Cryptic crosswords for beginners: Soundalikes

In this series, I hope that newcomers can equip themselves with the tools of the solver's trade, while aficionados can enjoy some prime examples of the art of setting.

We've looked at hidden answers and double definitions; now it's time for the soundalike.

That's right: not anagrams. Anagrams are coming up, but the soundalike more often provides what this blog is all about: fun.

How does it work?

Put simply, the fun is a pun.

Put another way: most solving involves working out a bunch of letters and arranging them to see the answer. With soundalikes, it's about the listening rather than the seeing. It's often a moment of comic relief - though, as we'll see below, not everyone agrees.

With a soundalike, the setter suggests words to you, you say them aloud in your head - or out loud, if you don't mind looking odd - and you hear the answer.

Some examples

In the examples that follow, beginners should bear in mind that if they met them in an authentic puzzling context, they will probably be reaping the benefit of working from letters entered from other answers. That is, they'll be easier than they might seem. And remember: part of the clue is a definition, the other part is wordplay. Let's roll.

Here's one, from Chifonie:

12ac Musical work that's melodious to the ear (5)

The wordplay here is "melodious to the ear", and Chifonie wants you to think about how your ear receives a word meaning melodious, namely "sweet". To your ear, it's the same as the answer, a musical work: the SUITE.

Another, from the Times:

6d Mentioned pet getting soft drinks (5)

To pet, when it's not a cute old American term for advancing to first base, is to coax. "Coax", when mentioned, is a soundalike for some COKES.

And a Sunday Telegraph clue that involves a name...

15ac Excited as Oscar's announced (4)

...the name of the man whose tomb has just been shielded from over-kissing: Oscar "Wilde", leading excitingly to the solution WILD.

So how to spot them?

The clues above give you a chance to think "hey! it's a homophone!" by suggesting either a mouth making sounds or an ear hearing them. Mouth or ear. Saying something or hearing it. More often hearing it.

Let's see some more soundalike clues, with the tell-tale indicator highlighted in coloured italics next to the word we have to find a homophone for. Here's one in the FT from Cincinnus, known locally as Orlando:

9ac Heard no sound from the stable? (5)

So we take a word for "no" - "nay" - and find an equine soundalike as the solution: NEIGH. Staying on the farm, here's Sleuth...

22d Mean sound of animals in yard? (6)

...where "paltry", a word for "mean", just about sounds like POULTRY - "just about" perhaps accounted for by the question mark at the end of the clue. One more animal for now, from Puck:

24ac Heard male prostitute talk out of his ass? (6)

An ass of course makes a HEE-HAW, which - at least according to Puck - sounds like "he-whore". And there's a thing: no dictionary I own has an entry for he-whore, a reminder that the soundalike may not be a word in itself, rather a series of sounds that get you to the answer. Likewise, despite what Orlando may claim in cluing...

19d Yorkshire beauty queen, we hear, pulls the wool over one's eyes (8)

...there is, in this day and age, no such competition as "Miss Leeds", but it's a fair way of getting you to MISLEADS. What's that? Ah. It turns out that the Miss Leeds pageant is alive and well in 2011 and held at the Halo Nightclub. Still, the general point stands.

And three more hearings, from the Everyman:

22d Put up beams in the auditorium (5)

25ac Building area? Eyesore, from what one hears (4)

19d On the radio, start to speak about a decorative pin (6)

Via "rays", "sight" and "broach", we have RAISE, SITE and BROOCH. "On the radio", by the way, is one to keep a special eye - or ear - open for.

It's not always that simple

In the clues above, the soundalike does all the business of the wordplay. But sometimes it's just one part.

Here's Osmosis:

3d Novel features latterly in Spectator magazine Boris harangued (7)

It's only after taking the last letters of "Spectator" and "magazine" that we look for the soundalike of Boris Becker's surname to get the du Maurier story REBECCA.

"Harangue" is the indicator of a soundalike - not a frequent sighting, but it does fit the "say it or hear it" category. Next, from Petitjean:

10ac Clapton initially greeting sound of guitar effect as insignificant nuisance on the end of a lead (9)

So that's a soundalike of a term which is in itself onomatopoeic, "wah-wah", to lead to an unflattering description of a CHIHUAHUA.

