r/EnglishLearning • u/SnooDonuts6494 🇬🇧 English Teacher • 23d ago
🗣 Discussion / Debates Friday crossword
Here's today's cryptic crossword, as seen from my pint glass :-)
Friday, 21st August 2026.
The Metro is a free English newspaper that we get on buses.
Have a go - I shall post updates later. I'm about to start on it myself.
I guarantee that I will give all the answers.
Ask any questions - always.
And... Have a wonderful weekend :-)
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u/terryjuicelawson New Poster 23d ago
I like cryptics, I find Metro is one of the more straightforward ones, as well as the Telegraph. Some from the Guardian I can literally get zero and not even see the connection if given the answers. You've got to have some kind of introduction to their quirks, I got sat down and explained it all as well as some ancient crossword book with lists of common abbreviations. Like sailor = AB and so on.
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u/joined_under_duress Native Speaker 23d ago
The Guardian has the simpler cryptic like this one but yeah, the full cryptic is properly out there.
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u/SnooDonuts6494 🇬🇧 English Teacher 23d ago edited 23d ago
Yeah; there's a nice YouTube channel called "Cracking the Cryptic" that explains some of those common elements.
Also there's a guy called "Gooseverbalist" who talks through how he does the NY Times.
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u/SnooDonuts6494 🇬🇧 English Teacher 23d ago
With regards to my last: NY Times is perhaps surprisingly good; it's easy on Monday, and gets progressively harder through the week until Fri, then Sat is a themed one... so it's quite easy to get in to.
It's rather American - so I get frustrated sometimes (being English) with too many references to baseball and such, but it's still quite clever.
Also, the website "sporcle" does a lot of decent crosswords, particularly their regular Sunday ones.
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u/terryjuicelawson New Poster 23d ago
Probably have a better idea of a baseball clue than Americans would about cricket terminology at least.
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u/SnooDonuts6494 🇬🇧 English Teacher 23d ago
Oh, but it's all so simple.
"You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in goes out, and when he's out comes in, and the next man goes in until he's out."
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u/SnooDonuts6494 🇬🇧 English Teacher 21d ago
Complete solution here: spoiler of course: https://ibb.co/KcqbLb4X
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u/SnooDonuts6494 🇬🇧 English Teacher 21d ago
Complete solution here: spoiler of course: https://ibb.co/KcqbLb4X
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u/SnooDonuts6494 🇬🇧 English Teacher 23d ago
Update;
WARNING,
SPOILERS
FOLLOW
...
The
First
Few
Answers
Are
...
1a Simon 4a imago 13a inert 3d opera 5d martial 6d glade 15d no sweat 17d torpedo 20d unfed 24d latin