YES!
Four clues have been taken succesfully.
The only one not justified was
Overlay's response of
"Scientist"
which is an anagram of
"insects it" in the clue:
Dismembering insects, it could be his specialty (9)
The puzzler told the solvers to take apart
"insects it" and implied was the anagram to get "his specialtly."
The original
Need Puzzle Help thread was started by
toetoe and drew
over
63,000 hits, which is probably a record for this board.
Toetoe's kickoff of this new thread was very disappointing in the sense that it might discourage new and some routine solvers from trying cryptics here.
I don't think that he intended that for sure.
The success of Need Puzzle Help was absolutely Outstanding.
Thankyou toetoe, and thankyou for starting Need Puzzle Help II
I've brought over
Overlay's suggestions on How to Do Cryptics from the original thread.
Newcomers to the board are most likely to check into the first page.
So this is a good place to put them.
I think they should be repeated again....perhaps a few thousand posts down the line.
Study these:
anagram: the answer is derived by rearranging the letters of another word contained in or suggested by the clue, such as "changing times" as a wordplay clue for "items", with the clue wording ("changing" in this example) indicating the alteration or rearrangement
deletion: the answer is derived by deleting a letter from a word given or suggested by the clue, such as "uncovered bent charm" as a wordplay clue for "enchant" ("penchant" ("bent") - p (i.e., the word "penchant" is "uncovered") = enchant ("charm"))(referred to as a beheadment, since the first letter is taken off); "fiery bird without a tail" for "flaming" (flamingo - o)(referred to as a curtailment, since the last letter is taken off, as indicated by "without a tail"); and "heartless miserly bloke" for "chap" (cheap - e) (referred to as an internal deletion, since a letter is deleted in the middle of the clue word (as indicated in this case by the word becoming "heartless") to get the answer)
charade: the answer is broken into smaller words that are clued individually, such as "auto animal" ("car" + "pet") for "carpet"
container: a word is inserted into another word to make up the answer, with the clue wording indicating this relationship, such as "Hospital residents make knots in trousers" for "patients" (pa- + tie + -nts)
hidden answer: the answer may appear intact in the clue, although perhaps in camouflaged form, such as "myopic colonel clutches flute" for "piccolo", where the word "clutches" indicates the concealment of the answer in the words "myopic colonel"
homophone: a word that sounds like the answer, generally accompanied by a word or phrase indicating that fact, such as "we hear" or "as they say", as in "counted frozen chicken out loud" as a clue for "numbered" ("numb bird" pronounced "out loud")
reversal: a clue where the order of the letters in a word are reversed to get the answer, with the wording of the clue providing an indication of the reversal, such as "returned beer fit for a king" as a clue for "regal" ("fit for a king")("lager" (beer") spelled backward ("returned"))
double definitions: a clue where the wordplay consists of two straight definitions of the answer, such as "scooter was blue" for "moped".
In the meanwhile, this clue still remains to be solved:
Native American carried around one with firewater (9)
Correction: Five letters are required for the clue:
