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How come ‘with’ is allowed as a positional indicator/linkword for a DOWN clue but ‘by’ isn’t? One of the definitions of ‘with’ is ‘by’. Could ‘by’ be used in the sense of ‘via’ in a DOWN clue?
Hi Alex
I think that the meanings which Chambers ascribes to ‘by’ are the important factor, particularly because C gives the sense of ‘with’ to which you refer as ‘by, beside’, which sounds very horizontal. The sense of ‘near’ is interesting since, for instance, a balloon could be ‘near the ground’ (above) or ‘near the ceiling’ (below). But could ‘by’ be used in such a situation? I can’t think of a real-life example where ‘by’ would suggest, or even allow the possibility of, a vertical juxtaposition. I don’t know that ‘with’ ever explicitly indicates an above/below relationship either, but the context of ‘a bottle with a top’ and ‘a statue with a base’ leave the reader in no doubt. I would need more convincing!
That said, I have touched in the past on what seems to me an inconsistency in the way that indicators are assessed. Letter selection indicators such as ‘sides of’, ‘skirts of’ and ‘wings of’ are generally considered to be valid irrespective of whether the light runs horizontally or vertically. This implies that (reasonably enough, it seems to me) the clue is being evaluated in a horizontal plane prior to entry in the grid. I can see how, if it is a down clue, the result could then be further manipulated in a vertical plane ‘within the light itself’, as it were. So for the down clue “Stitch weak wings of eagles up”, we assemble W and E(agle)S in the horizontal direction (that of the clue), and then we mentally position it in the grid before reversing it to give SEW running downwards. But if that is legitimate, what is wrong with the down clues “Course run by expert” for RACE and “Intercept vessels from the east” for STOP?
Good point! I can’t think of a real life instance where ‘by’ indicates vertical juxtaposition, and that is probably the best determinant. However, I can’t really think of a good one for ‘with’ either. In the two examples you give, ‘top’ and ‘base’ are doing a lot of heavy lifting as they are positional indicators themselves and ‘with’ just means ‘having’. Next time I’m constrained in this way I’ll give the grid a quarter-turn before filling it in and see what happens!. (disqualification)
I don’t disagree about ‘with’ and the heavy lifting – I would suggest that when the prepositions are used in a positional sense, ‘near’ carries no implication of relative orientation, ‘with’ offers a suggestion of side-by-sideness (though I think ‘bread with jam’ is valid shorthand for ‘bread with jam on’), and ‘by’ very much suggests horizontal proximity.
Thanks for clarifying that. I went with ‘with’ with my clue.
Hello Doctor Clue
Thanks for a great reference site that helps resolve many of the different practices in setting cryptic clues. I have a question on what is commonly known as “root sharing” or “etymology crossover “ in cryptic crosswords. There are many who believe that the definition and wordplay must be based on different etymologies . Nowadays, in published grids in the UK, one finds this conversion is not strictly adhered to. The practice of overlooking common etymology is somewhat more common when parts of the word or phrase that is clued. are clued ignoring the need to break the word or phrase differently from their natural form.The argument in favour of not following the etymology convention is that if the clue has sufficient misdirection and words with similar roots are used in different senses that is sufficient to create the element of surprise the solver is looking for. Would like your views on this issue especially as to where one would draw the line
Hi Avtaar, and thanks for raising a very interesting subject.
To start with, let me say that ‘root sharing’ does not in itself make a clue unsound or unfair, but it can make it very weak, and is often a sign of poor cluemanship. I would also add that the etymologies given in dictionaries are not always definitive, and there are many situations where the senses of a word have ‘forked’ so long ago that they have effectively become separate words, and have subsequently evolved independently of each other, eg ‘bear’ = ‘to carry’ / ‘to give birth to’.
