I figure this might be interesting to some kind of crossover audience—a cryptic crossword clue may actually be easier to solve than a regular non-cryptic one.

How can a cryptic clue be easier than a regular one? Because they contain two different ways of arriving at the same answer, which can be checked against each other.

In computing terms, they contain a kind of checksum, which lets you verify that you’ve got it right.

This is because a regular crossword clue simply asks you for the answer, and a cryptic clue asks you for two things.

Consider the following clue:

Household pet (3)

Now, in a simple crossword, with no letters yet, you’re stuck. It may be DOG and it may be CAT. 1 You have no way of knowing.

But if it was a cryptic clue, you would have something like this: 2

Deity returns for household pet (3)

and you would decode that as follows: A deity is another word for a god. the word GOD reversed is DOG. And you would be absolutely confident you had the right answer.

If on the other hand you had this:

About time for household pet (3)

you would reason that CA (the abbreviation for “circa” or “about”) and T, the abbreviation for Time, form the word CAT, and again, you’d have complete confidence.

In case non-cryptic-crossword people don’t know, you can’t cross the streams, or rather, the clue and its “checksum” must be kept separate. You can’t have “Deity for household pet returns”. A solver must almost always 3 be able to divide the clue into two distinct parts. Figuring out where to divide, of course, is part of the challenge!

  1. Apologies to anyone with a RAT or a PIG for a household pet.
  2. These aren’t great clues, but that’s not the point
  3. We have some wacky types of clue where this strict rule doesn’t apply, but we indicate those with punctuation.