Crossie part 2

Right, so lets begin..
There are basically 5 kinds of clues :

1. Straight clues
2. Double defenitions
3. Anagrams
4. Workable clues
5. Hybrid clues



1. Straight clues

Very simple. Direct defenitions of the answers form the clue.
For eg. :

They show up the player’s(or umpire’s) skills in retrospect (6,7)
Answer: Action Replays
Easy enough, eh? Well the thing is that sometime the most apparent of answers don’t strike you and so more often than not, you’ll find that these direct clues are the ones filled up towards the end, once you’ve got letters of the answer from the solutions of different clues.

Another one ….
One like Mao? (8)
Answer : Chairman



2. Double Defenitions
These clues generally are very short. These clues can be decomposed into two distinct parts, each a different meaning of the answer to the clue.

For eg. :
The Language of the Britisher(7)

Now break it down into 2 parts:
The Language
Britisher

The answer to this is “ English “
English is obviously a language and a Britisher is English ….

Another example :

Apply the sqeeze on the print media(5)
Answer : Press … pretty straightforward ….



3. Anagrams
Now, we come to the more challenging clues.

An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once. (Read the wiki article for more)

Right, so coming to the clues with anagrams, here’s one :

Fish, an amber sort (5)
The answer : Bream ( an anagram of Amber )


Now, how do you discern that the clue is an anagram?
Look for words that indicate that the answer is an anagram of a part of the clue. In the above clue, the hint is the word “sort”. From this you can decide that it is an anagram, and since the answer is 5 letters and the only 5 letter word in the clue is “amber”, its quite simple, isn’t it? Well then again, figuring out the word to be anagrammed is the easy part. Figuring the actual
answer is the more hard part…

Here’s another :

A disturbed sister has the power to oppose (6)
Answer : Resist ( Anagram of “sister” )
The tell-tale word here is “disturbed”

And another :

A conifer from a cadre altered (5)
Answer : Cedar ( anagram of “cadre”)

So look for these words to check if the clues are anagrams.Also, these clues will be complete, as in, apart from the anagram part of it, the rest of the clue will also be an indication to the answer. Like, in the above clues, a cedar is a conifer and to resist is to oppose.

Some of the words that usually indicate anagrams are:
Altered
Disturbed
Mixed
A sort of
Concocted
Stirred

More to come ...




Cheers