The first type of clue to consider is the ‘double definition’. It is usually considered a requirement for such clues that the definitions lead to different words (separate dictionary headwords), as in ‘Pole position’ for POST (headwords 1 and 2 in Chambers). This supports the concept of one part of such a clue being considered as the ‘wordplay’, because the two parts indicate the same sequence of letters in truly different ways. There is an argument for allowing polysemous words (which have distinct meanings under a single headword) to be the subject of double definitions as long as they lead clearly and unambiguously to the answer – so ‘Agreeable sort (4)’ would not be unreasonable for KIND, but ‘Fashion model (4)’ for FORM would be unfair – ‘fashion’ and ‘model’ are being used synonymously, and the clue could equally well lead to MAKE.
When it comes to ‘definition plus wordplay’ clues, in general those which simply break a compound answer into its component parts and indicate one or more of those parts with a ‘root share’ are considered weak. So ‘Plant might bloom’ for MAYFLOWER would be a very poor clue indeed. To break, say, BOOKSHOP into BOOK and SHOP seems unimaginative, but if both were indicated by different parts of speech with different senses, eg ‘reserve’ for BOOK and ‘betray’ for SHOP, and the whole were defined by something like ‘novel outlet’, the element of surprise that you mention can be created, and a perfectly respectable clue can result. When it comes to long answers in blocked puzzles, even more leeway can be allowed; without resorting to complex constructions, such entries can often only be clued in an accessible way through the use of anagrams or by ‘root sharing’ (which can even extend to ‘word sharing’). It would not be unreasonable for a clue to DUPLICATE BRIDGE to be something along the lines of ‘Game of double-crossing’, despite the fact that ‘double’ directly indicates ‘duplicate’.
I think that the line is drawn at the point where the setter demonstrates that they know what they are doing, and has clearly put effort into producing a clue which the solver of a puzzle in that particular series will find enjoyable, rather than thinking it is the result of sheer laziness. Clueing DUPLICATE BRIDGE using a combination of selections, reversals and containments is not going to go down well with solvers of a Monday ‘back page’ crossword in a UK daily newspaper, and therefore won’t even get past the editor.
I hope that makes at least a degree of sense!
Does internally mean only one letter at each end is to be deleted? Or can it also imply reduction of any number of letters either side of the centre?
Hi Rafi
I’d say that ‘internally’ and ‘externally’ are complementary – either something is internal to a structure/body or it’s external (internal organs/external organs). I don’t see that anything other than the first and last letters of a word can be ‘external’, so the rest must be ‘internal’. To me, ‘internal’ (like ‘inner’ but unlike ‘innermost’) doesn’t imply centrality, so if ‘internally vented’ were considered valid for NT, it would also have to be allowed for EN, ENT, NTE etc.
As always, this is just my personal view – I hope that it makes some sense.
Thank you, Doctor Clue. My idea was to use “tiring internally” for RI, but I was wondering if the solver would read it as a part-clue for IRIN. Your comment suggests it does mean IRIN, if I understood correctly.
Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear – to me ‘internally vented’ must be ENTE. I would allow ‘tiring internally’ only for IRIN, and ‘tiring essentially’ only for RI. But ultimately it’s all down to what you think your solvers will understand.
You made yourself very clear, Doctor Clue. Clearly, “tiring internally” for RI is open to debate, so I will not use it. Additionally, your comment about “essentially” has made me rethink; I will henceforth use that indicator only for the innermost letter(s).
Yes, that’s certainly what those two indicators would mean in the back page crosswords of UK newspapers – ‘internally’ = all but first/last, ‘essentially’ = innermost letter(s).
Could “fretted” potentially be a fair anagram indicator?
Chambers gives a definition of “fret” as:
transitive verb
to ripple or disturb
to corrode
Hi Johannes, and thanks for the suggestion.
I believe that in the ‘ripple or disturb’ sense it relates specifically to liquids (“Not one gondola frets the lagoon”), but the terse Chambers def is sufficient to justify its use in ‘advanced’ crosswords. I can see that it could be quite useful in a construction like ‘X fretted about Y’ for (X* around Y). I’ll add it to my list of candidate indicators; the anagrind list is very long, and ‘worried’ is already in there, so I might decide not to include it.
