This is the sixth Guardian Quick Cryptic, a series of 11 x 11 crosswords designed to support beginners learning cryptic crosswords. The whole point of these crosswords is support and encouragement of new solvers, so special rules for these crosswords apply – see here. The puzzle can be found 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
- CAPITALS to indicate which bits are part of the answer, eg R in CEASE means that ‘in’ is not part of the answer
- *(fodder) to indicate an anagram, eg *(ORCHESTRA)
- anagrind to describe the anagram indicator.
- 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 – which can be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/quick-cryptic/6
Clues begin or end with a definition of the answer. The rest is one of these:
- Anagram An anagram of the answer and a hint that there’s an anagram
‘Senator arranged crime (7)’ gives TREASON - Hidden word Answer is hidden in the clue’s words
‘Some have altered meat (4)’ gives VEAL
In haVE ALtered - Charade A combination of synonyms
‘Qualify to get drink for ID (8)’ gives PASSPORT (pass + port) - Double Definition Both halves are definitions!
‘Search scrub (5)’ gives SCOUR
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CONVERSE |
Talk about the opposite (8)
double definition – one as a verb and the other as a noun: to talk about something is to CONVERSE, and the opposite is also the CONVERSE
|
| 6 | ONE |
Number two next from within (3)
hidden (from within)- in twO NExt
|
| 7 | CONTENT |
Satisfied Tory by camper’s home (7)
charade of CON (abbreviation for CONservative) + (by) TENT (camper’s home)
Tory/Conservative turns up a lot and can be abbreviated as C, CON or Tory, referred to as blue (for the colour of their rosettes), or it could be an individual. C and CON are abbreviations seen on election materials and reports.
|
| 9 | POLISH |
Refinement from Warsaw, say (6)
double definition – POLISH is refinement, and someone who is POLISH could come from Warsaw, or many other Polish cities, so a definition by example, indicated by say.
|
| 10 | ALTO |
Chorister of exceptional tone (4)
hidden (of) in exceptionAL TOne
The SATB abbreviations for the Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass sections of a choir are another useful source of crosswordese. The ambiguity of tenor and bass are also used often enough to be worth remembering.
|
| 12 | SOIL |
Silo treated earth (4)
anagram of (SILO)*, anagrind (treated)
|
| 14 | LEMONS |
Fruit from Jerusalem, on sale (6)
hidden (from) in JerusaLEM ON Sale
|
| 17 | DRIVERS |
Motorists’ clubs (7)
double definition this time both nouns and the clubs referring to golf clubs
Golf is a sport that is much used in Crosswordland, along with cricket, and this use of drivers or putting turns up fairly regularly, along with the tee as a helpful supporter.
|
| 18 | TON |
Weight of stonework (3)
hidden (of) in sTONework
This little trick of hiding a word inside another also comes up regularly.
|
| 19 | CHAPLAIN |
Clergyman’s tea. That’s obvious (8)
charade of CHA (tea) + PLAIN (that’s obvious)
Cha or char for tea is something I’ve not heard in the wild since I was a child, but is still common in the esoteric world of crosswords.
|
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CREEL |
Basket case’s beginning to feel very giddy (5)
charade of C (Case’s beginning) + REEL (to feel very giddy)
CREEL for basket I know from the song Mairi’s Wedding, |
| 2 | NICEST |
Most pleasant insect fluttering (6)
anagram (INSECT)* anagrind (fluttering)
|
| 2 | ERNE |
Sea eagle hiding in summer nest (4)
hidden (hiding in) summER NEst
I’ve only come across the sea eagle being called an ERNE or ern in crosswords, but it is a regular.
|
| 4 | STEAL |
Make off with crashed Tesla (5)
anagram (TESLA)* anagrind (crashed)
|
| 5 | COMPOSED |
Calm having written notes? (8)
double definition – COMPOSED meaning calm is an adjective, and COMPOSED having written notes is a verb. The surface and the notes suggest musical notes and that sort of composition – which is something else to look out for.
|
| 8 | THOUSAND |
1000 hand-outs distributed (8)
anagram (HAND-OUTS)* anagrind (distributed)
Another little trick that gets used is this one of digits for a definition – possibly the number of the clue.
|
| 11 | PERSIA |
Former country rebuilt a spire (6)
anagram (A SPIRE)* anagrind (rebuilt)
|
| 13 | IRISH |
Flag girl with husband from Cork, say(5)
charade of IRIS (flag / girl) + (with) H (husband) = IRISH
IRIS comes up often as any or all of the flower, also called flags, the girl’s name or the coloured section of the eye (or a reversal of Siri). H for husband is one of the genealogical abbreviations. Adding in: someone who comes from Cork could be Irish, but it’s another definition by example, indicated by say.
|
| 15 | OFTEN |
Frequently decimally based (5)
double meaning ish – OFTEN means frequently and OF TEN suggests decimally based or could be described as an internal charade of OF + TEN
|
| 16 | KEEP |
Maintain stronghold (4)
double meaning – with KEEP meaning maintain being the verb and the stronghold a noun, meaning a fortified tower built within a castle.
|
Thank you Shanne and Maskarade.
