World's toughest clue
David McKeegan
panel. It is from Douglas Bernard's Anatomy of the Crossword, where it is
billed as the hardest cryptic clue in the world:
No adequate description of father's cuemanship (4)
I think I've seen it before (an old Brian Greer article?). But I can't
remember the solution. Any ideas?
Dave McK
BOBVL
>From: da...@mckeegan.u-net.com (David McKeegan)
>Date: Wed, 17 November 1999 09:09 AM EST
>Message-id: <dave-17119...@p35.x2.u-net.net>
I;m dragging this from those niches in one's memory which is the repository of
all things trivial....
YEARS ago, when still living in SW14 7AT, I got an AZED slip in which he
discussed this clue and gave a possible solution...[alas, I don't recall what
it was} adding that even he could not explain WHY he thought the answer he gave
was the right answer......
Not much help....but this may jog someone else's junk-stuff-recall neurons
Bobvl, FL (formerly East Sheen SW14)
David Tossman
snip
> >On BBC Radio 4's Puzzle Panel, this clue was mentioned by one of the
> >panel. It is from Douglas Bernard's Anatomy of the Crossword, where it is
> >billed as the hardest cryptic clue in the world:
> >
> >No adequate description of father's cuemanship (4)
> >
> >I think I've seen it before (an old Brian Greer article?). But I can't
> >remember the solution. Any ideas?
> >
> >Dave McK
> >
> ========================
> I;m dragging this from those niches in one's memory which is the repository of
>From The Times, UK
21st Nov 1998
Cross Words BY BRIAN GREER
ON ANAGRAMS, Douglas St. P. Barnard writes:
"There are some people who regard any sort of word
play or letter-juggling as a completely inane
occupation, and the anagram ranks second only to
the pun as a favourite object of their frenzied
antipathy." Some of his examples are ingenious
though not, perhaps, entirely sound by contemporary
standards: First to know of the change to steam
trains? (7-6) and What the workhouse meant to
Oliver Twist (8) stand out.
Depending on taste, one of the delights or irritants of
Anatomy of the Crossword is Barnard's
sesquipedalianism.
He developed an extensive technical vocabulary, little
of which has passed into general usage. An example
is the term "gratuitous operative", which means a
word that is unnecessary to the construction of the
clue, but improves its flow as a sentence and can be
justified. A typical example is "found" in this clue: Box
found on following the wagon (6).
The processes of clueing words by adding parts
together, taking something away, including one
element in or around another are defined as
"adjunction", "subduction", "interpolation" and
"circumscription" respectively. The use of a common
foreign word such as "le" is a "xenologism".
The most convoluted type of clue is what Barnard
calls "parabolic", wherein "the light itself may be made
to tell a story - an enigmatic one which paraphrases
or otherwise alludes to the clue". Some of his
examples are, in my judgment, well-nigh insoluble,
including: No adequate description of father's
cuemanship (4) and One-tenth is nothing (4). I
suspect that many of you, even after seeing the
answers, will be none the wiser - a situation that
arises occasionally, but not too often I hope, when
solving our puzzles.
Cross Words answers in Rot13
fgngvba-znfgre, biregbvy, pnegba, snve, abar
An explanation of this clue appeared in the following week's column, but
I'll leave it at that for a couple of days.
David Tossman
Surendar Jeyadev
David McKeegan <da...@mckeegan.u-net.com> wrote:
>On BBC Radio 4's Puzzle Panel, this clue was mentioned by one of the
>panel. It is from Douglas Bernard's Anatomy of the Crossword, where it is
>billed as the hardest cryptic clue in the world:
>
>No adequate description of father's cuemanship (4)
>
>I think I've seen it before (an old Brian Greer article?). But I can't
>remember the solution. Any ideas?
PARE.
I guess it must be an all timer! I belive that I came across this about
25 years ago in a book on British crosswords.
--
Surendar Jeyadev jey...@wrc.xerox.com
peter...@gmail.com
> On BBC Radio 4's Puzzle Panel, this clue was mentioned by one of the
> panel. It is from Douglas Bernard's Anatomy of the Crossword, where it is
> billed as the hardest cryptic clue in the world:
>
> No adequate description of father's cuemanship (4)
>
> I think I've seen it before (an old Brian Greer article?). But I can't
> remember the solution. Any ideas?
>
I think the answer is 'scue'. Consecutive letters from 'father's cuemanship'. 'Scue' is an oldfashioned spelling of 'skew' which has the meaning of 'bias'.
Madrigal Gurneyhalt
'skew' in that case? The best guess we have, given that the original clue
was supplied without answer, was made by Azed and is reproduced at http://
www.thefrogman.net/index_files/Page675.htm
Sparafucile
with the clue is getting from "cuemanship" to "first class break". Too
much of a stretch.
--
Pari siamo!... io la lingua, egli ha il pugnale
peter...@gmail.com
> On BBC Radio 4's Puzzle Panel, this clue was mentioned by one of the
> panel. It is from Douglas Bernard's Anatomy of the Crossword, where it is
> billed as the hardest cryptic clue in the world:
>
> No adequate description of father's cuemanship (4)
>
> I think I've seen it before (an old Brian Greer article?). But I can't
> remember the solution. Any ideas?
>
> Dave McK