About the Book

Writing about crosswords has always been difficult because language is not an appropriate tool to illustrate the intricacies and subtlety of language. In this way one cannot explain a joke so that those who missed it will laugh. One needs to step out of the problem paradigm in order to examine and describe it.

In this book the poetry of beautiful crossword clues is made visible graphically, not verbally. The graphic illustration occurs in a font that illustrates the function, or hidden encoding, of a word, or even part of a word. The Hidden Code is nothing new. We live with codes that lie behind the very words we speak.

Because language has a silent structure, grammar, ‘Anne eats ripe plums’ makes sense, and ‘eats plums Anne ripe’ does not. 5 + 2 x 2 makes 9, not 14, because maths has a silent structure. Cryptic crosswords are logical and make sense only because of their silent structure: The Hidden Code. Here it is, made visible:

The Structure of Cryptic Clues:

A cryptic clue is not a sentence, but has two distinct parts that must be separated. Every cryptic clue defines the answer twice: Once by a synonym /\ and once by wordplay.

Hero = He-man

(He-man) stands amongthem anonymously= He-man

Together these two definitions of the answer make a cryptic clue:

Hero /\ stands amongthem anonymously(2-3) = He-man

Bird = Gander

(Gander) moves out ofdanger = Gander

Together these two definitions of the answer make a cryptic clue:

Bird /\ moves out ofdanger(6) = Gander

The clue is made up of five parts:

1. The synonymcrux (in bold). The crux of every clue lies in a synonym.

2. The fulcrum, /\ , separates the synonymcrux from the wordplay. It is the a point on which the two separate definitions of the answer balance, and they, separately, have equal weight in each defining the answer.

3. The keyword (in italics) indicates the device used in the clue. That means that the keyword tells one “what to do”.

4. The exposition is the part of the clue that the device applies to; the part that “what to do” is done to. (Underlined when letters move to the answer, and double underlined when another word is needed so that:

if this text isn't double underlined click here

Left /\ a wild pig in its own fat (8) = Larboard 

is read as

Left /\ boar in lard (8) = Larboard )

5. The num is a pair of brackets containing numerals and is always the last part of the clue. The num uniquely defines the structure of the answer as, for example, “being two hyphenated words, one of two letters and the second of three letters” (he-man).

To sum up, the five parts:

Crossword Devices:

Literary devices, or figures of speech, are used in poetry and prose to give words more meaning than their mere face value. “Matilda is a pig” does not refer to a farm animal, but to her behaviour. The metaphor gives extra meaning to the words.

The same thing happens in crosswords, but the devices are different. The wordplay employs devices to give more meaning to the words than their mere face value, just as literary devices, such as metaphors, do for sentences. The anagram is the most famous of all crossword devices, and there are many devices. The devices used so far are a bridgeword (bridging the gap between the words “them anonymously”) and an anagram (the letters of danger make gander) and a concon, (Boar is the contents word put into lard, the container word, making larboard).

There are too many crossword devices to mention in this limited space.

Try a Cryptic Crossword!

	Try a sample cryptic crossword that has the hidden code made visible!