5 ms·
Usually my approach is: 1) try to answer straight away, 2) try to answer once I have some letters from other clues, 3) use a thesaurus, 4) use an anagram solver
by thom 4y ago
Usually my approach is: 1) try to answer straight away, 2) try to answer once I have some letters from other clues, 3) use a thesaurus, 4) use an anagram solver, 5) wait for tomorrow's paper. I already feel wretched about 3/4, I'm not sure I want to cheat more than that.
But sometimes this completely falls down and I have no idea where something comes from, e.g.: "Theatre of war where activity was uncovered (8)" is WINDMILL which still baffles me.
- mechanical_berk 4y agofifteensquared.net is great for explained answers, see eg http://www.fifteensquared.net/2018/03/09/independent-9798-phi/ http://www.fifteensquared.net/2018/03/09/independent-9798-ph... for the WINDMILL explanation.
- thom 4y agoOh, lovely, thank you. I figured it had to be the theatre and still didn't get it. This hobby regularly makes me feel dumb. :)
- 2143 4y agobtw, do you happen to be British? The reason I ask is that only British people seem to add "lovely" in their sentences. Also, I now learnt that the WINDMILL answer refers to something in London. I don't know how outsiders — say a random person from Argentina — is supposed to know that.
- Agingcoder 4y agoDon't forget the question mark at the end of the clue, it's quite significant!
- Timwi 4y agoMy approach was to try to write a bunch of cryptic clues of my own. That way I got more practiced at recognizing the various wordplay indicators.