There are a number of phrases or words that keep cropping up time and time again in cryptic crossword clues.  These often indicate abbreviations that form part of the answer.  For example take the following clue that I saw in todays paper:

Former Pupil finds setting lewd (7)

At first glance the above clue looks quite difficult. However, Former Pupil in this case refers to ‘old boy’ or the abbreviation OB …. add this to a ’setting’ or SCENE and you’ll come to the answer OBSCENE which of course means ‘lewd’

Of course its a bit of a stretch if you didn’t know that ‘Former Pupil’ means OB but after a while you will get to know these ‘code words’ as they are used quite often.

Tip : When you see a phrase that indicates an abbreviation it is quite easy to separate the Cryptic part of the clue from the straight part.  Once the straight part of a cryptic clue has been identified it makes the solving of the cryptic so much easier.

Here is a list of the Abbreviations I have discovered:

Former Pupil = OB (old boy) 

Point = N,E,S,W (points of a compass)                                                     

Church = C or CE (Church of England)

Left = L

One = I

First = IST

Frenchman = M (Monsieur)

2000 = MM (Roman Numerals)

Energy = E

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One of the easiest type of clues to solve is the anagram clue.  One of the skills of solving a cryptic crossword is being able to identify the ‘cryptic’ part of the clue and the ’straight’ part of the clue.  Anagrams need the right words to provide the letters so often the clue contains a non sensical group of words.  If you then check these words against the known number of letters in the answer you can quickly identify the candidate letters for the anagram.

Consider this example:

Asks a grim, strangely affectionate message (9)

Immediately my eye is drawn to ‘asks a grim’ as an odd group of words.  Then I count the letters and find there are 9.  Finally – the word ’strangely’ indicates that an anagram is being used (see below for more anagram indicators!).

So from the above we can conclude that the straight part of the clue is Affectionate Message.  Now - in normal crosswords you will only get this information – that is what makes cryptic crosswords easier to solve – you get more information (BUT you need to know the Rules!!)

The answer to the clue is Kiss a Gram 

TIP:  If you jot all the letters down on a piece of paper in a random order then the answer is often easier to pick out.

Here are some words often used to indicate an anagram (i’ll update them as I discover more):-

Strangely               Predicament            Terribly            Breaking

Unexpectedly       Turned Out                Swap                Composed

Please Note – If you see the above words in a clue but there are no obvious ‘anagram words’ that fit the number of letters required you are probably dealing with a more complex clue that I call a Partial Anagram – I will explain these in another article.