And one from the Times...

4ac Creole food post taken by a remarkable pork-pie producer? (9)

...where "remarkable" serves to tell us to think of someone remarking on - or saying the word - "liar" to give us JAMBALAYA.

So far, we've looked at clues where you first work out what the wordplay is indicating and then say it aloud; in some cases, you say a word from the clue and think about what its soundalike might also mean, as with Paul's...

28ac Mind chap's lesson read out? (6)

..taking us via "lessen" to SHRINK and Tramp's...

1d Picking up fun guy that could make your head spin? (5,9)

...via "fungi" to MAGIC MUSHROOMS.

A word of caution. Putting "...say" at the end of a clue is a deft way of indicating a soundalike without drawing much attention to it, but it can of course also mean, say, "for example". Orlando had an ingeniously devious puzzle which indicated some soundalikes this way:

29ac Limits of main advance restricted Communist leader, say (9)

5d Sailor is sight better looking, say (8)

So that's "tied Marx" and "see fairer" for TIDEMARKS and SEAFARER - but every clue in this particular puzzle ends with a comma and the word "say" and the word works like a Swiss Army knife, performing an uncanny array of functions.

Finally, as with the double definitions we looked at last time, multi-soundalike pile-ups (like "heir"/"Ayr"/AIR) are possible.

And how to enjoy them

If you know how to enjoy a joke, you can enjoy one of these clues. Other types of cryptic clue can be funny too, of course, but the soundalike is closest to the art form of the pun.

The pun waxes and wanes in popularity. We're at the end, hopefully, of a period where punning is associated with groaning, thanks to the unstinting work of Tim Vine, Milton Jones and that extraordinary computer at the University of Aberdeen that touchingly tries to work out what will make humans laugh with material like:

What do you call a capsicum path?
A pepper round.

Dominic Cavendish recently wrote in the Telegraph that "the point of a cracker joke is that it's knowingly feeble" - I'm not sure I agree; perhaps "finding puns feeble" is just our current way of enjoying them.

We noted above that not everyone responds well to all soundalikes in crosswords, and one reason is suggested by a nicely-brought-up young woman I know who asked a barman for "a cake, please" and, on being told "this pub doesn't serve food", explained: "No, I don't want food, thank you - just a cake-a-kale-a."

For her, the "coax"/COKES device mentioned above might not work so well; I can't be sure, I've never heard her say "coax". But it's a reminder that a single word can be pronounced differently according to region, class or eccentricity. And so some setters will take very badly to a clue that seems to be disrespectful of their own way of saying things. (Personally, I suspect they enjoy becoming disgruntled, approaching a soundalike clue in expectation and hope of finding a quibble, like people who watch BBC Three programmes aiming to have a stiff letter sent to the BBC Trust within the first six minutes.)

For a beginner, it's probably best to remember that the setter may not be saying "the wordplay will produce a sound precisely like that of the answer", but "they might sound a bit alike, depending on your background" - rather like the quick-crosswords gags in the Independent and the Telegraph, where you can read the top row aloud and hear something like "BILLY COWS". (That was yesterday's Telegraph: I reckon it's a Dickens novel.)

Variety of accents can, too, be turned from an apparent bug into a feature, as with Tramp's recent audacious attempt at an Ulster brogue...

20d In Belfast picks up an ounce and performs part of baptism? (7)

...for ANOINTS and a recent themed puzzle by Morph where the homophones at the top of the grid had a northern accent and those at the bottom a southern.

In clues like this, as with the others, the trick is to say what you see.

Over to you

To the beginners: any other questions? To the addicts: any much-loved examples to share? And to everyone: This excellent puzzle by Brendan from February has a theme that's based on a charming variant of the soundalike technique. Try it!

We'll finish with a personal favourite from Araucaria in his FT guise, Cinephile:

4ac On virgin snow, inversely not best pleased, might one say? (3-5)

The solution is OFF-PISTE; the magic of crosswords means that the wordplay did not have to be printed in a family newspaper.

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