Extras
By Sibyl and Treesong
Extras are an assortment of puzzles not listed as flats, forms, or cryptograms. In recent years, at least one regular or variety cryptic crossword has appeared in The Enigma each month; other extras include anaquotes and vertical anaquotes, German sausages, knight’s-tour crypts, piecemeals, occasional printer’s devilry puzzles, and something different squares.
ANAQUOTE
A quotation -- or, sometimes, original quip -- is divided into trigrams, which are presented in alphabetical order. A leftover letter or bigram goes at the end, not alphabetically. All words and punctuation are shown in the enumeration, with capitalization indicated by * or ^, as in this example:
ANAQUOTE (3 8 6 2 3 8 10. *1. *7) ALF CLO ECO ERI ETE FLM ION LEA LOW NAT NCR ORD OUR STH UMF VER
Solvers arrange the trigrams, using the given word lengths, to find the quotation and author, whose name is usually included after the quotation. In the example: Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf. L. Mumford. (Mumford or Lewis Mumford at the end would not be evenly divisible by three: if possible, composers should avoid having remainders.)
Anaquotes may be no longer than 96 letters; shorter is better, however, and there is really no minimum length. Solvers generally appreciate wit and humor, and enjoy the discovery of something not overly familiar. This same puzzle type may be used even if the solution is not a quotation. It is then titled either an anaquip or an anaquibble, as seems appropriate.
Words are not tagged in anaquotes. Also see vertical anaquote.
CRYPTIC CROSSWORD
See the article on solving cryptics.
GERMAN SAUSAGE
The letters of the answers to the clues in the first list, when added together as indicated and transposed, give the answers to the clues in the second list. The name is a transposal of “Anagram segues”.
An example, using just the answers:
1. act Magna Carta 1 + 2. 2. anagram German sausage 2 + 3. 3. segues messeigneurs 3 + 4. 4. miners miscreant 4 + 1. 1. act
Another example with the clues.
GERMAN SAUSAGE 1. Father of Cronus (*) 2. Rope for an animal 3. Sly trick 4. It reduces effect (2 wds) 5. Languish 6. Be made up (of) 7. The board of the game Diplomacy (*) 8. Revolved around a point 9. Noted apple eater (2 wds, *) (NI2) 10. Type of wool or drum 11. Major promotion recipient 12. Long distance trucking company 13. Travelling at 761 MPH 14. The Hermit or The Fool, e.g. 15. Polish 16. Hebrew “Aloha” 17. Soporiferous 18. They may weld car frames 1 + 2. It usually ends at an X (8 4) (NI3) 2 + 3. Novel narrated by Holden Caulfield, with The (^7 2 3 ^3) 3 + 4. As close as you can get with definition at infinity (10 8) 4 + 5. Like one who's an expert only in his own mind (4-9) 5 + 6. Formal reviews (11) 6 + 7. Hyacinth, e.g. (8 5) 7 + 8. Photo on a silver plate (13) 8 + 9. Gloria Estefan song whose title describes a difficulty in expressing one's feelings (“^5 ^3 2 3 ^3”) 9 + 10. Have a sip (3 3'1 7) (NI3) 10 + 11. Louisiana (*7 *5) (NI2) 11 + 12. Our astronomical neighbor (*5 *8) (RH2) 12 + 13. It features “I Can Do That” (^1 ^6 ^4) (not MW) 13 + 14. Trudeau's occupation (10) 14 + 15. Having the power to renew (11) 15 + 16. Friday the 13th, e.g. (7 5) (not MW) 16 + 17. All Knights of Columbus (*5 *9) 17 + 18. A large snake (3 11) 1 + 18. A large dinosaur (12) = ΧΕΙΡΩΝ
The solution: Uranus, tether, chicanery, soft pedal, pine, consist, Europe, gyrated, Snow White, steel, captain, hauler, sonic, tarot, revise, shalom, narcotic, robots; treasure hunt, Catcher in the Rye, hyperfocal distance, self-appointed, inspections, precious stone, daguerreotype, “Words Get in the Way”, wet one's whistle, Pelican State, Alpha Centauri, A Chorus Line, cartoonist, restorative, slasher movie, Roman Catholics, boa constrictor, brontosaurus.
The German sausage was invented by ΧΕΙΡΩΝ.
KNIGHT'S TOUR CRYPT
A rectangular grid of letters (sometimes 8 squares by 8, like a chessboard) or other shape contains a message to be discovered by moving from the starting space to other spaces as the knight moves on a chessboard: straight one space and diagonally one. Each letter or punctuation mark is visited exactly once. Enumeration is given, and the starting letter, which may be anywhere in the grid, is underlined. Punctuation is usually, but not always, included in the grid. The author’s name may appear at the end. Words are not tagged in knight’s-tour crypts.
