Comments for Occasional cryptics https://jblsmith.wordpress.com Clues, mini-puzzles, and general cryptic commentary. New puzzles, occasionally, on Mondays. Sat, 24 Aug 2013 02:26:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ Comment on Mini-cryptic #1 solution by jblsmith https://jblsmith.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/mini-cryptic-1-solution/#comment-2 Sat, 24 Aug 2013 02:26:03 +0000 http://jblsmith.wordpress.com/?p=76#comment-2 As one reader commented, any cryptic setting guide will tell you not to use partial homophones, as I’ve done here clueing “SHIRT” as “sounds like SURE plus T”. Good point!

I think I can weasel my way out of this one, though, by pointing out that I’ve put the word “SURE” right in the clue. Homophones usually require readers to think of a synonym. E.g., for “Ending sounds like a whopper. (4)”, you take a word meaning “whopper” (TALE), and take its homophone (TAIL) to get a word meaning “ending”. So the homophone is one step removed from the clue. In my clue, the homophone is partial but appears literally.

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