Holi ki Paheli: Hindi Clue-Writers Invited

Kishore and I have got our third Hindi crossword grid filled and ready to be clued. Hindi crosswords 1 and 2 have been special prize puzzles on the blog. With crossword 3, we thought we'll do something different.

When we started off setting in Hindi, it was unchartered territory - we did not know whether our customized cryptic crossword rules to fit Hindi would work, or if there was even an audience for Hindi cryptics. Your enthusiastic response to the previous crosswords has allayed all our doubts - it's been thrilling to set puzzles in a different mould and see them solved.

This time, we want to share the Hindi crossword setting experience with you all.

I invite you to participate in clue-writing for Holi ki Paheli, a Hindi cryptic special for the festival of Holi (inspired by the TfTT 2014 Xmas Turkey, in which I contributed a clue :-)).

This is the idea:

An 11x11 grid containing 43 Hindi words has been prepared. We will share two words each from the grid with the participants, for which Hindi cryptic clues are to be written.

After all your clues are with us, Kishore and I will put them together into the finished crossword.

Holi ki Paheli with everyone's clues will be published on the blog on 2nd March 2015. This will be an open puzzle for group-solving, to which you can post answers as blog comments (2 answers per solver; contributors can answer others' clues).

If Hindi cryptic clueing is new to you, check out the Hindi crossword solutions 1 and solutions 2 for reference on how it is done.

Email me at shuchi [at] crosswordunclued [dot] com, by 10th Feb 2015, if you are interested in contributing two clues for the Holi special puzzle.

After the deadline, Kishore or I will send you the words to clue. You will have a full week after that, to think of clues for your words.

Write to me to volunteer, quick!

Update (2nd March 2015): The puzzle is all set! Available here: Holi ki Paheli.

Related Posts:

• Hindonyms
• Wordplay on Regional Dialects
• Shuddh Desi Cryptic Crossword – in Hindi

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Clues with Popular Website Names

This set of cryptic clues is themed around the names of popular blogs/websites. I wrote them for twitter originally, but after seeing the positive response to the first clue, decided to post them on the blog for a wider audience.

If you don't follow these websites, no problem – the references are only on the surface, you can still work out the wordplay to solve the clues. And I hope the post will introduce you to some interesting non-crossword links to subscribe to :-)

cracked.com: One that leads with sarcasm (7) M_____G

Let's Put Da: Back to good shape (5) A____

Heavyweight captivated by Digital Inspiration (3)

Techcrunch following Top Gear, or possibly Lethal Weapon? (7) H____E_

Any clues on the same theme you can think of? Please share in the comments section.

Related Posts:

• What's common to these clues?
• Twitter gets a foothold in crosswords
• Spell Out the Answer

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Writing Easy Clues is not Easy: A Behind-The-Scenes Report

[Last week, Anax posted this delightful clue on twitter:

    It should ensure dental health in the future (also in the past) (10)

The answer, as you've probably worked out, is TOOTHPASTE: TOO (also) + TH(PAST)E. With its explanatory definition and undisguised wordplay, the clue is the kind that'd get solved at sight by a seasoned solver.

So the clue is easy, but it is no less elegant for that. Look at the way the cryptic elements come together in an expressive surface, how the phrases "in the future" and "in the past" balance each other.

It is not easy to write an easy clue, says Anax. Read on for more from him on the topic. – Shuchi]

Much has been written (or at least I've banged on about it myself often enough) about the common novice setter mistake of equating 'hard' to 'good' when it comes to clue-writing, but it's rather hard to explain how a good easy clue should be written.

Anagrams and hidden answers are usually a logical place to start, but most commercial outlets set limits on the number of each which is permitted in a single puzzle and, in any case, clever use of wordplay indicators can make even the most obvious clue deceptively tricky. For me there are two elements/approaches to easy clue-writing:

1. When breaking the answer down into components – charade, container etc – going with the first idea that jumps out.
2. Not disguising everything. A part of the answer may be AND, OR, IN, HAS etc; there's no harm in presenting these elements exactly as they are.

We might also consider brevity and/or using only the simplest of wordplay indicators, but these have their own pitfalls. A brief clue isn't necessarily easy and, while simple wordplay indicators are fine, the results can be rather crosswordy.

