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Hey Dr, I was looking through your glossary page and saw the comment that Easter Eggs were first coded into Google Search. They’re much older than that. The term was coined for a secret room coded into the 1980 Atari game Adventure, but previous examples exist. I wasted many hours of my teenage life playing Adventure and was happy to see it crop up in Spielberg’s Ready Player One.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg_(media)
Thanks, Stu. I knew that similar things existed ‘unnamed’ in the mainframe/minicomputer world, but my ‘research’ into the origin of the term was clearly inadequate, to put it mildly! That entry will be corrected forthwith – thank you for setting me straight.
Although I solve few cryptics, preferring to dedicate my efforts to setting, I have nonetheless encountered the occasional “letter bank” clue. The type is not novel–online references go back at least six years–but is presently unaddressed on this site, it seems. Have the Drs any wish to engage?
I had not come across the term ‘letter bank’ before – it appears to have been coined by Will Shortz, who introduced the concept at the 1980 convention of the National Puzzlers’ League.
As I understand it, clues can take two basic forms. Firstly the Letter Bank or ‘LB’, along the lines of
“Hats made entirely from individual bits of stone (8)” for STETSONS, effectively an anagram where the letters in the fodder can be used as many times as required to produce the answer.
Secondly, the Reverse Letter Bank (‘RLB’), such as
“Neediness could be derived from this man’s letters alone (5)” for DENIS, where the ‘super-anagram’ (here NEEDINESS) is presented to the solver and the bank of letters must be established and then rearranged.
I have very occasionally seen clues like this in the UK, where they would be grouped together with a number of other unusual constructions under the heading of ‘novelty clues’. It seems that LB/RLB clues are not uncommon in the US, and therefore a degree of familiarity can safely be ascribed to the solver, but in a UK cryptic the signposting would need to be very clear indeed for the clue to provide entertainment rather than bafflement.
The unstated rules appear to be that no letter is repeated in the bank (so TEST would be no good for SETTEES), and the longer word must contain every letter from the bank (so STARE would not work for REASSESSES). However, given the rarity of this type of clue in the UK, the solver cannot be expected to know that the wordplay will conform to these rules, and further allowance must therefore be made in an LB clue. That said, I would probably be willing to use my STETSONS clue in a puzzle aimed at relatively experienced solvers, on the basis that the meaning is pretty clear. There is more leeway in an RLB clue, because as long as the solver understands at a basic level what is going on, they will end up with a simple anagram. A clue that I have seen is “Nanny has all the ingredients for midsummer madness (9)” – there are nine different letters in MIDSUMMER MADNESS, so the solver has simply to rearrange MIDSUERAN to produce NURSEMAID (I would have preferred, though, to see a ‘that’ between ‘Nanny’ and ‘has’).
I understand that a further Puzzlers’ League rule is that the super-anagram must be at least three letters longer than the bank. I don’t see the need for this if the wordplay makes it clear to the solver that the clue is not a simple anagram gone wrong, although clearly the longer the resultant word or phrase the more satisfying the clue is likely to be (eg BRONTE for TO BE OR NOT TO BE or LENS for SENSELESSNESS).
Thanks for raising the point – I will add the terms to the Glossary. If anyone has seen an example recently in a UK cryptic, I’d be very interested to hear about it.
I haven’t seen one recently, but I certainly remember a discussion about them online somewhere that inevitably invoked the word Marmite.
The Times setter Andy McCarroll likes them, but I’m not sure I’ve seen them in that paper.
Here’s a couple of his from the Independent, as Eccles:
“Fore!” some characters repeatedly snarled, with no mistakes (5-4)
Perhaps Alan Bennett upset her, not having some characters reappear (10)
Tricky when such a device appears rarely, but clearly indicated in those two.
Thanks, CG – that’s interesting.
Taking the NORTHERNER clue (which I quite like) as an example, the solver faces three challenges: firstly to identify that it is a ‘fodder bank’ anagram; secondly to locate that ‘fodder bank’, given that the usual method of matching the length of the fodder to the enumeration will not work; and thirdly to establish which of the 1,296 possible combinations of the letters HER NOT is to be used.
