If you are a Cryptic Mason in the York Rite, you may have occasionally been confronted by confusion with those people who work various types of puzzles. Most common are Cryptograms, discussed in detail elsewhere on this website. Those types of puzzles are in the provenance of cryptographers, solvers of secret codes and ciphers.

But there is another type of puzzle, unrelated to cryptograms, that also uses Cryptic as part of its name. This is the Cryptic Crossword Puzzle. The Cryptic Puzzle derives its name from the camouflaged nature of its clues, and not from any relationship to ciphers or codes. Since the Cryptic Puzzle, like Freemasonry, is an import from Britain, it should be of some interest to find out more about this fascinating pastime.

Cryptic puzzle grids come in three basic types: Block, which looks like the offspring of an American (or fully-checked) crossword and a chessboard; Barred, using heavy lines instead of blacked-out squares to indicate word placement; and Variety, a free-style grid based on some gimmick.

Despite their form, Cryptic Crosswords have almost as little similarity to American-style crossword puzzles as they do to cryptograms. Aside from the fact that the grids are somewhat different in allowing some letters to be "unched", that is, un-checked by words crossing at right angles, the real difference is all in the clues.

American crosswords use simple synonyms as the usual clues. Cryptic Puzzles seem to have phrases or sentences as clues. Actually, they always have two clues -- one a straight definition, the same as an American crossword would have, and the other a cryptic clue based on some sort of wordplay. Part of the trick is that the two clues are melded together, and it's up to the solver to figure out where one begins and the other ends. Punctuation, including commas, capitalization, apostrophes, and hyphens, are freely altered to further confuse the boundaries. On the other hand, there are some rules to keep the situation from becoming completely chaotic. The basic one is, "While a clue need not mean what it seems to say, it must say exactly what it does mean." Once the obfuscation of punctuation is cleared up, the clue must be grammatically correct and explicit about what the answer is. Another rule is that the straightforward definition will always be at the start or end, but never buried within the cryptic part of the definition, nor will the cryptic ever be inside the straight definition. While there may be a transition word or two between the two sections of the clue, otherwise every word of a clue should be included for a purpose. (British crosswords are more lax about this than American cryptics, making them even more difficult.) These rules, combined with the confirmation of two definitions to each word, mean Cryptic Puzzles can often be safely worked with a pen instead of a pencil.

An extra help that Cryptic Puzzles give over American Crosswords is that they usually include the letter counts of the answer. This may seem trivial, but (4,5) to indicate an answer is a two-word phrase with four letters in the first word and 5 in the second can be vital information. Hyphenation is also indicated in a similar way, and as with American crosswords, a question mark may indicate a pun is involved.

The wordplay involved in Cryptic Puzzles may take several forms.
• ANAGRAMS, in which the letters of the solution will appear in scrambled form in the clue itself, will usually be indicated by a word such as "mixed", "jumbled", "confused", or "sorted" in the clue.
• HIDDEN words will have their letters in order, but inside another word or words; for example, TINS is hidden within a pair of words earlier in this sentence. They will usually be indicated by words like "inside", "found in", "covering", or "housing".
• DOUBLE DEFINITIONS consist of two straight definitions back-to-back, but of different meanings of the word. These can be especially confusing for graphonyms, words spelled the same but with different pronunciations, such as job (duty) and Job (biblical character).
• HOMOPHONES, on the other hand, are words that sound alike, but are spelled differently (what I learned in school as "homonyms", but Cryptic Puzzles use the British phraseology). They are always indicated by a reference to sound in some way, such as "said", "heard", or "audience" (using the second meaning of that word).
• A special case of homophones are PUNS, flagged by having the clue end with a question mark (though not all question marks are puns). Not quite as rigid in sounding alike, puns should instead somehow form a joke or riddle.
• BEHEADINGS and CURTAILMENTS are words with one or more letters chopped off the start or end. The first letters of a word are usually considered the head and the ending letters the tail. A HEARTLESS word would have the letter(s) deleted from the center, though fair play dictates that usually in that case as many letters be left at the start of the word as at the end of it.
• SUBTRACTIONS are similar with letters taken from anywhere in the words. For these, the letters to be extracted are somehow given, instead of their position at head, tail, or middle.
• ACROSTIC clues may select letters from the clue, usually the first letters, or even letters or odd letters. They will usually be indicated by words like "leaders", "starters", "odd", or "initials".
• REVERSALS are words with the letters in backwards order. This is often signaled with words like "back", "retro", or "turned". Reversal solutions to across clues may also be signaled as "left" or "westward", while those to down clues may use words like "up" or "North". Reversals are often combined with hidden clues
• The broadest type of wordplay is the CHARADE. Again, this is a British term that would possibly be better recognized by Americans as a "rebus." A charade is a series of partial clues which add up to the final solution. Charades frequently combine a mixture of the other types of clues, as well as abbreviations, roman numerals, synonyms, and just to be perverse, some parts of the solution might be included without any wordplay at all!
• A subcategory of charades are INCLUSIONS, where the parts, instead of being in sequence, may be nested inside of each other.
• &Lit! is short for "and literally so," a very rare type of clue where the entire clue can be read in two very different ways that still come out with the same answer. These are the only type of clue where the two parts, the straight definition and the cryptic clue, overlap, and they must do so completely. These clues are signaled by ending with an exclamation point.
• Finally, and about as rarely as &Lits!, puzzle constructors delight in finding novel bits of wordplay that don't fit into any of these categories.