The TOOTHPASTE clue, I admit, didn't have anything to do with the first approach. After thinking of less obvious things that could be applied with a brush, I'd honed in on TOOTHPASTE and spotted THE SOAP, wondering if it might form the basis of a nice anagram clue. It didn't, so I started looking at other ways to break it down, and at that point TOO + TH(PAST)E was the first candidate. I hadn't imagined keeping both THE and PAST exactly as they appear in the answer, but 'in the past' is such a stock phrase it felt daft to attempt any disguise. The result is an almost shockingly easy clue, but it feels right. You could probably come up with a far better definition, but the wordplay is about as natural as you can get. And, of course, 3 wordplay elements plus container indicator totalling only 3 more letters than the answer is a bonus for fans of concision.

Over the past couple of years, many solvers who used to feel let down by easy puzzles have come to appreciate how much skill is involved in writing them. In terms of what devices you can use and how intricate your clue-writing can be, it's a bit like a cricketer going to the crease with a half-size bat. When I mentioned to Shuchi the idea of an article about easy clues she asked if I could get a few together; after a full day of trying to match the simplicity of the TOOTHPASTE clue I came up with nothing.

Setters such as Roger Squires, Don Manley and, to an extent, John Halpern, employ this skill day in day out, and I envy them.

As I've mentioned at the end I completely failed to write any clues as simple as the TOOTHPASTE one, which shows just how hard it is!

[Thanks for the write-up, Anax. A few good easy clues for you all to savour:

By Rufus: Found bliss intermingled with hate (9)
By Sankalak: An extremely small measure — not grams, silly! (8)
By Afrit: This can be read just as it is, so you needn't do so! (8)

- Shuchi]

Related Posts:

• On clues that reveal too much
• Do you make these mistakes when writing clues?
• What makes a crossword a good collection of clue types?

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Why Hindi and cryptic crosswords do not mix

Have you seen or heard of a Hindi cryptic crossword? I have not.

The scarcity of cryptic crosswords in Hindi is not surprising. Most cryptic wordplay techniques as we know them in English are not easily plugged into Hindi. Let's look at why, and explore other types of wordplay that may work in Hindi.

The problem of precision

Cryptic wordplay essentially operates on:

• the arrangement of letters in words
• open ends in pronunciation
• variety in word meanings

How well do these map to Hindi?

Short word lengths => reduced letter arrangement options

The Hindi character set has 48 symbols (13 vowels, 35 consonants) as opposed to 26 in English. This has a condensing effect - sounds that take 2 or 3 letters to express in English (cha-, tha-, etc.) require only a single character in Hindi (च, थ, etc.). Also, Hindi words are spelled not with letters but with syllables. Vowels get latched on to consonants, consonant clusters are written as conjuncts.

The outcome of it all is that it takes far fewer characters to write a word in Hindi than in English. An English word of length 6 letters typically uses 2-3 characters in Hindi. This limits the wordplay options available to the setter.

Written as pronounced

Since the Devanagari script is phonetics-based, the case of words with the same pronunciation and different spellings does not arise. This more or less rules out the homophone clue type.

Fewer words with grammatical variety

English has a rich vocabulary of words with multiple meanings. The most deceptive cryptic clues come from words that shift parts of speech.

Word meanings in Hindi are a lot more fixed. One has to strain to think of Hindi words with more than one meaning, plus it is harder to craft smooth clue surfaces for them. Hindi clue for पिया (drank/sweetheart), anyone?

Gender specificity of nouns => trickier surface reading

Every noun in Hindi has a gender; verbs and adjectives change form according to this gender. You live in an अच्छा घर (achha ghar – good house) but drive an अच्छी गाड़ी (achhi gaadi – good car). Synonyms of the same noun can have different genders: हवा (hawa – air) is feminine but पवन (pavan – air) is masculine.

To create a clue in which the surface as well as cryptic reading is grammatical, the Hindi crossword setter has an additional dimension to take care of – the gender agreement of verbs/adjectives with nouns. When the clue's definition is masculine, the setter is restricted to masculine forms only in the wordplay. The English crossword setter has no such constraints with common nouns.

Lack of standard cryptic abbreviations?

Cryptic abbreviations are a necessary tool for the setter to encode short segments of the answer. The Hindi crossword setter, as far as I can see, does not have access to a large enough pool of handy abbreviations. I'm possibly ignorant about this one but other than a few like musical notations and days of the week, I can't think of many crossword-friendly standard abbreviations in Hindi. Those commonly known ones are either translated from English or are not much use in a cryptic clue.