Hello Dr Clue
If this topic has already been covered elsewhere — I did search, to no avail — apologies for repeating it. In some recent test-solve feedback, our mutual friend and top-notch tester Mr Heald suggested that I change an intended indication of the WP element ‘A-B’ from the original ‘B removed from A’ to ‘A having had B removed’, on the basis that the latter version more fairly SWIM (say what it means). Without giving anything away, this device structure also appears in a recent Listener clue.
I agreed with Richard’s point, despite both of us noting that “removed from” is in this site’s Departure list: but I wonder if it should be? When we say eg “splinter removed from finger” we implicitly refer to the extracted splinter (B) rather than the residual splinterless finger (A-B). That is, in plain English this device seems to leave us with the subject of the removing verb rather than the residual object we require, hence my tongue-in-cheek proposal of the term “obtraction”. To wit, should “removed from” be, ahem, removed from the list? Interested to hear other view on this.
[PS I note that in both this post and one made earlier, my avatar isn’t showing?]
Hello Monk, and thanks for raising a point which is often in my thoughts but which I have previously only touched on due to its potential ramifications.
A full response will follow, but regarding the avatar I have tried putting your email address into the Gravatar checker (https://gravatar.com/site/check), which suggests that there is no profile associated with the address. Is it working ok on other sites?
Hello Dr Clue
Thanks for the heads-up re the gravatar site, where avatar duly added tonight.
Ah, that looks better 🦴
Hi Dr C (and Monk).
Just to clarify, I have no issue with ‘B removed from A’ per se; the problem for me arises when it’s preceded by a charade element, i.e. ‘C B removed from A’ (with no preposition or anything else between C and B) being used to indicate ‘C + A – B’, as it often is (the latest Listener contains a clue structured exactly in this way). To me, ‘C B removed from A’ can legitimately indicate only ‘A – (C B)’. Is this an opportune moment to introduce your readers to the concept of ‘plonkers’ …? 😉
Thanks, RJHe
I completely agree with you about ‘C B removed from A’ (or ‘…leaving A’ etc) – this simply cannot legitimately indicate (C + A – B). As soon as you told me about the term ‘plonker’ I felt that it warranted inclusion in the Glossary, so I plonked it straight in there. For the uninitiated, a clue such as ‘Left prince removed from office confused’ for LOST is a ‘plonker’, since putting ‘Left’ next to ‘prince’ means that the wordplay can lead only to (POST – LP), not (L + (POST – P)) as intended.
However, Monk’s comment has drawn attention to one of those rather large elephants in the cruciverbal room, on which I will share my thoughts as and when I have gathered them all together!
Thank you 🐾 (and RJHe reminds me that ’twas apparently my owner who coined the term ‘plonker’!)
How nice to hear from a border collie – we mainly just get setters on here. I have updated the item in the Glossary to reflect the term’s origins.
🤣👏🏻 Very good! And thank you. In all fairness, my own recollection is that the term arose organically during one of many exchanges with Azed ClueMeister RJHe on clue grammar, so I’d be more than happy to share the (very generous) attribution with him 🤗.
Good evening Dr C and RJHe
FWIW, it seems that plonkerdom most commonly occurs when a verbal indicator in one part of the charade is in present-indicative form, as per your MORALE example in the Glossary. So perhaps the plonkerosity of RJHe’s above example also falls in to this category because we implicitly parse it as ‘C B *is* removed from A’, and I think this last point about “B [is] removed from A” is germane to the concerns re the “obtraction” mentioned above.
Good evening both
Yes, I agree. The only point with which I might take issue, having pondered at some length over the wider questions raised by your original post, is the implicit parsing. I think that the auxiliary verb construction which we infer from a bit of passive telegraphese/headlinese such as ‘Minister removed from office’ (or ‘Murray beaten at Wimbledon’, ‘Jonah eaten by whale’ etc) involves not ‘is’ but ‘has been’.