This was good fun. CREEL favourite. Had to pause and think about the definition. Basket or basket case. The story of the basket case beginning to feel giddy made me laugh. STEAL was also a hoot, with the image of the crashed TESLA. And the clue for ONE, with a play on childish words for bodily functions was clever, “from within” being a very apt hidden indicator. Also liked the insect fluttering in NICEST, and the clergyman’s tea (obviously) in CHAPLAIN.
It felt a little off to have IRIS in the clue for IRISH indicated by both “flag” and “girl,” when either one alone would have sufficed. (For those non-British beginners doing these, flag=IRIS is just one of those things you’ll have to learn–it comes up surprisingly often. Also annoying is the British-crossword convention that any woman’s name can be clued with just “girl”–no American editor would let them get away with that. It’s “Ms. Murdoch” or something like that over here. Maybe that’s why he did the “flag girl” thing, to narrow it down a bit–but it still is confusing because he’s bending the rules a bit.)
Oh, and this was a bit chewier than these have been so far, so if you’re a beginner who found this a bit hard, I can see why. Bear in mind that Maskarade is one of the trickier setters, so it’s actually a bit of a surprise seeing him set an easier puzzle. I think he still did so with grace, so that’s not a criticism.
Enjoyable, and indeed chewier than earlier crosswords. CREEL is new to me, and I shared favourites with paddymelon.
Thanks Muskarade and Shanne
Following on comments by Shanne and mrpenney@2 about IRIS flag girl. I found the clue didn’t quite fit the pattern of the ones that were set for today, and wondered if Maskarade might have muddied the waters using both flag and girl , perhaps trying to be helpful. But better to clue either of them I’d have thought. At least we now have them both linked here for future reference.
I also wonder if newer solvers find this ”chewier” than earlier ones. I couldn’t answer that for myself. Could be a wavelength thing with Maskarade’s sense of humour. I liked his brevity in the clues, not too much hopefully to distract and confuse. But there was certainly a great range of indicators which may be new, although giving an idea of the kinds of things to look out for, especially the anagram indicators.
anagrinds: treated, fluttering, crashed, distributed, rebuilt
hidden: from within, from, of, hiding in.
Ah, good to hear from Martyn @3 re the degree of “chewiness”.
Martyn@3. I know CREEL as KREEL, from fishing baskets here, but I’ve had to remember the CREEL spelling from British cryptics.
Thank Shane for the explanations, not sure if I fluked this one but first time I managed to clear the grid without having to look stuff up.
Although Creel and Erne were certainly new to me.
Finding this series really helpful for learning the question types. Feel like I have a long way to go learning all the crossword staples
Enjoyable puzzle. I was a bit worried when I could not solve the first two across clues immediately and feared it would be quite difficult but it was definitely worth persevering!
Thanks, both.
Thanks for the blog.
I found this much more difficult than the past 5 weeks.
I’m a bit embarrassed by the number of clues I didn’t solve.
NHO CREEL.
I thought 8d needed to have ‘M’ as 1000.
I had OILS instead of SOIL for earth.
13d was impenetrable for me.
9a beat me…I don’t understand this. Would POLISH not fit with REFINE (not refinement)?
If I was in the Dunning-Kruger graph, I’d be stuck in the valley of despair at the moment.
Congrats Raven@6. Sounds like you’re well on the way.
I thought this was definitely a little trickier than the previous ones. It seemed to be using more of the standard cryptic conventions that new users might not be aware of e.g. CON signifying Tory, ‘of’ meaning hidden in the stonework clue.
Also, Erne. Never heard of it, so had to guess, which is always a bit annoying.
Johnno@10. Guessing’s exactly the right strategy! But it’s an informed guess, as you must have made, perhaps unconsciously.
In this clue, once you know it’s a hidden clue, from ”hiding in” summer nest, I’d say there are really only 2 or 3 possibilities for something that looks like a word. eg summer nest or summer nest. or ”merne” maybe. Then checking a dictionary for those 2 or 3 guesses will throw up the answer. Over time you’ll become more confident with the wordplay and enjoy the revelation of an unknown word through your own (and the setter’s) work.
Steffen@8. POLISH, synonyms from Wiktionary, as a noun.
Noun
polish (countable and uncountable, plural polishes)
1A substance used to polish.
A good silver polish will remove tarnish easily.
2 Cleanliness; smoothness, shininess.
The floor was waxed to a high polish.
3 Refinement; cleanliness in performance or presentation.
The lecturer showed a lot of polish at his last talk.
Steffen @8 – I thought this was trickier than the previous puzzles too.
CREEL – I do know this from other places, but it’s a crossword staple.
8d ‘M’ as 1000 is an option, as is G (grand) and K (from the kilo suffix in metric measures), or in this case, it’s the definition. I spotted the anagram and realised it made THOUSAND = 1000
“I had OILS instead of SOIL for earth” OILS is a valid anagram, but it doesn’t mean earth, so I discounted that option.
