Word Salad

This Post Is Not About Itself

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto on June 6, 2013 - 3:59 PM ET

In our previous blog post we discussed various strategies for defining crossword entries, including simple synonyms, puns or jokes, and general pointers toward the relevant attributes of the answer. But we left out one of our favorite strategies, which is a clue that defines a word by reference to the clue itself.

For example, a clue can be written in a particular form or with specific verbal constraints that exemplify the answer. Our first endeavor along these lines was this one:
HAIKU Recited aloud, an exalted, brilliant stroke—this clue, for instance (5)

More recently, we clued INVERSE thus:
Like “false” to “true,”
Or like this clue (7)

A clue can also make reference to the type of wordplay it uses. That can happen either in the definition part:
CHARADE Drink later. First, burn this clue (7)
or in the wordplay:
HINT Harsh interrogation yields “It’s a hidden-word clue” (4)

Still another type of self-reference is one that simply invokes the existence of the puzzle itself, or the process that the solver is involved with. For example:
CLUE This signal left within (4)
SOLVE What you’re trying to do, primarily: send love all about (5)

This is not a technique that can be used very often, mostly because there aren’t that many words that can describe a crossword clue, and to a lesser extent because it’s a trick that would be spoiled by overuse. But whenever there’s an opportunity to bring this into play—when a grid entry suggests some quality or attribute that a clue might display—we generally consider the possibility.

For solvers, self-reference can be double-edged. On the one hand, it’s generally easy to spot—the phrase “this clue” is almost always present, and almost always a giveaway. On the other hand, any kind of self-referential wordplay has the potential to be a little mind-bending.

Which brings us to our favorite kind of self-reference, one that involves planting a deliberate flaw in the wordplay of a clue. Here are two examples:
ERRORLESS Sorry, reels got tangled up—unlike this clue (9)
INCORRECT …in baroque concert, like this clue? (9)
(The ellipsis in that latter clue was there to join its surface to that of the preceding clue; see this post.)

These are clues (there’s another one in Puzzle 3285 which we won’t spoil here) that flirt with the famous paradox of Epimenides, the Cretan who declared that all Cretans were liars—including, by implication, himself. The clues only work… because they don’t.

What are your thoughts on self-referential clues? Please share your thoughts here, along with any quibbles, questions, kudos or complaints about the current puzzle or any previous puzzle. To comment (and see other readers’ comments), please click on this post’s title and scroll to the bottom of the resulting screen.

And here are three links:
• The current puzzle
• Our puzzle-solving guidelines
• A Nation puzzle solver’s blog where you can ask for and offer hints, and where every one of our clues is explained in detail.

Definitely!

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto on May 23, 2013 - 2:31 PM ET

In a recent post, we addressed the issue of definition by example, but this is not the only issue facing us when choosing a definition. Here are some other considerations.

A given entry may be correctly defined in many ways, from the obvious to the more deceptive. We will usually avoid obscure definitions, but even then, there are still many choices. To define CHAIR, for example, we might use “piece of furniture,” “seat,” “facilitator,” “position of authority,” “professorship,” “preside” and so on. We usually choose the definition that helps us get the best surface reading.

Because a clue also includes wordplay, a definition need not be super-specific. For example, this would be overkill: “A piece of furniture on which one person sits, often with four legs and a back, sometimes part of a dining room set or placed behind a desk.” But just how vague can we go? Fairness is in part determined by context: How difficult is the wordplay? How difficult are the clues to the crossing words? How difficult is the puzzle as a whole? What do solvers of this particular puzzle expect? Any notion of a fair definition must acknowledge these questions.

And in fact, the definition part of a clue need not even be a definition, just as long as it points the solver in the direction of the answer. Here are two examples from past Nation puzzles:
UNPROVABLE A burp: novel, miraculous, like the existence of God (10)
QUASIMODO He had a hunch involving somewhat tragic doom (9)

Especially as part of a double definition, a definition can be an attempt at humor, often based on a literal or unexpected reading of the answer. For example:
PANTRY Where they store food, or where they make trousers? (6)
STERNLY With a serious demeanor—like a famed violinist? (7)
Such jokey definitions are usually indicated with a question mark.

There are some definitions that have become cryptic clichés, such as “sing” for SNITCH or RAT, “worker” or “colony member” for ANT and “flower” for any river. Those are hard for a constructor to resist, and entertaining to new solvers, but after a while they lose their novelty. We try to use those sparingly.

Naturally, the definition’s part of speech must match the entry’s. No defining a noun with an adjective! (Although of course we love using words whose part of speech is ambiguous, as that helps us mislead you.) A good test of the validity and fairness of a definition is “can one substitute the definition for the entry in a sentence?” If not, we must rethink the clue. And from a solver’s point of view, if your answer fails that substitution test, then chances are you don’t yet have the right answer.