A few words of warning: some indicators, such as "about" or "around", may signal any of several different types of wordplay; or sometimes what seem to be indicator words may actually be part of definitions, and vice versa. Also some kinds of clues can combine to make a different type of clue, such as a word that is both hidden and reversed, or a subtraction and an anagram. Another trap to beware of is that the "surface" sentence may use a word as one part of speech, while the underlying clue, either "straight" or "cryptic", will use it as a different part of speech. For example, in the puzzle below, 1 down seems to be using "cloud" as a noun, but the clue refers to it as a verb.

For examples of several of these types of clues, check out the accompanying puzzle. ANAGRAMS:(1A, 12A, 17A, 29A, 5D, 13D). HIDDEN:(13A, 15A, 2D, 4D, 16D, 25D). DOUBLE DEFINITIONS:(10A, 21D). HOMOPHONES:(26A, 1D). CURTAILMENT:(18D). ACROSTIC:(24D). REVERSAL:(6A). CHARADES:(6A, 19A, 22A, 23A, 27A, 28A, 3D, 6D, 7D, 8D, 14D, 18D). INCLUSIONS:(9A, 11A, 6D, 8D, 20D)

Comments:
Clicking on the grid will show you a larger copy in a new tab or window, which should be easy to print out on paper.
6 down is an obscure word.

ACROSS

1. Spinning globe duel at entrance to Masonic experiences (4,5)
6. Above a backwards fool (5)
9. Counterfeiter hanging around a person searching for food (7)
10. Bubble gum weapon (7)
11. Master's tools found in avenue through grand lodges (6)
12. O.K., I retry deciphering advanced degrees (4,4)
13. Encased in "Upholster" edition (9)
15. Data found in brain food (4)
17. Pen points from assorted bins (4)
19. Young adult's first roads sound like a clock measuring Rod (9)
22. Mass friend is worldwide (8)
23. Academy for top-grade young leader is not C.O.D. (6)
26. Tooth sound in scissor? (7)
27. Puzzle causes sob softly, small spasm (7)
28. Entered Apprentice with Southeastern degree slid deftly (5)
29. Dads shirk muddled memories of computers (4,5)

DOWN

1. Cloud of beef Og called (5)
2. Fun rave left housing to disentangle (7)
3. Rule of limb for Muhammad and Cobb (8)
4. Odor made covering for students' home (4)
5. Ornament befuddled Rome bride (9)
6. Japanese bean advertisement, I followed last letter to Britain (6)
7. Oxford scholar bestows hug and kiss on Ian (7)
8. Scaffold for ram we backed into fork (9)
13. Unrestrained Dingle Hag to ride the wind (4,5)
14. Rogers, in the manner of cola, hot degree (5,4)
16. In test, Ray edified those who got off the subject (8)
18. Wild horses are what bronze costs without tails (7)
20. Talk show host has cat or dog for motivation (7)
21. Transferred pigskin and got a sheepskin (6)
24. Yuppie upper-crust kinds smile first of all, then produce laughs (5)
25. This cartouche frames a bitter memory (4)

For the completed solution, click here.

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