Randomly listing some English abbreviations and their Hindi equivalents:

	English Abbreviation	Hindi Abbreviation
	AM	प्रातः
	BA	बी.ए.
	NO.	क्रं.
	i.e.	जो है कि
	e.g.	जैसे कि
	U.P. (Uttar Pradesh) M.P. (Madhya Pradesh)	उ. प्र. म. प्र.

This isn't making it any easier for the Hindi cryptic setter, is it?
----

These clue types appear hard to work with in Hindi:

charades: Unless the word is a compound word, splitting a Hindi word doesn't easily give other meaningful words. No wonder that while playing dumb charades, the "break the word" option is followed frequently with a call to "switch language".

containers: Without support of abbreviations, content/container segments are tough to clue in Hindi.

anagrams: Hindi words aren't as amenable to anagramming as English. At best the anagram is a simple rearrangement of letters within the same word. Can you think of a Hindi word that leads to many anagrams / multi-word anagrams? [We can sort KRISHNA in a variety of ways - A SHRINK, HIS RANK, KHAN SIR, etc. Try कृष्ण?]

homophones: Hindi words are spoken exactly as they are written.

Other tricks like false capitalization do not translate either as Hindi has no upper/lower cases.

Different Beasts, Different Handling

If it doesn't work one way, try another. Here are some ideas to make cryptic crosswords in Hindi possible.

Making the most of Hindi-friendly clue types

The short length of Hindi words is of great advantage with clue types that function on a letter-by-letter basis. 

acrostics: Certain letters dominate the start and end of words in a regular Hindi sentence, like ka क / ha ह / ra र / ma म. If the answer contains such letters, the acrostic clue type offers many options to the cryptic setter.

hidden words: Words can be smoothly concealed in natural Hindi phrases.

deletions, letter picking, letter shifting, letter exchange, substitutions: Many new Hindi words get generated by the twist of a single consonant or vowel. Anything to do with single letter movement is easy for the setter.

cryptic definitions: Couplets with end rhymes sit very well with Hindi. Riddle-like clues in couplet form might be excellent as cryptic definitions in a crossword.

Script normalization

Hindi follows the abugida writing system of treating a consonant-vowel sequence (syllable) as one unit. If each syllable is counted as a single cell entry, checking and connectivity in a crossword grid become hard to achieve.

Crossword grid makers have found a way out of this problem with "unicode normalization" – i.e. separating the vowel from the consonant for the grid fill. The same workaround could be extended to the clues – treating the consonants and vowels as separate units for wordplay. 

Dialect-based wordplay

This might cause a few ruffled feathers but wordplay on regional dialects is an interesting area waiting to be explored.

Bilingual wordplay

If the game is extended to allow literal Hindi-English translations, very innovative clues are possible.

Here's a bilingual clue by Vinod Raman for the word TAU:

Devi Lal: "Chautala shayad chala gaya" (3)

How brilliant is that surface! We just have to be willing to weld Hindi content with English cryptic grammar: shayad (perhaps) as anagram indicator and gaya (gone away) as deletion indicator.
---

Your thoughts?

Update (24-Oct-2013): A year after this post was written, Kishore and I created an 11x11 Hindi cryptic: Shuddh Desi Cryptic Crossword – in Hindi.

Solve These

Hindi cryptic clues for you to solve. Enjoy and write your own.

भारत और पाकिस्तान के बीच उत्साह (3)

गुज़र गया? प्रेतात्मा! (2)

आख़िरकार फौलादी, लगभग पूरी पकड़ के साथ वर्ग पहेली हल करते हैं (3)

Related Posts:

• Hindonyms
• Wordplay on regional dialects
• UK crossword clues you'd probably not see in an Indian crossword

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What’s wrong with this clue?

In November 2009, the word for the Times Clue Challenge was HAND OVER.

I sent this in:

Clue: To suspend, Enter + Shift Control (4,4) HAND OVER

Explanation: The surface refers to keys on a computer keyboard. 'Shift Control' is commonly used in combination with other keys, as application shortcuts to perform operations like resuming/suspending a transaction.

Definition: Shift control

Wordplay: H(AND)OVER

suspend = HOVER 
To…enter = c/c indicator 
+ = AND

When the contest result was announced, the judge's comments caught me by surprise. A flaw in my clue had slipped me entirely.

