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Comment by camtarn | Hacker News Reader

One thing I found fascinating was the difference between US and UK crosswords, which I'd always assumed would be pretty similar: "Crosswords in England are completely different from ours ... their crossword clues started including anagrams, homophones, hidden words and other wordplay ... cryptics here have never achieved widespread popularity."

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If you're interested, a clue in a cryptic crossword in the UK must give you the answer two different ways, one of the ways is a synonym/description, and no word may belong to both of the ways. Sometimes a setter will not meet these criteria, so they append a question mark to the clue to mark it as not quite proper.

For example, "reprimand son for being so unfeeling" is scold -- a synonym of reprimand, and then s for son and cold for unfeeling.

I enjoy doing the cryptic crossword in our local paper. Unfortunately, the ones in national papers are too hard for me. Often the trick is knowing something like that a sailor used to be called a "tar".

They are a lot of fun though; I prefer them to general knowledge since all you need to answer them is time, lateral thinking and a good vocabulary. They are also a great illustration of the workings of the subconscious -- coming back to a puzzle after a short time usually yields some answers instantly.

Yes, British crosswords are something special. I'm surprised there aren't more fans of them on HN.

As introduction, here's one that's good and towards the easier end of the cryptic scale: http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/cryptic/25247. There's a solution (with explanations) at http://fifteensquared.net/2011/02/16/guardian-25247-enigmati...

It's celebrating a crossword-setter's 90th birthday, and most of the in-jokes are explained in comments.

Frank Lewis, a cryptanalyst, did cryptic crosswords for _The Nation_ magazine for over 60 years. He died last year:

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/frank-w-lewis-wwii-cod...

Here are the rules for his cryptics:

http://www.thenation.com/crossword

For instance,

"I have seen such teasers as the clue BUR to suggest the phrase RUB THE WRONG WAY."

In the print edition of the magazine, the advice at the bottom of the puzzle used to be:

"If you are unsure why 'lures' are 'ground rules', send for ours at (address of the magazine)." So clever.

The most popular crosswords in the UK are the same type as those in the US. But some newspapers have an additional 'cryptic' crossword. (I don't know more than a couple of people who actually do the cryptic crosswords, but I guess they must have some sort of following.)

But the people who do the Times cryptic everyday during their commute know they're in a different class... (e.g.: http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/731666.html ). I certainly can't make much of a dent in a cryptic crossword, though the 'concise' ones are sometimes doable.

Here's a sample of each : http://crosswordclub.timesonline.co.uk/crossword/print?type=... , http://crosswordclub.timesonline.co.uk/crossword/print?type=...

There's definitely a ranking amongst the papers too.

That actually surprised me, in reverse (I always assumed the NY Times Crossword, at least the 'really hard' Saturday one, was a cryptic crossword). Personally, cryptics are the only ones I really do anymore - I go through phases where they're the only thing to put me to sleep at night, which I assume is something to do with the way they focus the mind.

My favourtie cryptic crossword clue: "HIJKLMNO"

Answer: "Water"

GAMES magazine usually has a few cryptic crosswords per issue, so if you want to give it a try pick up an issue. I'm sure they've also got collections out there... or you could probably look for used issues to play with. I know all of my old issues had unsolved cryptics.

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