Give Us A Clue
Ambrose Bierce, the American short-story writer, once defined egotism as, 'Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen.' Don't feel discouraged by that remark, as the cryptic crosswords in Puzzler Crosswords are designed to be stimulating, but not nearly as difficult as those that appear in the New York Times.
The crossword compiler's intention is to baffle by employing an armoury of devices for manipulating letters. One of these is the anagram, the best-known cryptic clue type. In an anagram, the letters of one or more words are rearranged to form another word or phrase. The solver can spot this type of clue by identifying the anagram indicator, a word that implies change, disarray, uncertainty or failure. Countless examples include doctor, model, organised, resort, wild, shattered. Here are a couple of cryptic clues involving anagrams:
In this clue, the letters CANCEL MY must be rearranged (as indicated by the word 'order') to form the word CYCLAMEN, a plant.
Here the words MEANS TEST can be jumbled up to form STATESMEN, defined by 'politicians'. In this case, the anagram indicator is 'botched'.