Hint to constructors: knight’s-tour crypts are easier to construct with an even number of squares.
The solution: The French for London is Paris. Ionesco
KNIGHT'S-TOUR CRYPT (3 *6 3 *6 2 *5. *7) E S N N N S H I E O F R C O R C P H I D E O S F N R A T I O O L = Treesong
KNIGHT'S-TOUR CRYPT (5 3 3, 3 3 3 3. *4 *6) R , O I T A N P G E Y O N H Y A T R O E D H E O N E E C U A T L . D R = Treesong
The solution: Night and day, you are the one. Cole Porter
PIECEMEAL SHAPES
Words, all of the same length, overlapping at their ends, form the border of a geometric shape. The words are divided into bigrams or trigrams, which are presented in alphabetical order. The solver reconstructs the words to make the given shape. Piecemeals of any type (squares, other polygons, circles) may be no longer than 60 letters. Words in piecemeals must overlap by at least two letters. The fun of piecemeals depends on the unusualness of the words or the cleverness of their placement.
PIECEMEAL SQUARE AL DI ME ME ME ME NS RE SO SO SO UR =Mp
The solution: mesomere, mesosome, mensural, remedial.
Another example.
ME SO ME RE SO ME SO DI ME NS UR AL
PIECEMEAL SQUARE (10-letter words, two are *) AL AN AU BE BL GL GS HE HO HO IC IS JO LA ON OP OT PU RE RM = Problem Child
The solution: alongshore, republican, Anglophobe, Beaujolais, isothermal.
ON GS HO AL RE RM PU HE BL OT IC IS AN LA GL JO OP AU BE HO
PRINTER'S DEVILRY
Printer’s devilry is a device used most commonly in clues for cryptic crosswords and forms. A solution word must be inserted in a sentence so as to make a new, usually more reasonable-sounding sentence. The inserted word must change at least one word, often more than one, in the original sentence. For example: Massed choirs sing old-time hymn, plus the word tartarous, produces Massed choirs start a rousing old-time hymn. Punctuation and word boundaries are ignored.
PRINTER'S DEVILRY SQUARE 1. During the obedience test, my favorite bit sand, is disqualified. 2. It is painful to have that quondam sting all through the day. 3. That bird? I’d not mislead the group from the Audubon Society. 4. If you keep up your bat, or your attention will wander. (*) 5. Most machines? I have setter when oiled. (NI3) 6. The dinosaur was man’s before man appeared. = Ils
The solution:
E A G L E S . . . beagle sits and is . . . A R R A N T . . . star ranting all through . . . G R A N G E . . . big ranger did not . . . L A N D O R . . . bland oratory, our . . . E N G O B E . . . seen go better when oiled. S T E R E O . . . master eons before man . . .
SOMETHING DIFFERENT SQUARE
A form in which the entries need not be words or dictionary phrases-instead they are consecutive strings of words. Presumably because this makes such squares easier to construct, all squares of this type that have appeared in The Enigma have been 10-squares or larger.
SOMETHING DIFFERENT SQUARE 1. “Watch Jeopardy!”, e.g. 2. Where you can find “ochlocracy” in 11C 3. Confession of an artist who uses oils 4. Edgar Allan, if he were named after Pike 5. Movie rating from Colombo 6. “Come with us, rumormonger” 7. Start of an ode to ulcers 8. Win a race against the Cutlass 9. Where rafting films are made in Tuscany 10. Stop, dressed like a baseball team = QED
The solution:
Q U I Z S H O W A D U N D E R O C H R E I D A B I P A I N T Z E B U L O N P O E S R I L A N K A S R H O P O N Y E N T A O C A N K E R O U S W H I P A N O L D S A R N O S T U D I O D E T E R A S S O X
The something different crossword, with anything-goes entries, was invented by Double-H. In April 1995, QED introduced it to The Enigma as a type of form.
VERTICAL ANAQUOTE
An anaquote in which the phrase is divided into vertical threes rather than horizontal.
VERTICAL ANAQUOTE (3 6-4 4-4 5 3 3 10 10: *11.) E E E E E E F H L L L N P P S S T T V W W E F H R S T E S L L O G O Y H P E U R O P D R N O N I N A O O H L A N C N O O E G R = Xemu
The solution: New twelve-step self-help group for the hopelessly logorrheic: Onandonanon.
The vertical anaquote was invented by Xemu and named by Treesong.
This page was last updated on Thursday, June 18, 2015. /webmaster