Have you come across some memorably tricky definitions? Please share here, along with any quibbles, questions, kudos or complaints about the current puzzle or any previous puzzle. To comment (and see other readers’ comments), please click on this post’s title and scroll to the bottom of the resulting screen.

Coming and Going

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto on May 16, 2013 - 2:03 PM ET

A solver recently inquired about the legitimacy of this clue from Puzzle 3283:
Bread, upon reflection, is bread (4)
The basis for the wordplay in the clue is the fact that the answer is a palindrome. Read it forwards and it means “bread”; read it backwards and it also means “bread.”

In one sense, then, the palindrome clue can be taken as a special case of a reversal clue. It gives a definition of the answer word, and a definition of the word that results when you reverse the answer. It just so happens that they’re the same word.

But that description, although fundamentally accurate, glosses over the inherent weakness of a palindrome clue—namely, that it doesn’t provide two independent paths to an answer. The premise of a cryptic clue, after all, is that either part can lead a solver toward an answer, with the other part confirming. In theory, you should be able to come up with an answer from the wordplay and let the definition tell you whether that answer is correct—or vice versa.

A palindrome clue doesn’t do that, because only one of those paths is operational. You can use the definition to come up with an answer, and the wordplay will rule out some possibilities—it’s not PITA, for instance, or ROLL. But you can’t do the opposite, solving from the wordplay and using the definition to confirm.

So it’s true that a palindrome clue is less legitimate than most clues, which probably accounts for our solver’s discomfort. But to our way of thinking, this is at worst a venial sin. Palindromic words are so rare that this sort of clue doesn’t come up very often; remember that long palindromic phrases like “Able was I ere I saw Elba” or “Lisa Bonet ate no basil” are rather contrived, and unlikely to show up in a cryptic crossword grid. (See our post on “dictionary nature.”) And when a solver does encounter a palindrome clue, the very rareness of palindromic words helps to narrow the search fairly quickly.

Moreover, palindromes offer a bonus for solvers. Even before solving the clue, if you have the first letter of the answer from a crossing word, you can confidently also enter the last letter; if you have the penultimate letter, you can also enter the second letter, and so on. This helps compensate for the weakness of the clue.

We have used similar clues on a few occasions in previous puzzles:
ANNA Leo’s heroine looks the same in the mirror (4)
CIVIC Honda running forward and in reverse (5)
OTTO Going up and down, it’s the same guy (4)
And we’ll use them again in the future—but probably not very often.

What are your thoughts on palindrome clues? Please share your thoughts here, along with any quibbles, questions, kudos or complaints about the current puzzle or any previous puzzle. To comment (and see other readers’ comments), please click on this post’s title and scroll to the bottom of the resulting screen.

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Mixing It Up Even More

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto on May 9, 2013 - 2:38 PM ET

In recent posts, we discussed the views of (London’s) Sunday Times cryptic crossword editor, Peter Biddlecombe, on definitions: the possibility of cryptic clues in which the definition is at neither the beginning nor the end, and the validity of defining by example. Today, we conclude this series with Biddlecombe’s ideas about compound anagram clues.

We offered a basic introduction to anagrams in this post. Later, we presented our thoughts about anagram aesthetics. But anagrams are one of the mainstays of cryptic construction, so there is yet more to say!

Normally, in US cryptics, anagram fodder is expected to be in one consecutive string, perhaps interrupted by spaces. That constraint makes anagram clues both easier to spot and easier to solve: If you’re looking for a seven-letter answer, you search through the clue for a seven-letter string that might be the anagram fodder, then look on either side of it for a plausible anagram indicator. Thus, anagrams can offer a good entry point into the puzzle. They are a beginner’s friend, and in a tough puzzle they are every solver’s friend.

Nonetheless, an experienced solver may enjoy a break with those expectations, and appreciate the opportunity to discover anagram fodder that is broken up into two or more chunks. Biddlecombe gives these examples:

Slope: garden with it is dodgy (8)

This clue disguises the anagram fodder by requiring us to convert “garden with it” into “garden, it.”

(The answer is GRADIENT.) Because the cryptic reading of such a clue is entirely consistent and logical, we can see no objection to this sort of structure—other than the fact it’s not done (or not done much) in the US. And as readers of our blog and solvers of our puzzles probably know by now, that would not be a convincing argument to us.

Biddlecombe continues:

Bacon and ham sandwich initially prepared in carriage (6, 3)

This time, the anagram fodder is “bacon,” “ham” and the initial S of “sandwich,” giving us HANSOM CAB.

Again, the cryptic reading for this clue does work, so we don’t see that as a reason to reject it. What makes it debatable, perhaps, is that “sandwich initially” requires an extra step: translate the phrase to an S, and add that to the fodder before anagramming. However, this is such a straightforward step that we are perfectly willing to accept it. We have not used this sort of clue in the past, but we might in the future.

