Comments on: Weekend Word Wrap: cryptic words

By: S T Sahasrabudhe (Mulund, Maharashtra State, India)

S T Sahasrabudhe (Mulund, Maharashtra State, India) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:15:16 +0000

Solving a cryptic clue is interesting but making my own clue is what I find mentally stimulating, especially if there is a cluing competition on. Will it be possible for you daily to announce a word and invite readers of blog/visitors to the webpage submit their own clue and then declare the best clue (according to you or whoever is the judge) and publish all entries for being enjoyed by all? I will certainly join as a participant.

STS
29 06 2009

By: Randy MacDonald

Randy MacDonald — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 21:57:01 +0000

“Polish” has 6 letters, but the clue has (5) at its end. hmmmm.

By: jeffcomedy

jeffcomedy — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:40:02 +0000

I logged on to late to participate. Not that I would’ve gotten all the answers on my own anyway. One of the few I did get on my own was #6 because of what you said in the instructions. If they are both four letters, then the answer closest to the indicator is the correct one. So, yay for me.

But for some reason #1 and #10 answer made sense to me. It was 5 and 7 that was giving me problems.

By: TomT

TomT — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:33:06 +0000

We have a winner! Ellen in answer 15 is completely correct, with many others coming pretty darn close. Good work.

A lot of the fun (for those of us who find this fun) of cryptic clues is their rigor. One side is always a (nearly) straight definition that might by itself be a crossword puzzle clue. The other side is a mechanical definition giving another way to get the answer. The thought that one of my clues might be “poorly worded” makes me hang my head in shame.

You could interpret the entire right side of the Eurydice clue (”left out the cubes”) to be a mechanical maneuver on “Eurydice.” But if that were the case, where would the “straight definition” be? Nowhere. So “left out the cubes” can’t be entirely an instruction. “Left out” is the mechanical instruction, i.e. “Eurydice” with the left (side)
out. And “the cubes” is the straight definition for dice.

It’s tempting to see “left” as a verb, as it is in the surface clue, but
in the mechanical part, it’s not, it’s a noun–the left of Eurydice.

By: Betsy

Betsy — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:30:22 +0000

These seems to be an awful lot like the “Puns and Anagrams” crossword puzzles which are in the Sunday New York Times Magazine from time to time (or at least used to be). Does that sound familiar to anyone else?

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 19:43:49 +0000

But the clue is that she left out the cubes, so you would remove the dice, leaving eury, which is a prefix meaning wide or broad. I don’t get how that relates (ha!) to Einstein, but that’s the logic of the clue. I agree with Jenny and Ellen that it makes sense that the word would be dice, but the clue is poorly worded in that case. I’d switch my answer to 10 as well, but Chris beat me to it, so I might as well stick to my original answer. Dangit!

By: Ellen

Ellen — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:21:37 +0000

1. Nobel
2. Princeton
3. ether
4. mass
5. patent
6. burn
7. general
8. German
9. time
10. dice

“God does not play dice with the universe” -Einstein

By: jenny

jenny — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:31:45 +0000

You guys, dice are cubes.

By: chris

chris — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:32:19 +0000

im switching my answer for ten to dice, based on einsteins quote about god not playing dice with the universe but im still not sure how to fit that into the clue

By: Craig

Craig — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:14:28 +0000

Is it that B is the 7th note on a music scale?

That gives “noel” (Christmas) around “b” (the 7th), making “Nobel” (Alfred, inventor of dynamite).