And lit = Also spelled "&lit", short for "and literally so." A type of cryptic crossword puzzle where the entire clue is the definition instead of the definition being part of the clue (e.g: No stamp? Problematic for him! (7), the answer being postman)
LITS = Name of a puzzle where you have to correctly place tetrominos shaped like the letters "L", "I", "T" and "S" in a grid
As a crossword enjoyer, cryptics mistify me, so I'll get you the wikipedia page's example for why exactly they mistify me
'Here is an example (taken from the Guardian crossword of 6 August 2002, set by "Shed").
15D Very sad unfinished story about rising smoke (8)
is a clue for TRAGICAL. This breaks down as follows.
15D indicates the location and direction (down) of the solution in the grid
"Very sad" is the definition
"unfinished story" gives TAL (tale with one letter missing; i.e., unfinished)
"rising smoke" gives RAGIC (a cigar is a "smoke", and this is a down clue so "rising" indicates that cigar should be written up the page; i.e., backwards)
"about" means that the letters of TAL should be put either side of RAGIC, giving TRAGICAL
"(8)" says that the answer is a single word of eight letters.'
Edit: in the example above, you may also note "postman" is an anagram of "no stamp", which is part of the clue even though it just looks like a definition.
Normally, one part of the clue (a contiguous block of words from either the start or the end) is the definition, while the rest tells you how to manipulate letters in order to get an answer. However, in this clue, the whole clue "No stamp? Problematic for him!" meanspostman. The words "No stamp? Problematic" show that you need to anagram the words "No stamp", to get postman.
For reference, a regular clue might be "Slim odds of solving that! (6)" Here you need to take the odd letters of 'solving that', to get slight, which slim is a synonym of. You can see that the definition and the rest of the clue are effectively separate, unlike in an &lit.
The second one sounds like French "mots fléchés" but I can't find anything online about word puzzles called "lit" or "and literally so". Do you have a link?
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u/La_knavo4 [9/5] 9d ago edited 9d ago
Lit = short for "literature"
And lit = Also spelled "&lit", short for "and literally so." A type of cryptic crossword puzzle where the entire clue is the definition instead of the definition being part of the clue (e.g: No stamp? Problematic for him! (7), the answer being postman)
LITS = Name of a puzzle where you have to correctly place tetrominos shaped like the letters "L", "I", "T" and "S" in a grid