Crossie part 1

Crosswords ... Those black and white grids that appear on the newspaper everyday .. Those cerebral word games that only a few people even look at .. Or is it ??
Crosswords are a wonderful passtime and also equally importantly, a way to build up vocabularies .. All it needs is a little time, and oh yeah, a bit of lateral thinking ...
I am by no means an expert in solving crosswords.. I can safely say that I am half decent.. But thats beside the point ...
This is sort of a guide for starters to start solving crosswords and exercising those grey cells ;)

Well lets begin, shall we ??
Right ...
First of all, 2 terminologies that you should know ...

Crossie ... Simple enough .. stands for Crossword ...
Cruci ...this is short for Cruciverbalist, or a crossword setter ....

Now the typical crossword has a grid with certain squares blacked out ..
The idea of the backed out squares is that those are the excess squares that are not for our consideration ..
Next, some of the squares are numbered ... These indicate that the answers to the clues begin at that square ...
Now coming to the most important aspect of the crossie ..

THE CLUE


These are found to the left of the grid or below it and are primarily of two types ...

Across and Down

Now, the typical clue will be of this form :

1. The Language of the Britisher(7)

The clue basically has 3 parts :
The number ...
The clue itself ..
The no. of letters in the word ...

in the above clue, the clue's number is '1'
this denotes that the answer to the clue must be filled into the squares starting from the square numbered 1 ...

Next is the clue ... this is usually a sentence or a phrase that gives you the clue to the answer...

Finally the number in the bracket ..
this denotes the number of letters in the solution to the clue...

this is the basic overview of all that you need to .. well, to atleast look at the crossie next time you flip through a newspaper ;)

Clue solving strategies coming up shortly ..
Cheers