In the Dark

I wonder if anyone else has noticed the remarkable similarity between this clue, by Paul, in yesterdays Guardian Prize Crossword (No. 25634)

Foolishly cash lost in ’em? (4,8)

and this one in Everyman No. 3423 which appeared in today’s Observer:

One-armed bandits – lost cash in ’em, stupidly (4,8)

I wonder if, by any chance, they might be related?

More interestingly, the clue by Paul is a nice example of an “&lit” clue whereas the Everyman one has the traditional definition + cryptic parts. In an &lit clue two different readings of the clue give the definition and cryptic allusion. In this one the word “foolishly” is an anagram indicator (acting on the subsequent  letters); the surface reading (“literally what it says”) defines something you might lose money in foolishly. This kind of clue often ends with a “?” or even a “!” to suggest something a bit sneaky is going on so a bit more lateral thinking than usual may be required.  The second clue has the same anagram (indicated by “stupidly”) but this is preceded by a straightforward definition of the answer so has no “?” at the end.

I’m not going to give the answer, but it’s quite an easy one so I assume the penny has dropped.

This entry was posted on May 13, 2012 at 10:36 am and is filed under Crosswords with tags Everyman Crossword No. 3423, Guardian Crossword No. 25634, Paul, The Observer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.