“13d was impenetrable for me.” – you can see from my explanation I didn’t think this was particularly accessible for this slot.
“9a beat me…I don’t understand this. Would POLISH not fit with REFINE (not refinement)?”
In the verb form, if you POLISH something, you refine it. Equating POLISH and refinement you’re matching nouns, the state of polish or refinement. It’s another crossword trick, using words like POLISH that mean lots of different things and can be used in different parts of speech.
And in the financial world K is thousand and M is million. Buyer beware!
Thank you for these explainer posts – I often get to the point that I’ve worked out the answer from half the clue (and surrounding letters), but I don’t quite know why it is the right answer. So very useful to learn.
This was a little harder than some in this series so far. I think what this puzzle is demonstrating is that crosswords often use vocabulary that hardly anyone uses in real life. Eg ‘erne’: I know it’s a bird of some kind, but I’d have no idea what it looks like. These words are often very useful for the setter – imagine how many words contain the letter sequence E R N E ! All you can do is remember them.
There are unusual words that often appear in crosswords because they happen to provide a useful sequence of common letters: ERNE the Eagle is one of them.
I thought this was a bit harder than previous QCs.
Most enjoyable. I didn’t see 1a until I’d worked out some of the down clues.
I did notice that the charade in 1d gets the letter C from “case’s beginning”. This seems to be stretching things just a little bit if you’re just looking for a combination of synonyms, but all part of the fun.
Thanks to Maskarade and to Shanne for the thorough explanations.
Beaten by 1A today – had to get the Thesaurus out for that one but got the rest unaided which I am pretty pleased about. Once I had the answer for 1A then the first part of the clue – talk – was easy enough to parse but I still couldn’t figure out how the second half related to it. The only other one that made no sense was 13D – guessed the answer correctly and figured out the husband == H part of the clue but again the first part had me scratching my head. Thanks for the pointers to both.
Other than that some very nice word play – 1D and 15D were especially pleasing to my mind.
Must admit I do look forward to the Quick Cryptic – been trying to bend my head round Cryptic crosswords (or at least the Guardians Quiptic) for a while with little success but these do help a lot with spotting the anagrinds, hidden clues etc. Quiptic tomorrow – hoping to get it at least half done which would be the same as last week – anything more would be a bonus.
Thank you 12 & 13
Only slight problem was CHAPLAIN. Have heard of CHAR for tea but not CHA.
Really enjoying this series. Have had a go at cryptics a few times without success but this series is becoming a saturday stable. Getting as many clues as I can then coming on here for the answers, explanations and chat. Thanks Shanne for your clear explanations and guarding us newbies from mean commenters.
This week I got a few more than I have in the past. Erne and Creel are new words for me. Had to look up a few and didn’t get 19a at all. Will keep plugging away and enjoying sharing it with you all.
Learn something new everyday. Have been doing puzzles for a while now although I just skim the Prize and skip AZED. Flag=Iris new to me, so pleased to be able to add that to my ETUI. 1a took a little longer than it should have, but for the most part it was very well constructed although I thought erne was a bit of an ask for a starter puzzle.
Thanks to Maskerade for a fine example and Shanne for the helpful blog and for dipping in frequently to reply to the welcome questions. Love the rules of engagement too…no gloating or carping…perfect.
I think the fact that ERNE was a hidden clue made it fair. If you had crossers and if you had picked it up, then there was only one possibility.
I post these to my children on our WhatsApp page, so I do them as well. It took me about half the time of today’s quiptic, so I think that’s an indication of toughness.
Is it alright to say that? I only want to indicate relative values.
nicbach @24 – relative is fine, it’s saying that the Quiptic is likely take you twice as long as this one did. This one also took me longer than previous weeks.
If anyone is learning using these crosswords, the Quiptic is the next step up, and you may find much of today’s tricks recognisable after trying these Quick Cryptic puzzles.
It feels like these are getting slightly easier maybe. But I feel a bit slow when getting clues like 8 down or 7 across as they seem so obvious when I’ve teased out the answer.
First post here, but Guardian readers may have seen my letter of appreciation on the letters page a few weeks back. Still doing these after Sunday lunch….
Another really fun Quick Cryptic. Thanks Maskerade and Shanne. Cha is Japanese for tea, as in Sencha or Matcha and tea leafs is Chappa. I didn’t know ERNE but good to know it’s a regular on the crossword circuit. CREEL was another first. My favourite wordplay was POLISH. IRIS was another one I didn’t know. I really appreciate the thorough explanations you always provide Shanne. I do think this one was a little easier than last week’s with so many hiddens and anagrams, but I think this was the perfect quick Cryptic and am loving this new format.
Everything was fine but even though I’ve been solving cryptics for years I’d never (knowingly) encountered “of” as a hidden indicator. Never seen it in any solving/setting manual either. I’m not sure I like it. Seems too easy for the setter and too tricky for the solver.
New to me: CREEL. I’ll add it to the list of words which one only ever sees in a crossword (like ERNE, which I did know).
Also new to me: flag iris.