So, tell me cluenatics - what's wrong with the clue?

Update (24 March 2010): Thanks everyone for your feedback about the clue. Many of you sensed that there was something amiss in the definition – you were on the right track. Vinod hit bull's-eye, he points out the same error in his comment as the Times Challenge judge.

This is exactly what the Times Challenge judge had to say:

The definition is "shift control" but for the transitive-verb answer it needs to be "shift control of". That's unfortunate, because this is otherwise a nice clue, instructing the solver to enter AND (+) in HOVER (even if the phrasing "X, enter Y" is a bit stilted) while presenting on the surface a plausible suggestion for using a computer keyboard.

'of' is so often an innocuous connector that it is easy to overlook it. Yet it can make or mar a clue, as it did in this case.

Lesson learnt: To verify that the definition is accurate, try the substitution test. A sentence containing the answer should be unaltered in grammar and meaning when the answer is replaced with its definition.

Related Posts:

• Clue-Writing Contests
• What's unXimenean about it?
• Clues that reveal too much
• Why BENGALI = BENGAL + I doesn't fly

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Clue-Writing Contests

Clue writing contests (CWCs) provide a great way to polish clueing skills and improve crossword knowledge. Here are some recommendations for CWCs on the web. Check them out, participate and have fun.

DIY COW Clue-Writing Contests

A weekly contest on the site owned by Anax, a setter with the Times UK. Anyone can register to participate.

Link: http://www.ukpuzzle.com/phpBB3/index.php

How It Works:

• Each week (generally on a Sunday), the judge for the current round sets a word.
• Participants post their clues for the word with an explanation.
• Judging happens over the weekend. The judge evaluations the clues and picks the best clues. The winner goes on to become the judge for the next round.

The Rules:

• The clue should preferably be Times-style; for more look at their Basic Rules page.
• Multiple entries are allowed.
• Revisions to old entries are allowed.
• Entries are open for around a week; the exact duration/dates may vary. See the judge's opening notes for the round.

The Winner Gets: A chance to set the word for and evaluate the next round, and an entry into The Winners archive.

My Comments/Tips: The friendliest clue-writing forum that I know of. You'll find here a wealth of clue-writing talent, some brilliant evaluation of clues (sample 1, sample 2) and a cheerful atmosphere. For a new setter, this is a great place to start and learn.

As all entries are visible publicly, it works out better (at least for me) to avoid looking at others’ clues before writing your own.

In-jokes develop rapidly on this forum. If you keep away for a stretch, you might be mystified by some of the jargon when you return. (e.g. an "otter" = a bad clue, I haven't figured why!)

Times Clue Challenge
 
A monthly clue writing contest open for members of the Times Crossword Club. Judged by a Times setter, currently Richard Rogan.

Link: (Login required) http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/games_and_puzzles/crossword/club/specials/ 

How It Works:

• At the start of the month, the word for the clue challenge is announced.
• Participants send in their clues by email.
• Results are announced when the month is over. All the clues with the judge's comments are published. The top-3 winners and the runners-up are named. Along with the results, the word for the next challenge is also set.

The Rules:

• The clue must be in the style of the Times daily crossword. Look at the page on ‘Clue Challenge Rules’ for more.
• Only one entry per person is allowed.
• Only the first entry is considered. No revisions are allowed.
• The entry needs to carry a separate explanation of the clue's workings, else it might be disqualified.

The Winner Gets: An award of £50, and entry into the Clue Challenge Hall of Fame.

My Comments/Tips: This contest is pretty strict about admissible indicators, connectors and abbreviations. I have been submitting clues in this contest for a few months now and each time find out something new about what Times does not consider valid. Lesson learnt: When your wordplay looks questionable, it's wiser to err on the side of caution. Double-check abbreviations or obscure words with the COED and the Collins English Dictionary. Make sure that your clue satisfies all the listed Clue Challenge Rules.

Since only the first entry by a participant is considered and no revisions are allowed, send in your clue only when you're sure it is your best effort. There is a month's time - hold on to that impulsively written clue, you might think of something nicer soon.

CCCWC by &lit

A monthly clue-writing competition open to all members of The Crossword Centre (crossword.org.uk) mailing list.

