Yup, finished the puzzle last night. Makes sense, did not know that though.
I have enjoyed the invention of electronic crosswords, so you can know if the answer is wrong. I originally thought it was kind of a cheat, but I try to finish with no errors or as few as possible.
Black Friday?
Nope - Opening Night!! Off to the theater later on.
I'm starting to grow weary of turkey.
No, I mean cryptics. They do them in Britain ask the time. Each clue has two clues contained within it. One is a straightforward clue and the other is a word play clue. What makes it challenging is that the solver has to figure out which part of the clue is which, and what the clues mean, and the good puzzles hide it pretty well.
An example clue.
Pop singer upset Prebytarians.(7,6)
Pop singer is the straight up clue. The word upset tells the solver that the word play is an anagram. The numbers in the parentheses tell you the length of the word or words in the answer. Therefore, the answer to the clue is obtained by rearranging the letters of the word Presbytarians into words that mean or are a pop singer.
The answer is Britney Spears.
It's complicated, and there are about 8 different forms of word play that can be used. It takes some getting used to and some practice, but once you get the hang of them they are really satisfying.
^^^^^I am a huge dope. rsvman, I barely understood a word of your description above.
Really, I am embarrassed.
Nothing incites bodily violence quicker than a Duke fan turning in your direction and saying 'scoreboard.'
Don't feel bad, weezie. It's really complicated and I didn't explain it very well.
Maybe another example will help. Keys stick with clues of the anagram type. There is always a tip off word in the clue to let you know it's an anagram clue. Here's a simple one.
Wild West food (4)
In this clue, the word "wild" tells the solver that there is an anagram in the clue. The word "food" is the straight clue. So, the solver knows that he had to rearrange the four letters of the word "west" into a word that means food.
So, the answer is "stew."
Does that one clarify it a bit?
Theater first last night - our cast got a laugh for our entrance in the blue light!
It's hard to find good stuff online. There are several sites that have online puzzles, but the quality isn't always the best. Henry Rathvon and Emily Cox work together to make some of the best of this type of puzzle, and they've put together several collections. At the beginning of each there is an explanation of each type of clue and some examples of how they are used. They are Canadian, so some of their puzzles have stuff that's harder for Americans to understand.
There is another cryptic crossword writer named Wayne Robert Williams that has several series of puzzle books out. One of these series is entitled "Cryptic Crosswords for US," with the "US" meaning that they were written for American solvers. One of these books might make a good stocking stuffer. They run about 12-16 bucks or so.
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust
I could have used an independent study or two during undergrad...