Puzzling

Homophone cryptic clues are rather fun. But first, let's figure out what a homophone is. Homo  means 'same', and phone  means 'sound' — so homophones are words which sound alike, but have different meanings. I'm sure you know a ton of these: ATE & EIGHT. FLOUR & FLOWER. FOWL & FOUL. WRIGHT & RIGHT. And that's just for starters! When a cryptic clue uses a homophone, it tells you that the answer sounds like  some other word. The wordplay tells you this. Homophones must have indicator words that give a sense of something being heard, spoken, broadcast, or audible in some way. Here's a little example: Take bites noisily (6) Now, another word for bites  could be CHEWS. And, look, CHOOSE is also another word for take.  I think we have a winner! Noisily is the homophone indicator, it's telling you that if you say CHEWS aloud, it will sound like CHOOSE, which is the answer. One problem with homophone clues is that sometimes ...

Time for the next instalment in this cryptic series – deletions! They can also be called subtractions. I know you've already figured out what this cryptic device is all about from its name. Yes, we're going to remove letters, and ruthlessly throw them away. Cruel, but fair. Deletions are used quite a lot in cryptic clues, as it's common to be able to remove a letter or two from one word, to get to another. Some examples : ABATE - A and E = BAT CHIP - C = HIP FREESIA - SIA = FREE TRIP - T = RIP And so on. When it comes to these clues, you not only need to know what word to start with (with deletion indicators), you also need to know which letters to dump (with abbreviations or position indicators). The letter to remove are often clued with a standard (or more cryptic!) abbreviation (such as east = E, street = ST, or 50 = L), but sometimes the clue will tell you to remove the first, middle, or last letters. Here's a 'pure' deletion clue: ...