Link: http://www.andlit.org.uk/cccwc/main.php

How It Works:

• The organizers set a word for clueing each month. Some contests come with special instructions such as Printer's Devilry or Wrong Number.
• Participants put in their entries through the Entry Page (login required) on the site.
• After entries are closed, the clues are displayed for voting. Any registered member can vote, even if they have not entered a clue in the contest.
• Clues can be awarded points on a scale of 0-5. The voter can give a maximum of 5 points to any clue, and up to 15 points in total. Comments can be included, too.
• After voting closes, the result is announced. The clue that gathers the highest points during voting is declared winner. The clue-writer’s name is shown if the clue features in the top ten. All comments are linked along with the relevant clues.

To understand the process better, see the competition help page, and a competition result page.

The Rules:

• Only one entry per person is allowed.
• Clues can be edited any number of times or withdrawn, up to the entry closing date. When voting begins, the latest version of the clue is considered.
• The entry can carry a separate explanation of the clue's workings.

The Winner Gets: The top clue each month gets a prize donated by Collins. The top ten clues are awarded Annual Honours points, which go towards the Annual results.

My Comments/Tips:

A very well-organized forum. The best setting talents, including professional setters from reputed publications, participate on this CWC. The hidden voting system (only the clues are shown during voting, not the clue-writers' names) ensures that there's no elitism.

The Ximenean style of clueing is preferred, though the contest sometimes throws up surprises (e.g. in the Jan 2010 contest, an unXimenean clue was third). Some voters leave detailed and well-thought out feedback (sample). Note: Not all clues get feedback, only the ones the voters choose to comment on.

For the newbie setter, it helps to be mentally tough while participating here as the comments can sometimes be harsh. It can also be unsettling to see your clue languish at the bottom of the result table with near-zero points. For all that, it's worth the experience as you learn a lot by participating alongside very talented setters. Popular voting gives a real-world simulation of how your clue would be taken by solvers in print.

--------------
[Thanks to Vinod Raman, an active participant on CWCs, for his inputs.]

Related Posts:

• Make Your Own Crossword Grid (written by Chaturvasi)
• Across Lite for Interactive Crosswords
• Best Crossword Guides Online

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Hindonyms

A hindonym is an English word that sounds the same as an unrelated Hindi word.

Take these for instance:

Word	English Meaning	Hindi Meaning
BUS	vehicle; computer circuit	enough, stop! (बस)
SAW	past tense of 'see'; tool for cutting; proverb; …	hundred (सॉ)

If you have never heard about hindonyms before, that's because it isn't a dictionary word.

My uncle had coined the term "hindonym" years ago. To keep us occupied on an idle day during school summer vacations, he set me and my cousins the task of preparing a list of such words. I wish I had preserved that list, it ran into pages.

These two clues from today's Financial Times 13119 (Bradman) reminded me of hindonyms:

Big cheese finally making fortune (4)
County chaps looking fashionable once? (5)

In Hindi, badi cheez (बड़ी चीज़) means the same as "big cheese". Cheese and चीज़ sound identical, but on their own they have different meanings. Apparently, the expression "big cheese" has originated from its Hindi equivalent.

The answer to the second clue is BUCKS. In English, BUCK can mean a male deer, a fashionable guy, to object strongly…and in Hindi, it can be a rude way to say: Speak!

Bilingual Double-Definitions

Readers who know Hindi – how about writing hindonym-based double definitions?

Sample Clue: Irritate God (3)
Answer: RUB / रब

The conditions are:

1. Of the two definitions, one should be for the English word, the other for the Hindi word. Any order is fine.
2. The word length should be according to the English word.
3. The PH sound should be accurate. Silly flower (4) will not do – FOOL is फ़ूल, flower is फूल. Notice the missing dot! [I have mentioned this specially as this common mispronunciation is a pet peeve :P]

Here's one from me to start with:

Servant, strike the door with this! (7)

Post answers and your own clues in the comments section.

Related Posts:

• The Cockney H
• Wordplay On Regional Dialects
• Rhyming Slang
• Decoding Double Definitions
• Tune In To Homophones

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Happy New Year 2009

Here’s welcoming 2009 the Crossword Unclued way :)
Were any confused? Hero of 'Singh Is Kinng', at first! (5, 3, 4)

(Yes yes, I saw 'Singh Is Kinng' just last night)

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Season’s Greetings

For Crossword Unclued readers, here's a special cryptic wish*:
Army exam regularly used in Indian mines (5, 4)

*Just in jest, no brickbats please for taking the “setter’s license” thing too far :)

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Themed Clues With A Twist

The twist is that these clues are without definition. The same definition would hold good for all.

