Tag Archives: Cluing

Clever cluing and outlaw wordplay…

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Last week I collected some of my favorite examples of clever crossword cluing, hoping to highlight some marvelous wordplay along the way.

To do so, I called in the cavalry and recruited the help of a half-dozen or so fellow puzzlers. As the terrific, funny, and cunning clues poured in, some of them were accompanied by notes, indicating that one publisher or another had barred them from publication.

Some clues, no matter how funny or clever, are rejected by publishers who view them as inappropriate for public consumption.

I respectfully disagree. =)

Heck, I wrote an entire blog post about cluing last year that featured my favorite not-quite-appropriate-for-all-sensibilities clue.

So please enjoy some immensely clever clues that didn’t make the cut elsewhere.

New York Times Crossword contributor Ian Livengood considers this one of his favorite answer/clue combinations, and it’s a real treat. He offers “Group getting some air play?” as the clue for “MILE HIGH CLUB.”

Patti Varol, Los Angeles Times Crossword contributor, turned some heads with the clue “Car bomb?” for “EDSEL.”

Crossword fiend Doug Peterson, via Patti, shared another eye-popping clue: “I had ‘BUILDING’ in a Sun puzzle and Peter Gordon clued it as ‘Erection’. We agreed that that one is hilarious and unlikely to be used anywhere else.”

My chums from Penny Press came through as well, offering clues that caught the attention of The Powers That Be.

Puzzle editor Keith Yarbrough contributed two wonderfully wicked clues for common crossword fodder, offering “Public hanging” for “ART” and “Brest milk” for “LAIT.”

Crossword guru Eileen Saunders also lobbed two sharp examples of choice wordplay my way, offering “Hoe house?” for “SHED” and “Wombmates?” for “TWINS.”

But my favorite contribution was definitely the one offered by variety puzzler Leandro Galban: “Kindergarten snack?” for “PASTE.”

Not only did I laugh out loud at that clue, but there’s more. In the email accompanying the clue, Leandro said, “We received at least one letter questioning my sanity so you know it was a success.”

I’d like to thank my fellow puzzlers for some tremendous wordplay and a few hearty laughs today. Keep on pushing the envelope! You never know what clever clues they’ll conjure next.

Clueless? Not these folks!

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If you saw the clue “poultry sum,” would you deduce the answer was “CHICKEN FEED?” What about the clue “Spanish root word?” Would you write “OLE” in the grid?

Clever cluing is the lifeblood of great crosswords. No matter how crafty a given puzzle’s theme, no matter how challenging or playful the entry words, crosswords live and die on their clues. And there’s a real art to creating a great clue.

I have a few clues in my personal files that I’m pretty proud of, ones that employ wordplay or pop culture references in an interesting way.

In the past, I’ve used “Locksmith?” for “HAIRDRESSER,” and I’ve previously clued the entry “TELL-ALL” as “Book of revelations?” Both of them employ just enough wordplay to appease my inner pun-loving wordnerd.

With that spirit in mind, I reached out to a few of my fellow puzzlers and asked them to contribute some of their favorite clues, either that they’ve created or that they’ve seen in other puzzles.

Los Angeles Times Crossword contributor Patti Varol wrote one of my all-time favorite clues — “Baa nana?” for “EWE” — so I was eager to see which clues she was most proud of.

She offered “In a glass by itself” for “NEAT,” which is great, as well as the playful “‘Egads,’ like, way updated” for “OMG.”

Patti also recommended a clue for “SPELLS” from the August edition of the Crosswords Club: “Breaks down in English class?”

New York Times Crossword contributor Ian Livengood also suggested a fellow puzzler’s work, stating that Jeremy Horwitz delivered “Bum rap?” as a dynamite clue for “BABY GOT BACK” in a Times puzzle.

LA Times Daily Crossword editor Rich Norris provided a cagey clue for “MOMENT”: “Second cousin?”

Several puzzlers from Penny Press were happy to lend some of their favorite clues as well.

Crossword guru Eileen Saunders plucked a few choice ones from her Rolodex for us, including “Mouse sound?” for “CLICK,” “Fir coat” for “BARK,” “Support system?” for “BRA,” and “Flip one’s lid” for “BLINK.”

