Why We Like Cryptic Word Puzzles

Among the most challenging crossword puzzles are those in which the answers are hidden in the clues themselves. These are aptly called cryptic. For example, what is the answer to Used to be healthy, so breathe out? It is exhale, which means “to breathe out,” as the clue itself tells us. The other parts of the clue refer to the word itself: ex = “used to be” and hale = “in very good health.”

The invention of the cryptic crossword is attributed to the British crossword-maker Edward Powys Mather, known to readers as Torquemada (the name of a notorious Spanish Grand Inquisitor), who introduced the technique in the mid-1920s in The Saturday Westminster. The clues he created were based on a panoply of word games, including anagrams, allusions, abbreviations, words hidden within other words, and so on. The best-known creator of cryptic crosswords in the United States was the late Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim, who composed them for the New York Magazine between 1968 and 1969.

Already in that era, I became an admirer of Sondheim’s absolutely brilliant puzzles. I became especially intrigued by the clues themselves as plausible stand-alone word puzzles; that is, as constituting self-contained puzzles without crossword grids, making them even more challenging. The 15 “cryptic puzzles” in this post are stand-alone puzzles, hopefully conveying the kinds of challenges that they pose, along with the unique sense of achievement that comes from solving them.

Snapshots Into the Aha Moment

As amalgams of other kinds of puzzles embedded within them, cryptic puzzles can be seen to constitute “snapshots” into the inner sense we harbor for unraveling mysteries and into the nature of the flash of insight that comes seemingly out of nowhere. As a result of this sudden discernment, cryptic puzzles tend to generate the so-called "aha moment," perhaps more so than other kinds of word puzzles.

Researchers Kathryn Friedlander and Phillip Fine found, in a study of cryptic crossword solvers published in 2016, that the subjects were indeed motivated predominantly by the aha moments that such puzzles engendered. The puzzles appear to provide unique opportunities, albeit miniature ones, to exercise our inner need to solve mysteries.

In past posts (and elsewhere) I have written that some types of puzzles, such as the cryptic ones in this post, tend to evoke a certain “aesthetic” feeling, akin to the kind elicited by artistic or musical works. Uncovering the hidden answer in a puzzle “moves” us in ways that are similar to how a beautiful melody or work of pictorial art might move us. The aha moment is, in this sense, an aesthetic one, as might become apparent by solving the puzzles below.

Examples

What word does each clue refer to or hide within it?

1. Aromatic wisdom.
2. A room more dirty than usual.
3. A remarkable sign of distinction.
4. Put the top on an oven.
5. Kinship bugs.
6. Take the first two off before consuming treats.
7. Astrologically calibrated.
8. It’s a water vessel no matter which way you look at it.
9. A snide elf produces laughter.
10. In consolidation, there is something hard.
11. "Nevar" may be a misspelling of never, but it can fly backwards.
12. Dissuade a short honorable man up front and he will turn into a cleanser.
13. Blue jeans in a veil.
14. Take the first three away from senseless chatter and you can slowly drink your tea.
15. Found in many long stockings.

Answers below…

1. sage: “sage” is a noun referring to both a “wise person” and an “aromatic plant.”
2. dormitory: the phrase “more dirty” is an anagram of “dormitory.”
3. mark: the word:"mark" is hidden in “remarkable;” it is used commonly in the phrase “mark of distinction” in reference to something “remarkable.”
4. pot: the word “top” can be read in reverse as “pot.”
5. ants: the word “aunts” is a homophone of “ants;” hence “kinship bugs.”
6. eats: taking off the first two letters in “treats” produces “eats” which is how we consume “treats.”
7. Libra: the word "Libra" is hidden in “calibrated,” alluding to the astrological assessment of a Libra as having a balanced, “calibrated” personality.
8. kayak: a “kayak” is a water vessel and a palindrome (read the same in both directions).
9. Seinfeld: the phrase “snide elf” is an anagram of comedian (Jerry) “Seinfeld.”
10. solid: the word “solid,” a synonym for “hard,” is found in the word “consolidation.”
11. raven: “nevar” read backwards is “raven,” which is a bird.
12. detergent: "gent" is “short” for “gentleman,” an honorable man; adding "deter," which can mean “dissuade,” to the front to the word produces "detergent," a “cleanser.”
13. Levi (jeans brand): “veil” is an anagram of “Levi.”
14. gossip: taking away the first three letters of "gossip," which is “senseless chatter,” leaves the word "sip," which is how drinking tea is done.
15. nylon: the word “nylon” is hidden in the two-word sequence “many long,” and is indeed a material found in some types of stockings.