Debrief of NYT Cryptic Crossword Wipeout, Part 1 of 2

And so begins the long list of things I didn’t get at all in Richard Silvestri’s cryptic crossword which appeared in the New York Times magazine on Sunday, January 10.

1 Across “Wound up and pitched, as they say (7)” – THROUGH – Didn’t get that “as they say” signified a homophone (a word that sounds the same as another word, not a mobile device for gay people, not that there’s anything wrong with that)
5 Across – Brilliant was what we were supposed to get, and STELLAR is an anagram of “all rest.” I got that one
9 Across – Ragged, topless and relieved – EASED. Ragged = Teased, topless meant “remove the first letter.” I would have preferred topless to mean “remove the first letter” if it was a down answer. But I looked at ragged as an adjective instead of a verb.
10 Across – Minor-league infielders ultimately accept demotion – ABASEMENT – Minor leagues in baseball are graded A, AA and AAA, so minor-league infielders are “A basemen.” I was stuck on variations of “bush league.” Adding the last letter (ultimately) in accept to “A basemen” yields abasement, which is what this puzzle did to me.
11 Across – Aimed at sailor, cop, newspaperman – TARGETED. A sailor is a tar (In the Gilbert and Sullivan opera “H. M. S. Pinafore,” Josephine sings to Ralph the sailor, “Refrain, audacious tar, your suit from pressing,”) I didn’t know that a policeman could be a get, but it’s not implausible that a newspaperman could be an ed, as in editor. I’m grasping that a good thing to do is to generate synonyms of both the beginnings and ends of the clues.
12 Across – Thin-paper Time edition – TISSUE. T for Time as in “T minus…,” issue for edition. I got this one.
14 Across – Bar false witness’s return – RAIL. A false witness is a liar, and “return” signifies that liar is reversed. I still liked barf as an answer, even though it was wrong.
15 Across – Finally writes small article, “Cunning Lover” – SWEETHEART. “Finally writes” means take the s from writes, “small” means wee, “article” means the, “cunning” means art. All the clues with synonyms of finally went over my head. My only consolation is that I caught that article could mean “a” or “the,” but I messed that up in thinking that it had to be “a” because there was “small article” in the clue.
18 Across – I represent new business organization – ENTERPRISE. Business organization was what we were supposed to find, and enterprise is an anagram of “I represent.” I’m making a mental note that the Internet Anagram Server might be a valuable tool in solving cryptics.
19 Across – Refuses to practice – WONT. There were a number of clues in this class, clues where there two meanings of the same set of letters. I only got one of them. The two meanings are 1) won’t as in “will not,” and 2) wont as in “as I am wont to do” (as is my custom or practice). Got that?
22 Across – Smooth, like John Paul II – POLISH. This was the only two-meaning clue I got. So when you get an answer in a cryptic, it’s not unreasonable to think that there might be other clues of the same style.
24 Across – “Free Latvia’s leader,” I scold – LIBERATE – It has nothing whatsoever to do with Latvian President Valdis Zatlers, and everything to do with the first letter in Latvia. L + “I berate” = LIBERATE. Mental note: Quotes don’t have their usual meaning in cryptic clues.
26 Across – Tailor a long coat having a geometric shape – OCTAGONAL – anagram of “a long coat.” I vigorously outclevered myself by wanting it to be hemiconic.
27 Across – Toss out some of the victims – EVICT – embedded in the words “thE VICTims.”
28 Across – Poet and essayist confused mere boy – EMERSON. “confused mere” = EMER. Again, I should have looked for more clues like this one, containing both anagrams and synonyms.
29 Across – Feel sorry about alien in group of attendants – RETINUE. The only part I got right about this was to catch that alien meant “ET.” The “about” in the clue meant “around,” as in “round about.” The word rue (In Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado,” the scorned Katisha sings to Nanki-Poo “Oh, faithless one! This insult you shall rue!”) is placed around ET + IN to get RETINUE.

This seems like a good stopping place, so I will do the down answers in a separate post. What have I learned so far?

• Look for clue words having to do with first and/or last letters (finally, ultimately)
• Think of synonyms of the beginnings and ends of clues
• Consider multiple possibilities (which I didn’t do on “small article,” f’rinstance)
• Shamelessly use the Internet Anagram Server as a tool
• Look for similar clues when one answer is found

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