This sort of device needs to be used with particular caution because experience shows that many competent solvers used to dealing with more conventional clue types will struggle with it, just as they would with other novelties such as “One gets home from Rome with this unpleasant skin condition” for RASH. This makes clear signposting particularly important.
Anyone baffled by your RASH clue is more likely to say ‘Ah, I see!’ when it’s explained. Fodder bank solutions seem to elicit ‘How am I supposed to get that?’, which a setter shouldn’t be risking unless it’s particularly ingenious. [I’m quite conservative and might change my mind 30 years from now!]
Yes, I agree. I would also (perhaps slightly mischievously) suggest that an – unacceptable by today’s standards – indirect anagram such as “Possibly the adaptation for the performance” for RECITAL (ARTICLE*) offers rather less than 1,296 possibilities for the letters to be rearranged.
I was quite pleased with the RASH clue…it might pop up in a puzzle sometime! But the problem with clues like these is that if they have to be explained it’s too late – the solver needs to be able to reach the PDM on their own.
Hi Doc, thanks for your answer to my query about secondary anagram indicators (Gemelo 41). Your explanation and examples helped although I remain unconvinced that they are logically necessary or an aid to solvers. That one was certainly required for the surface reading. Fairness to the solver is usually invoked as the final arbiter but that’s a bit circular. I was also wondering what the criteria are for ‘clue to a clue’ errors. For anagrams it is quite straightforward – the fodder must be there in front of you. It’s less clear when most other forms of wordplay are used. In a deletion wordplay you might see: ‘…interior of this planet…’ for (e)ART(h), but perhaps not ‘…exposed Gambian currency…’ for (d)ALAS(i). Does it just depend on the how well-known the original word is? Or are both ok? Or neither?
Hi Alex
I think the ‘fairness to solvers’ argument is often used to support a general statement relating to a particular construction, when in my view it is better applied to individual clues, irrespective of the category into which they fall. Personally, I don’t believe that two anagrinds should necessary in a subtractive anagram, and in some instances (such as my “Face tirades casually, dismissing crude art” clue) the inclusion of the second anagrind makes no sense, since we can only solve the clue by removing the letters A, R and T before rearranging the remainder.
The clue “Vessel set on seaweed mostly” for TARTAN is constructed on entirely conventional lines [TAR + TAN(g)], but I would argue that in, say, a back-page puzzle it is unfair, with the two wordplay elements and the solution all being words which a high proportion of solvers are unlikely to know; even in an advanced puzzle, I would consider it a weak clue. Conversely, in “Sadly, Homer Simpson’s elder daughter is unwell (4)”, we have a ‘strictly forbidden’ indirect anagram of LISA producing AILS; but could it really be said that it is ‘less fair’ than the TARTAN clue? I know which I’d rather try to solve!
In theory, indirect references can be used without restriction in a deletion construction; in practice, any constraint would be based on the length of the operand prior to the removal, and whether the text to be removed was referred to explicitly or by position – ‘accomplished without one’ for D(one) would generally be considered acceptable, but ‘accomplished without outsiders’ for (d)ON(e) would be borderline at best, while ‘exposed beam’ for (r)A(y) is surely a no-no. Likewise ‘accomplished without a drink’ for D(one) is expecting too much of the solver for the reward of just a single letter. When letters are removed based on their position in the operand, and more letters are left than were removed, the construction would normally be considered valid, so both of your examples are ok. Their fairness (by my standards) would have to be assessed in the context of the clue as a whole, the checked letters, and the level of the puzzle – “Gambian rhino shedding skin, sad to say” would be fine for ALAS in a barred puzzle like Gemelo, or in a clue-writing comp, where solvability is of low importance.
Hi Doc, what are your thoughts on ‘drastic’ as an anagram indicator?… Here’s the clue for context: ‘Reducing drastic cut in grant’ for TRUNCATING. Thanks 🙂
Hi Biffa
I think that ‘drastic’ is one of those potential anagram indicators that is on the borderline of acceptability. A ‘drastic treatment’ could certainly produce disturbance, but to the recipient of the treatment rather than to the treatment itself (I would certainly have no problem with the fodder being ‘given drastic treatment’). The range of meanings for ‘drastic’ is rather limited when compared to a word like ‘violent’, which could certainly be applied to something that is itself showing evidence of disturbance.