Church boredom not for all to see but for one (7)

Outlaw American politician concealing his given name (9)

Uncovered, unwell, unknown (8)

Ban tapes with backed-up content (5)

Pushed back hair unevenly (5)

Jekyll's wicked side seized curate's heart? Vile! (9)

Without leader, march in chaos (6)

Post the solutions in the comments section. Happy solving!

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Double Definitions

A few double definition clues. Have fun solving.

Personalized practice (6)

Drug holder (3)

Searches to steal firearms (6)

Oppose the statistician (7)

Find fault with freshwater fish (4)

Deal with location (7)

Hold back the music (7)

Avoid this garment (5)

Inflates footwear (5)

Underside only (4)

Make up money (4)

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(Re)Writing THC's Acrostics

In my last post I talked about the unvaried style of clueing acrostics in The Hindu crossword in the series of puzzles 9338 to 9347. I had picked these three for illustration:
9338: Initially, mix enough sweet herbs in net like material (4) M E S H
9340: Initially, get nets and trap a fly (4) G N A T
9346: Initially, put a little mud on an oar blade (4) P A L M

Here’s my attempt at writing clues for the same words, using the same acrostic style but with experimentation in structure.
Grid management experts scorn hardware beginners (4) M E S H 
Starts to get nervous, about to fly (4) G N A T
To begin with, poisoning affects leg muscles, the surface of the hand (4) P A L M

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The Thirteen Problems

I wrote this set of clues for a crossword forum on Orkut. Have a go at solving them.

The solutions to the clues have something in common. Can you figure out what?

1. For a biker, city limits nearly shorten the way (7)
2. Deal with unknown agreement (6)
3. Famous, but suits our ill-design (11)
4. Oozed out of an empty conch and became colorless (8)
5. I need medical care for a little spat I entered into (7)
6. Weary again, he gave up work (7)
7. Game that provides an overpass? (6)
8. Single creator of Illusions with an unconventional role (8)
9. Nearly red - else almost with fury (6)
10. They say she cried, but not openly (6)
11. Clark's titles for peaked roofs? (6)
12. My sense of self - and I injure it. Why? (8)
13. Salaam to those that launch box office wonders (3)

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Acrostics

"My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas"

Does the sentence above ring a bell? That used to be a popular memory aid for keeping track of planets in the solar system (in the days when Pluto was counted as one). The first letter of each word in the sentence stands for the name of a planet.

Acrostic clues in cryptic crosswords work much the same way. Acrostics, or initialisms, use the first letters of a sequence of words in the clue to form the solution.

Acrostic Clue Structure: The clue has three parts:

1. Definition
2. Acrostic indicator - Words like 'initially', 'in front of' indicate that leading letters are to be picked
3. Acrostic fodder - Sequence of words from which the letters are to be picked

Examples:

Those fronting extremely vicious acts don't easily escape (5) E V A D E

Guardian 24489: Some URLs recommended for beginners to explore online (4) S U R F

Acrostics along with hidden word clues are perhaps the easiest to solve, since all the letters for the solution are right there, in the correct order – you just need to spot that it is a clue of this type. Looking for an acrostic indicator in the clue is a good start point.

Variants of acrostics could use last letters, nth letters or middle letters of the words.

Acrostics are also found in other forms of writing, such as poetry. The first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the verse, when put together gives another message. Some examples: Acrostic Verses.

On that note, a rhyme:

A clue that spells out the answer
Can hardly leave you perplexed -
Read carefully the first letter
Of each unit in the text;
Spot the indicator, then definition
That's your work near-done; 
Initials together give the solution -
Caught on, haven't you, about this one?

Solve These

FT14261 (Redshank): What chiefly hides in Jordan and Bahrain? (5)
Independent 8283 (Nestor): What’s seen at start of any road running one way? (5)
Guardian 25726 (Paul): Those biting heads off tarantulas, eating even tiny hairs (5)

Related Posts:

• Letter Sequence Indicators
• Other Clue Types: Hidden Words, Letter Picking, Letter Shifting,  Letter Exchange, Charades, 
                             Anagrams, Containers, Deletions, Double Definitions, Homophones, Substitutions, 
                             Reversals, Cryptic Definitions, d&cd, &Lit.

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