Ah yes, of course: “Monk corrected by Dr C” is already hitting the tabloids! 🙄
Thank you for providing (and constantly improving) this very useful resource. I would like to suggest an extra feature – some items (e.g. container and contents indicators) have “standard” and “advanced” versions, and it would be useful to be able to filter or sort using these. Ideally I’d like to be able to sort by that, and then by something else (e.g. by “Type” then “Variety” in “containers and contents”).
PS I see that’s already a thing in the anagram indicators, although not the extra feature of being able to sort by “Type” then “Function”, say – the second sort cancels the first one, so to speak.
Thanks, Liz. It’s something that I was thinking about recently, and there are two relatively easy ways to achieve it – one is less elegant and requires upkeep, while the other is elegant and maintenance-free. The only problem is that option 2 involves a fairly significant outlay. I want to keep the site as easy to use as possible, so I think I’m going to bite the bullet and open the wallet, not least because it will enable me to do more good stuff with the data tables (eg highlighting particular rows)…watch this space…
Out of interest, what software do you use? (I used to be a programmer, so this is just nosiness).
The site is based on WordPress, using the Hueman theme. I have made a few minor tweaks, but not too many because (i) I don’t really know what I’m doing (my programming days are long past), and (ii) I want to keep the maintenance of the site as simple as possible. For the lists I use the free version of the TablePress plugin, which is amazingly functional but lacks some of the sophistications (eg user-selectable filters) of the paid versions.
Ah, already way past my capabilities. Whatever happened to C++? Come to think of it, whatever happened to 6502 assembly language (rhetorical question!)
When I first used C it didn’t have any plusses 😀. Best not to get me started or I’ll be reminiscing endlessly about writing assembler language (‘usercode’) for an English Electric KDF9, not to mention acoustic couplers, removable disks, the Amstrad ‘portable’ PC…
Likewise, I started with the Softek C compiler on the Sinclair Spectrum and then wrote an optimiser for the code it produced. It seemed quite a step up from Z80 assembler.
Before that it was punched tape on some sort of mainframe, and punch cards before that – and programming the 8080 with switches on a circuit board… none of which endeared me to programming! It wasn’t until I discovered the “Superbrain” (!) desktop computer and BASIC, and later the Sinclair ZX80 that I started to think this was something I might actually enjoy doing.
(However we might be risking getting into a “Four Yorkshire-men” situation here! 🙂 )
Aye, you were lucky… 😀
But so was I – I got to spend quite a while programming in BASIC, still my favourite computer language.
Could I express a dissenting view on your (mild – I realise –) vendetta against “has” “gets” etc. as neutral juxtaposition indicators?
Firstly, “X has Y”, is surely a very straightforward indication that X+Y is implied. If a man “has” a book, what obtains is a man with a book. “Woman has child” = a woman with a child. etc.
Likewise, reading between the lines, you seem to imply that “gets” “receives” “takes” etc. should properly only be used to indicate containment. However, to repeat the illustration above – if “a man receives a book”, the result is also simply a man with a book. (Indeed, in that instance, insertion seems quite a far-fetched idea!) I believe words indicating “attainment” can validly be used either way – receives, gets, takes etc. are simply not semantically specific enough to rule out one over the other. (“Man eats book” would be an entirely different matter.)
I may have missed what you’re saying here, but it seems to me that you may be confusing the surface and cryptic readings. If a man has a book, cryptically that’s just [X] “has” [Y} with no implication about the nature of X and Y. So insertion isn’t far fetched in the cryptic reading, and as long as it doesn’t spoil the surface reading, “man holding book” could be part of a clue for H(OT)E[L], say.
Apologies if I’ve misunderstood.
Ah sorry – I’m not disputing that insertion is valid with those verbs. I’m just querying the idea that simple juxtaposition with “has”/”takes” etc isn’t truly valid, which is what the author of the site suggets on the juxtaposition indicators page. I think both are perfectable defensible.
Just to illustrate:
“Girl gets duck” / “Girl has duck” (or with the verb as a contraction: “Girl’s duck”) etc.
Seem to me to be perfectly sensible as wordplay for LASS+O -> LASSO, and no less so than “Girl with duck”.