A check on George Ho’s database shows five instances of ‘drastic’ being used as an anagrind, all in the Telegraph. I doubt that solvers would be discomfited by your clue, but personally I would favour something more mainstream like ‘misguided’ over ‘drastic’.
I hope that makes sense.
Can “some” be used as a hidden word indicator AFTER the fodder?
To me it sounds more natural to use it before the fodder as
Some answer
Is some acceptable?
Hi RK
You’re thinking, I presume, about the US adverbial use of ‘some’, as in “I enjoy doing crosswords some”. This would be equivalent to ‘somewhat’ in British English, and I don’t think that ‘fodder somewhat’ can reasonably be interpreted as meaning ‘part of fodder’, even in crosswordese; there is no verb which can be inferred that would make things clear – ‘fodder chosen somewhat’ doesn’t make any sense. So no, I don’t think it is valid.
But what about ‘in some degree’? There are two similar indicators currently in the list, ‘in some measure’ and ‘to some extent’. While I think that ‘measure’ and ‘extent’ perhaps carry more of a sense of physical spread, it’s marginal, and in the interests of consistency I will add ‘in some degree’ to the list at the next update. Also acceptable would be a construction like ‘fodder, but only some’, with ‘of it’ being implied (“I ate the cake, but only some”).
Hello Doctor,
“Adjacent to” is listed as a juxtaposition indicator with a qualifier that it can be before or after (‘either’). I understand it as “A adjacent to B” can result in AB or BA.
If the wordplay has “A B adjacent to”, can that translate to BA?
Hello RK
The question a setter must always consider is, “Can I reasonably expect the solver to interpret what I’ve written in the way that I need them to?”, although of course while this reading must be grammatically sound it may not be the obvious interpretation.
‘A adjacent to B’ is fine for AB or BA, and ‘A with B adjacent’ or ‘A, B adjacent’ would work similarly; ‘house adjacent to garage’, ‘house with garage adjacent’ and ‘house, garage adjacent’ all suggest the same thing. The phrase ‘house garage adjacent to’, however, would require the solver to infer two words. Firstly, a ‘that’ between ‘house’ and ‘garage’ – this is ok, because in real life we frequently make that inference, eg “A book [that] I read recently”. Secondly, an ‘is’ between ‘house’ and ‘adjacent’ – this is unreasonable to expect, as we don’t entirely omit the word ‘is’ in normal speech, so the construction is unfair to the solver. With the preposition on the end, it would need to be ‘house garage is adjacent to’.
What about ‘A B adjacent’? The omission of ‘to’ means that no object is required, so what needs to be inferred in ‘house garage adjacent’ is a ‘with’, or a comma, between ‘house’ and ‘garage’, producing the valid constructions shown above. From time to time on this site we make reference to the ‘invisicomma’ (sometimes encountered in published crosswords), and that is what would be necessary here. But punctuation is key to the meaning of sentences, and while ‘one, chap outside” is ok for MAIN, ‘one chap outside’ is not; the title of Lynne Truss’ book “Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation” illustrates the importance of commas being used appropriately, and to deliberately add or omit them to the benefit of the surface reading but the detriment of the cryptic reading is not allowed.
In summary: ‘A adjacent to B’, ‘A with B adjacent’, ‘A, B adjacent’, ‘A having B adjacent’ etc are all ok for AB or BA, because they all indicate the required outcome; ‘A B adjacent’ and ‘A B adjacent to’ are not. I hope that makes sense, but if you need further clarification just say.
Rugby move nicked by idol’s an unavoidable accident (9, 3 words)
😀 I’m not sure Peter Shilton saw it that way…
Your mind’s bound to wander a bit this week when writing about lions and heroes!
Of course…3 lions, 11+ heroes ⚽🤞
Furious about Argentina ‘goal’, at heart retaining name – this one (8)
Hi Doc. In your reply to Anon Cues (13th July) should your first example of type II have said ‘Lion embraced by brother openly’ ?
Thanks, Alex – my brain was clearly struggling to cope with all those brothers (who, incidentally, started out as teachers) and lions! Now sorted.