As Shirley Ellis so infectiously sang, let's get down to the real nitty-gritty. While you never know what you're going to get in a cryptic clue, the majority use one of half a dozen or so tricks to disguise their intent.
This is the first in a series of little portraits of those tricks. The idea is that newcomers can equip themselves - think Arnie tooling up in Commando, but with anagrams and soundalikes in place of grenades and rocket launchers - while aficionados can enjoy some prime examples of the art of setting.
We start with hidden answers, because they're my favourite device and because they're entertaining and easy to get your head round. The name's not important, by the way; I don't look at a clue and say "Oh, look - a reverse hidden". But we need a name for the moment. So let's go.
How does it work?
In the examples that follow, the answer is hidden in the clue itself. You as the solver have got the answer literally typed out in front of you, and your job is merely to write the same letters in the same order into the grid.
And so the pleasure for setter and solver lies in how it's hidden. It's there, in plain sight, but like a bloke in a hi-vis jacket, you just don't notice it unless you're looking.
The clue will probably have the usual three elements: a definition at the start or the end, an indicator that the answer is hiding, and next to that a word or string of words in which you can find the answer.
Some examples
Here's a 15-letter example from the Times Jumbo:
20a As seen in jab, reach of pro miserably failing to meet expectations? (6,2,7)
The setter is trying to make you think about boxing, but the giveaway is the phrase "As seen in". You can see, in "jab, reach of pro miserably" the answer, BREACH OF PROMISE - failing to meet expectations. Extra cunning points for using "miserably", which tempts the solver to think of it as an indicator of an anagram.
And that's how hidden answers roll. It would save time if the indicator were always "as seen in", or, better still, "hidden inside the phrase preceding or following". But it's not.
Quite often, it's "some", as used by Puck in yesterday's Guardian:
11d One lewdly desiring some bicycle chains (4)
Some of "bicycle chains" is LECH - one lewdly desiring. Here's "some" again, in the Times Jumbo:
50ac Some forget to get here for gathering (3-8)
Some of "forget to get here" is the gathering, GET-TOGETHER. Of course, "some" might be one of the words hiding the answer, so beware - as with this from the Sunday Telegraph ...
11ac Guests in the country who use part – i.e. some, but not all (5,7)
... where you're looking for "not all" of "who use part – i.e. some" for more get-togethers: HOUSE PARTIES.
"From" is another familiar indicator of a hiding answer, like this from Falcon in last week's FT:
7d Composition from Bliss on a tape (6)
From "Bliss on a tape", you find SONATA.
"Right," you might be saying, "'from' and 'some' are very common words. Surely they usually mean something else?" You'd be right. Don't trust "from" and "some" to indicate a hiding answer. But also don't trust them not to.
Other phrases to look out for are ones that ask you to look inside another part of the clue, like this from the Sunday Telegraph:
3d What's in Latin sign, if I can translate, is of no importance (13)
This clue for INSIGNIFICANT, which is what's in "Latin sign, if I can translate", was identified by pioneering crossword blogger Peter Biddlecombe as the work of Brian Greer, also known as the Guardian's Brendan, former Times editor and a dab hand at hiding answers. Here he is in a solution published last week:
24a How some answers may be found in clues, some of which I'd denoted (6)
Some of "which I'd denoted" is, quite literally, HIDDEN. Incidentally, in his book How To Do The Times Crossword, Brian Greer reminds us that in that paper, "strictly no superfluous words are allowed". This means that if you think you've identified a string of words in which the answer is hidden, you can look for something that begins in the first word of that string and ends in the last. I suspect that most setters aim for elegance and avoid unnecessary words, even when not working within the Times's rules.
It's not always that simple
For each trick we look at, we'll see that there's the basic device, and variants - those established and those yet to be devised by pioneering setters.
With hiddens, the answer might be in backwards, like this from Dac in yesterday's Independent:
21d Motorcyclist perhaps steered irresponsibly when reversing? Not entirely (5)
"Not entirely" is our way in - we're looking for part of "steered irresponsibly". But we're looking for it in that phrase "when reversing", to find the RIDER.
So we're now keeping a lookout for any phrases which would typically suggest that the wordplay is working in reverse, along with a hint of a hidden. Both are rammed together in this Sunday Telegraph clue:
12ac Cooking equipment taken back from heiress I tormented (10)
"Taken back from" "heiress I tormented" gives ROTISSERIE. That works for an across clue. In down clues, reversals might be hinted by something along the lines of "up", like this from Osmosis in a recent Telegraph Toughie:
7d Up in spare room, I'm editing actress on film (4,5)
"In" is the economical indicator of a hidden; going "up"wards in "spare room, I'm editing", who should you come across but DEMI MOORE? I thought something similar was going on with Math in yesterday's i ...
2d Drama of mafioso a pope raised (4,5)
... but moved on when I couldn't find anything hidden backwards. It turned out that "raised" was where part of the answer was hiding, "mafioso a pope raised" offering up SOAP OPERA.
Finally, a couple of Times Jumbo examples where there's some work to do before or after finding what's hidden. This one offers a sort of salty cousin of the hidden ...
7d It's found in the ocean, and briefly in barnacles (6,8)
... where the solver locates NACL "in" "barnacles", rejigs it as NaCl and writes SODIUM CHLORIDE in the grid.
And this one expects you to assemble by yourself the phrase where the answer is hidden:
43d Final parts concealed by one minister after another (7)
"[C]oncealed by" is clear enough, but to find where it's concealed, you have to put "one minister after another" before finding TERMINI in "minister minister".
Over to you
So. Beginners: how is this as an introduction? And addicts: do you have any favourite hidden clues? I asked Enigmatist about a clue in which he had apparently hidden SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES. "I seem to remember it was about selling warships," he replied - and we both hope that this might be enough to jog someone's memory.