….And forgetting my manners, I failed to thank Dr Clue for a brilliant and incredibly helpful site! Just posting a query for debate above.
That’s very kind.
Debate is always encouraged. To quote from Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary:
Discussion, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.
Ha!
Speaking of the Devil’s Dictionary, one of my old crosswords 🙂
lawtalkcrossword.wordpress.com/2021/05/19/no-41-winter-2021
Nice puzzle! I set a DD-themed crossword for a magazine several years ago, but it definitely wasn’t one of my finest moments 🙁.
Thanks 😀
Yes, that seems reasonable.
First of all, let me say that I am always happy for readers to express dissenting views – there are very few ‘absolutes’ in the cruciverbal world (as evidenced by differences of opinion over just what constitutes a ‘crossword’), and discussion is always encouraged!
When assessing words as potential indicators, we tend to look for dictionary meanings which support a specific cryptic sense. So the ubiquitous ‘about’ has senses given by Chambers of ’round on the outside of’ (containment), ‘in the opposite direction’ (reversal), and ‘in motion or activity’ (anagram). Taking a word like ‘have’, the first meaning given by Chambers is ‘to hold’, which justifies its use as a containment indicator. Chambers doesn’t give any sense which directly suggests that the subject is alongside the object. I think that if a house is said to ‘have a garage’, we might infer that the garage was next to it, but it could also be part of the house, or could indeed be in a block some distance away. If a man has a hat, he may be in contact with it or he may not, depending on context (“One of the robbers had a hat” / “He has a hat for special occasions”). In contrast, the word ‘accompany’ can mean ‘to be in company with’, which very clearly indicates proximity. I don’t use ‘has’, ‘gets’ etc myself to indicate juxtaposition because there is no meaningful context in a cryptic wordplay by which to assess their meaning, but there are plenty of other indicators that I like much less!
Many thanks for this thorough, and thought-provoking response, which certainly clarifies your stance to me!
FWIW I’m not entirely persuaded that ‘holding’ in the sense implied by ‘have’ denotes containment very much more than any other sense of the verb. Substituting “holds” with “has” in the phrase “this box holds money” is a stretch…. (Perhaps the sixth definition in Chambers, “to bear” comes closer.)
Nevertheless, my overriding sense remains that our wonderfully ambiguous language’s main verbs of attainment are gloriously slippery, and I feel one should reserve the right to exploit that slipperiness, so long as the wordplay remains intelligible.
At any rate, I reiterate my thanks for this incredibly valuable resource and all the work you put it into it!
This thread of discussion highlights the problem with dictionaries such as Chambers where stark, single-word definitions are – frankly – of very limited use. We certainly cannot infer complete transitivity, such that ‘have’ inherits all the potential meanings of ‘hold’, including (say) ‘keep the attention of’. But which of the meanings does it share? For a long while I resisted including inflections of ‘have’ as containment indicators, because I couldn’t think of a usage where they meant, rather than implied, that something was holding something else (yes, ‘Cumbria has many lakes’ but ‘Cumbria has a border with Lancashire’). I agree about the slipperiness, and would reiterate that in these murky areas the ultimate test is surely the reaction of the solver.
Agreed. Speaking of Chambers, today’s Guardian puzzle, had “polish” to clue “sand” in “sandal”, which outraged me as a sometime woodworker. Then I discovered that the Chambers Thesaurus perpetuates this conflation of two (often connected but) distinct activities…
Hello Dr Clue
First, the usual thanks for constantly updating this excellent resource. Second, and on which very note, I wonder if “confront” might be added as a ‘before/across’ juxtaposition indicator, not least as Collins 14th edition has it as, inter alia, “to be in front of”. Thank you.
Hello Monk
Thanks for that. I’ve added it to my spreadsheet of indicators to be ‘processed’ at the next update (which will happen soon – there are 39 on the list!) One could take the view that it should be valid in down clues, on the basis that the answer is assembled in a horizontal plane before being entered in the grid, but for consistency with eg ‘facing’ I will limit it to before/across.