(Patti also recommended one of Eileen’s clues, citing “Spot remover” for “DOGCATCHER,” echoing Eileen’s inclusion of “Labrador retriever?” for “DOGWARDEN” as one of her favorites.)

Puzzle editor Keith Yarbrough offered up some nimble wordplay as well, including “Feat of Klee” for “ART,” “Bean dip” for “NOD,” “Bach’s lunch” for “WURST,” “Kid, napped” for “SUEDE,” and “Thyme and thyme again” for “HERBS”.

All of these clues show the ingenuity, intelligence, and whimsy that are inherent to truly fun and engaging puzzlemaking, and I’d like to thank my fellow puzzlers for sharing some of their best with us today. Keep up the great work!

Love and Other Puzzles

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You read stories about puzzle-centric cleverness all the time, whether it’s a real-life treasure hunt or saving Christmas through cryptography. But tales of puzzleriffic romance? Those are far more rare.

So when I was reminded of a particular bit of romantic wordplay fun, I couldn’t wait to share it with my fellow puzzlefiends.

C and G are one of those brilliantly matched couples that makes you smile just thinking of them. Marvelously compatible interests and senses of humor and general weirdness that makes relationships worthwhile.

G had several gifts picked out for C, but he wanted to surprise her with a little something extra, a bit of diabolical sweetness only a true puzzle devotee would love.

So, before C received each small token of affection, she was given a cryptic crossword (also known as a British-style crossword) clue to solve. Cryptic crossword clues involve both cunning wordplay and a definition. The number after the clue provides the number of letters in the answer word.

Here are the clues G created. Hopefully you can figure out the answers just as C did!

Really glitchy web address loaded between Tuesday and first of year (5)

Found, amidst mishap, pyramid’s content (5)

Begin tortured existence (5)

Thine enemy, in the end, belonging to us both (5)

Plus, there’s an added bonus: the four five-letter answers, when placed in order, form a phrase.

As it turns out, not only is romance NOT dead, but it’s far more clever than you may have expected.

 

 

 

[Many thanks to C and G for allowing me to share this lovely story with my fellow puzzlers.]

Get a clue.

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One of the most challenging parts of making a puzzle is coming up with new or clever clues. I daresay it’s the toughest part of creating a puzzle.

Of course, that same challenge also makes it one of the most enjoyable aspects of both puzzle-making and puzzle-solving. (After all, if every clue is simply a synonym or a fill-in-the-blank, it wouldn’t be much of a puzzle.)

Now, I love wordplay, I always have. Whenever I can work palindromes or anagrams or the like into a puzzle or its clues, I’m all over it. Getting to do a series of Tom Swifties as clues one time was a particular joy.

But this style of cluing is harder than you think, since sometimes you only have so much space allotted for cluing an entire puzzle. The difference between two lines and three can be crucial.

So your goal should be wordplay that’s funny AND space-efficient while still being appropriate for a wide audience. A personal favorite that I’ve seen in crosswords for a while now is the clue “It’s for posers.” (The answer is “yoga.”)

In my own cluing experience, my sense of humor occasionally causes me to stray toward impropriety when it comes to clues.

For instance, I had a puzzle where I needed to clue “bald,” so I used “unlocked” as the clue. Mildly clever, not too bad, and totally unoffensive. That’s the trinity I need to hit for new cluing.

But in the same puzzle, I had the word Lisp, and I was trying to conjure up a fun clue, instead of relying on something like “speech issue,” which is bland. The clue I eventually came up with — “Make sin thin, e.g.” — made me smile, but I scrapped it, because it might come off as insensitive.

That’s why a clue like “Grass guillotine” for “lawnmower” could cause some problems. You could offend people with that. (The French, or the recently decapitated, I suppose.)

But sometimes, you simply can’t help yourself. A fellow puzzler was trying to come up with an inoffensive way to clue “witch hunt,” a phrase that would’ve fit nicely into a particular crossword grid. (Referring to either the historical pursuit of witches OR the general connotation of persecution was out of the question.)

My thought was that wordplay could save the entry, by getting people to summon up the phrase itself without the negative connotations. You know, like “spellcaster’s search?” or something like that.

That clue came to mind later. After another clue. One that I loved so very, very much, but that I could never use for the above reasons.

My clue for “witch hunt”…

“Pressing engagement.”