Ximenes On The Art Of The Crossword
I have kept till last the type of clue which is, on the whole, my favourite, and I am giving it a short chapter to itself. One reason is that its ramifications cut across many other types. Another is that it calls for a good deal of explanation, since the name I have given it for the sake of brevity is not self-explanatory and has from time to time caused misunderstanding among my solver-competitors. I hope here to make it really clear, both to them and to the uninitiated.
The term “& lit.” is short for “This clue both indicates the letters or parts of the required word, in one of the ways already explained in this book, and can also be read, in toto, literally, as an indication of the meaning of the whole word, whether as a straight or as a veiled definition.” So the solver can read the whole clue in two quite different ways, first as an indication of the letters or parts, and secondly as an indication of the whole word.
Every word of the clue does double duty.
This type of clue seems to me to have a neatness and an appropriateness which are entirely its own. Opportunities for it only arise occasionally, most often, perhaps, when a longish word yields an appropriate anagram, thus: “I don’t exactly get more dim — I last, if I’m this [12]”. “I don’t exactly get” suggests an anagram — I get these letters, but I don’t get them exactly, i.e. correctly, arranged; and the next four words contain twelve letters, the required number. So you can read the whole clue first as meaning “If I am what I am, I get the letters of ‘more dim I last’ arranged in a different order.”? You can also read the whole clue as a very full definition of the required word: “If I (and in this case I may be anyone) am this, my memory does not become dimmer, but lasts.” IMMORTALISED precisely answers both ways of reading the clue. (I don’t often use that vague “I”, but here I think the merits of the clue compensate for this irregularity.)
Two more examples of the “anagram & lit.” clue follow, the second, because of its brevity, a particular favourite of mine. “Can make you uncommonly sore with flickering tip [7]”. Here, for the first reading, the parts of the anagram are separated, each with its own indicating word, “uncommonly” and “flickering”.
Hence we want an anagram of “sore” plus “tip”. The answer is RIPOSTE, whose meaning is also described by the whole clue. “Origin of the great Red [8]”. Clearly we want a word which can be the origin, i.e. yield the letters, of great Red. In the literal sense we want the origin, perhaps the birthplace, of a famous Socialist. Aneurin Bevan came from TREDEGAR. The composer, of course, doesn’t often have the luck to be presented with a chance like this.
Here is an artlessly simple clue of this kind for you to solve.
(1) “This is when models that have lost their shape are employed [6]”.
And here is a slightly more complicated one.
(2) “One of three maids O.K. for his issue? Yes [6]”.
Let us now take examples of three other types, “reversed & lit.”, “charade, or container and contents, & lit.”, “hidden & lit.”.
Opportunities for “reversed & lit.” are rare. The next clue quoted is, I think, a pleasantly neat one, in spite of its unpleasant subject. “This back may show the result of strokes of the cat in profusion [8]”. This refers to an across word, so for our first reading we readily look for a reversal. There appear to be two parts, “the result of strokes of the cat” being contained in “profusion”. As often, it will be wise to reject the picture suggested by the clue, in this case the gruesome one of flogging, and to try quite a different result of strokes of the cat, namely purr! This must be reversed into rrup, and included in the reversal of a word meaning profusion, or a large quantity or number.
Probably “rrup” will in any case suggest LARRUPED, purr reversed inside deal reversed; and for our second reading we revert to the gruesome picture and substitute “larruped” for “this” as an epithet of “back”.
Next, a “charade & lit.” clue. “If you want to pass nothing as sound, try this [4]”. Here, to cut a long story short, is VETO again: to vet nought is to pass nothing as sound, and if you try a veto, you will get the same effect.
Similarly, we can use “container and contents & lit.” “The place to make one robust without culture [6]”. Remember, for the first reading, that ‘without’? can mean “outside”. This may point to the place to make one robust as the container and culture (almost certainly art) as the contents. A spa is supposed to improve one’s health; hence SPARTA — and the whole clue describes the traditional nature of that town in antiquity.
Try this one.
(3) “The ultimate of turpitude in Lent [5]”.
Chances for “hidden & lit”. are sure to present themselves from time to time with short words: I will repeat here that the composer must remember how easy hidden clues become if the solver is on the look-out for them; so he must not use them often. “Show the outcome of self-pride ignored [5]”. Terribly obvious, when you know what you are looking for, but note the “& lit.” effect: the letters of DEIGN are the outcome, and the whole clue gives you a possible definition. Here is another that won’t detain you long.
(4) “All you’ll get out of a misbegotten nuisance [5]”.
Incidentally, I am all too conscious of having used various forms of this clue much more than once; it seems to me the only neat kind of clue for this particularly intractable word.
Now that I have fully explained and illustrated the “& lit.” clue in its perfect form, I hope it will not be confusing if I briefly describe an offshoot of it to which I apply, for convenience, the same name. In this offshoot type, what I have called the second way of reading the clue remains the same, in that the whole clue gives a definition of the required word, possibly a veiled one. But the first way of reading it differs from that of the perfect “& lit.” clue; for we find not only an indication of an anagram, charade, etc., but a brief definition plus that indication. There are thus two definitions offered, a brief one in the first reading and a fuller one when we read the clue again as a whole. An example should make this clear: “Tower where one might see a man like Col. Fairfax show impatience [9]”. I hope you know your Yeomen of the Guard; the Colonel was immured in the BEAUCHAMP Tower. You will see that the first reading of this clue gives “tower” as a brief definition, too vague by itself, with the further indication that you will find beau (the colonel was handsome) champ in it. The second reading gives a much fuller definition of the Beauchamp Tower.
Try this similar type.
(5) “What a bishop may have had before getting a crook [7]”.
I am not quite so fond of this offshoot type as of the perfect type; but it is equally sound and often available when the perfect type won’t quite work.
There are two more things to be said about “& lit.” clues.
They involve a certain danger that does not seem to arise quite so much with other types; this danger is that they are apt, if the composer isn’t careful, ‘to waste their sweetness on the desert air”. It sometimes happens that the second reading, giving a full definition, points too easily and obviously to the answer: then, especially if the first reading, giving an anagram or reference to the word’s parts, is rather obscure or involved, the solver will leap straight to the answer and not even realise that he has an “& lit.” clue at all. This makes the composer’s effort a waste of time and detracts from the value of the clue. Ideally, one or the other reading should suggest the answer, without making the solver quite certain he is right; then the other reading should dawn on him and add the certainty that makes a clue fully satisfying.
Finally, I wish I knew who first produced a clue of this sort.
I can’t remember Torquemada using one, though he may have.
I should like to think that Afrit was the originator. He was most certainly a master of the sentence that can be read in more than one way, and he very well may have been the first to write one.
He certainly did use the method, long before I did; but whether he was the pioneer I cannot say.
Answers to clues unsolved in the text above: