. One per puzzle, or very occasionally two, is quite enough. I generally try to have a puzzle fairly often with none at all. Then there is a chance of surprise. We must remember that in this case the letters of the word are in front of the solver in their right order, and it isn’t easy to prevent the answer from sticking out a mile, unless … ! That brings me to my last point about “hidden” clues; it may be fair, but to my mind it is most inartistic, to have redundant words in the hiding-place, like this: ““This girl appears in black at every party she goes to [4]’’. I needn’t tell you the answer; but I hate those last four words of eyewash! Compare this with one of Afrit’s best: “Girl detected in imitating Lady Sneerwell [6]”. You won’t take long to find her, because in this context you know she’s hidden; but she might not catch your eye at once otherwise.

A final word on brevity. This is, I think, the last of the few points on which I differ from Afrit. His clues, especially in his ‘Armchair Crosswords’, tended to be rather long. I think a good short one beats a good long one every time. Perhaps I have been influenced by necessity during the war. Clues had to be short then, because space was precious. But even today I try to restrict as many clues as possible to the number of letters (and spaces) that will fit into one line of print in the Observer. I only give way to longer ones when I really like the idea I have hit upon and it just won’t go into one line. I’ll finish this chapter with one of my favourite short clues, not mine but a first prizewinner in one of my clue-writing competitions: Mr E. Gomersall’s “Cake with nuts on top” for MADCAP (a down word, justifying “on”). No long clue could be so attractive.

Answer to “Loan no public speaker wanted [4]”: EARS (‘‘Friends, Romans, countrymen … I am no orator as Brutus is.’’)