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[upbeat instrumental music]
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So what is a cryptic and what makes it so,
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All right so cryptics are more popular in Britain.
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But basically every clue is two parts.
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Part of it is going to be descriptive
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and say this is what it is.
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Then the kooky part, the cryptic part
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where you’re playing with all sorts of language
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[Anna] American puzzles are just easier?
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That is one way of looking at it
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because the clues are a lot more literal.
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And the British cryptic tradition,
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rather than have each clue be definitional,
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each clue is going to be a puzzle within the puzzle.
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So I’m gonna do a cryptic-style clue
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and you’re gonna do an American-style clue.
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Okay I thought it would be worth talking about
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just like your two most overused American crossword clues
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for this word, which as British throne, question mark;
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and Head of England, question mark.
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And you see those all the time and I always just imagine
01:08
this really self-satisfied American constructor
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like really got them this time.
01:14
All right, your read on that is perfect.
01:16
Cryptic clue for loo, place to go stare endlessly.
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Okay so place to go is our–
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[Erik] Straight part.
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Stare endlessly, stare is look.
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Endlessly without its end, you take off the K,
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you get L-O-O, loo.
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Do you have any theories as to why cryptics
01:39
are more popular in Britain than they are over here?
01:44
Like why don’t I do cryptics that much?
01:47
I guess on the one hand maybe sure,
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I’m just like a brash American, super literal or something.
01:53
That’s what I’m always thinking.
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Oh here comes Anna, that brash American.
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Now you have to try to guess this.
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House of Pain debuts, Jump Around, three.
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House of Pain, oh no.
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Wait, everything you said should be meaningful to me.
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House of Pain debuts Jump Around.
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[Anna] Okay well jump around means it should
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be an anagram, right?
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That’s a good thought, that’s thinking like
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That’s not correct,
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in this particular case, but it’s a good thought.
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You gotta tell me, you gotta tell me.
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[Erik] For this clue the straight part is jump around
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and the cryptic part is House of Pain debuts.
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[lively instrumental music]
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Okay so House of Pain debuts.
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The debuts signals to me, solver, that it should be
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the start of House of Pain.
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Start of house is H, the start of of is O,
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and the start of pain is P, so H-O-P is a synonym
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It’s just amazing that all of that language play
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also included two references to real things in hip hop.
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That’s just brilliant.
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I always say this to people who are bad at crosswords,
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like the American-style crosswords.
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I just tell them that it’s like they haven’t
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learned the language, right?
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That it’s just like I would be saying I’m bad
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Well yeah, of course I’m bad at Mandarin, I’ve never tried.
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Cryptics are even more so.
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They’re their own language that you really need
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to understand the grammar of.
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And if you don’t then you’re just gonna be totally lost.
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So in cryptic clues there’s always a cryptic part
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and a straight part.
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They don’t tell you which part is which,
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you have to sort of figure it out
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and disambiguate it for yourself.
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There’s a whole bag of indicators that they use
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so an anagram, any time they say like jumbled,
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[Anna] Honestly crazy, in secret.
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So the definition part is in secret.
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Crazy is going to be an anagram indicator.
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So the answer’s going to be on the sly.
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[lively instrumental music]
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Hidden words, they have a longer phrase
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and it’s hidden across two words or something.
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And they’ll say something like contains.
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[Anna] Error concealed by city police.
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[lively instrumental music]
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The answer is typo.
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They play with homophones sometimes
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and they’ll be like to the audience.
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Or sounds like, or whatever.
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[Anna] Stringed instrument untruthful person heard.
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[lively instrumental music]
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[Erik] Homophones can be tricky because you don’t know
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Just remember that in cryptics the definition part
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of the clue has to be either at the beginning
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or the end of the clue.
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It’s never randomly in the middle.
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That’s a run down, that’s a lot of them.
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All right, so we’re going to do a list of words.
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You’ve prepared an American-style clue for every word
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and I have a cryptic one.
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Okay, the American-style clue for London
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is a place you to go get bronchitis,
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according to Fran Lebowitz.
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Cryptic-style clue for London,
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east side of Teflon Don’s city.
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All right so the straight part is just city.
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So London is a city.
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The cryptic part is east side of Teflon
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is like the right half, so lon, L-O-N.
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And then Don just stays Don and you put them together,
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All right, next word British.
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Like The Spy Who Loved Me and The Man Who Knew Too Much.
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Nice, I like your I don’t know, parallelism.
06:32
Cryptic for British, contents of P.B.R.,
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it is half aluminium, they say.
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I really feel like I’m hallucinating.
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[Erik] The straight part is aluminium, they say,
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because they do say that.
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[Anna] They do, they do.
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[Erik] The cryptic part is contents of P.B.R.,
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Contents means take like what’s inside.
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So P.B.R., the BR it is H of half.
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Put that together, it’s British.
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I’m like slack-jawed.
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Author who Virginia Woolf called,
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never a revolution to the young.
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Cryptic clue for Jane Austen.
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If you thought the last ones were a mess,
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this is just a pure mess.
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Good grade for school in capital is half ten
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or figure close to ten.
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Figure close to ten.
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[lively instrumental music]
07:47
She’s on a 10 pound note.
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[Anna] Figure close to ten is definitional, amazing.
07:55
Okay it looks like no, you’re going to have to tell me.
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Is Juneau part of it, no?
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All right, so here’s what’s happening.
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Good grade is an A, and a school is a U,
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So you’re swapping in the A for the U in Juneau.
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Is half, take half of is and you get S.
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Put it all together, Janeau-Sten.
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I’m freaking, learning so much.
08:45
[Jazz version of Go Tell It On The Mountain]
