One Clue Into Another

One thing about me is that I’m often late to trends. I picked up Animal Crossing: New Horizons in September of 2021, long after everyone had completed their islands and moved on. I got into pinball at a time when it was growing in popularity, but I missed the window when machines were sold at reasonable prices. I was using a Zune MP3 player, the iPod killer, when Microsoft announced they were discontinuing it (RIP). The latest trend for me, at least in the puzzle world, is Minute Cryptic, which got popular in late 2024 and luckily is not being discontinued by Microsoft (yet).

This week’s puzzle is by no means a cryptic crossword - but you may see hints that it’s something I’ve been getting into (actual cryptic puzzles are still way too hard though).

Discussion (and spoilers!) below the break.

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One Clue Into Another by Brandon Cathcart

Discussion

I’ve come to enjoy solving simple cryptic crossword clues, as I find the wordplay of a good clue extremely satisfying. It’s unfortunate that most published cryptics are wildly more difficult than my drip-fed Minute Cryptic clues, but maybe I’ll be ready to tackle one someday. A man can dream. Anyway, the idea for this puzzle’s theme came from the question “how can I introduce that feeling of cryptic cleverness without making the solver learn how to solve cryptic clues?” The answer was a simple: a repetitive clue format that didn’t require any crazy cryptic vocab.

A strangely music-light puzzle today; I could put Lil Wayne here, but let’s do Mr. Stephen Aoki instead. Any music video featuring BTS and Ken Jeong is a good video in my books.

Today’s Theme

Today’s theme is all about the wordplay. You should get suspicious when there are circles or shaded squares in the grid!

If you look at each of the italicized clues, they read like normal sentences that don’t quite make sense in the crossword. Closer inspection may reveal they follow a similar format: [Something in something?]. It’s tough to crack it without mostly solving one through other words in the grid - but they are all written as "[Clue 1 in Clue 2], where Clue 1 is for the word in the circled squares, and Clue 2 is for the word across the entire entry.

Place to sleep in an eastern province? is NOVA S[COT]IA
(Place to sleep = COT, an eastern province = NOVA SCOTA)

Website ending in failure? is SHORT[COM]ING
(Website ending = COM, failure = SHORTCOMING)

Placed first in South Korea’s national sport? is TAE K[WON] DO
(Placed first = WON, South Korea’s national sport = TAE KWON DO

Answer 1 is in Answer 2! Tricky! These types of themes are best ignored until you have at least a few, if not many, letters in one of the theme answers to help you find the gimmick.

Behind the Clues

15A. I didn’t take French as an option in grades 7 through 12 to not include it in just about every crossword. ["___ s'apelle..." (rhyming french introduction)] is ELLE. The phrase as a whole means “Her name is…”

25A. Uh oh, my age is showing. I come from the age of school computer labs where The Oregon Trail, Sim City 2000, and Mavis Beacon Typing Tutor were installed. Besides griefing other students’ cities saved in common areas, I logged a good many hours in The Oregon Trail. ["1. attempt to ___ the river" (Oregon Trail option I always chose that too-often led to everyone dying)] is FORD. And yes, I did revisit The Oregon Trail in university and finally beat it.

36A. [Mega Millions? How about this, mega- times a million!] might read a little confusing. We’re not talking Mega Millions, the lottery. We’re talking units, one of our favourite pastimes. In metric, our prefixes go as such:

As you can see, if you multiply a mega-something (1,000,000) by a million, you get tera-something (1,000,000,000,000). Apparently we didn’t have a need to think about numbers that big until 1960. Thanks, Wikipedia.

5D. [Delicious steamed bun (and the third food clue in a row... am I hungry?)] is BAO. I love bao. Yes, I was hungry.

16D. [Brain scan, for short] is EEG, and maybe you know this from medical things, but I primarily know it from doing crossword puzzles. But what does it stand for, you ask? Electroencephalogram, which I pronounced fluently and flawlessly the first time I said it, unlike you. Thanks, Wikipedia.

23D. This is a true clue! [I'd love to visit Ontario's ___ Canal skateway someday] is RIDEAU (settle down, truckers), and the thought of skating through over 8km of skating path sounds just lovely. Maybe pick up a hot beverage along the way… That’s the winter dream ❄️

I hope you enjoyed this puzzle!

Until next week,

Brandon