One final example from Biddlecombe:

Awful meal, zero marks—it may make folk take to the street (5,5)

Here, we have to convert zero to O before combining it with “meal” and “marks” to make SMOKE ALARM.

Something normally not allowed is the “indirect anagram,” which requires you to correctly interpret a definition for all or part of the fodder.[…] You might ask whether “zero = O” […] isn’t also indirect. It is, but the replacement is a familiar one and only affects one letter of the fodder.

To us, this is a borderline case. There is no indicator that we are looking for a one-character replacement for “zero,” and given US cryptic tradition, the result is quite difficult. If we came up with a clue along these lines, we might try it out with our test solvers first to gauge whether it is acceptable.

How do you feel about compound anagram clues such as the above? Please share your thoughts here, along with any quibbles, questions, kudos or complaints about the current puzzle or any previous puzzle. To comment (and see other readers’ comments), please click on this post’s title and scroll to the bottom of the resulting screen.

What's a Clue For?

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto on May 2, 2013 - 2:53 PM ET

In a previous blog post, we floated some unorthodox suggestions about ways to construct a cryptic clue, playing off ideas from Peter Biddlecombe, the cryptic crossword editor at the Sunday Times (in London). One of those involved using a clue’s syntax to soften up the common requirement that the definition appear at the beginning or the end of the clue.

To clue INSANE, for instance, instead of the traditional:
Mix sienna to get mad (6)
we could just as easily write:
One can get mad when mixing sienna (6)
The underlying structure of the clue is nearly identical in both versions. The first is an instruction to the solver and the second a quasi-hypothetical statement about how a solver could go about solving, but the difference is minor. The key point is that, without going very far from traditional syntax, the second clue commits the near-heresy of placing the definition in the middle of the clue.

One correspondent raised an objection. “The clue is supposed to be a definition,” he wrote, “or, in cryptic puzzles, a mashup of direct and encrypted definitions. This sentence would seem to define ‘one.’ Grammatically, it is not asking for any other def.”

Well, yes and no. If you accept the premise that a clue is “supposed to be” a definition, then he’s right that the second version of the clue is unsound. But that’s a little like saying that a poem is “supposed to be” a series of rhyming lines in a regularly recurring meter. Where does that “supposed to be” come from?

Just like a poem, a cryptic crossword is built in accordance with a system of generally accepted conventions, which lend it structure and coherence. Those conventions are strong enough to make it possible to teach beginners how to solve cryptics, just as it’s possible to teach first-year literature students how to read and understand a Shakespearean sonnet. But writing sonnets isn’t the only way to write a poem.

We’d propose a broader definition of what a crossword clue is “supposed to be”: a path by which a solver is led to the answer. That doesn’t mean that conventions—the duality of definition and wordplay, the use of standard tools like anagrams and reversals, and so on—aren’t important. On the contrary, those are the conventions that make a cryptic crossword a cryptic crossword rather than something else.

They are the guidelines for making sure that the path to the solution is clear and unambiguous, but they are no more than guidelines. Puzzle constructors can be true to the spirit of cryptic clueing while remaining open to unorthodox or innovative interpretations. A path to the answer, possibly including unexpected twists and turns—surely that’s what a clue is “supposed to be.”

What are your thoughts about the conventions of clueing? Please share here, along with any quibbles, questions, kudos or complaints about the current puzzle or any previous puzzle. To comment (and see other readers’ comments), please click on this post’s title and scroll to the bottom of the resulting screen.

Setting an Example

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto on April 25, 2013 - 5:04 PM ET

In a previous post, we discussed the views of (London’s) Sunday Times cryptic crossword editor Peter Biddlecombe on the possibility of cryptic clues in which the definition is neither at the beginning nor at the end. Today, we respond to his ideas about “defining by example.” He writes:

Many setters and editors insist that you must indicate “definition by example‚” when you use it. They would never use “Alsatian‚” alone for DOG, but would use something like “Alsatian?‚”“Alsatian, perhaps‚” or “I may be Alsatian.” Keeping a long story short, although lots of people work this way, I can see no compelling logical reason for doing so.

We take a middle position on this issue. Some years ago, in our roles as cryptic editors for The Enigma, we were convinced that defining by example was no more useful in a cryptic clue than it is in a dictionary. If you look up “dog” in Webster’s, the definition is not “Alsatian” or “setter”—it defines “dog” as “a domesticated mammal,” a broader group of which “dog” is a member. So a clue that uses an example from a larger group should indicate that it’s going in the other direction; in addition to the indicators suggested by Biddlecombe, one might use “Alsatian, for one,” “Alsatian, say,” or just “Alsatian, for example.”

In general we’re still reluctant to define by example, but we have become more flexible in some situations. Continuing in the realm of zoology, for example, we would probably accept “ai” as a definition for SLOTH, simply because we don’t know any other sloths (and suspect that solvers don’t either). In fact, we were encouraged in loosening up our practice in this arena when we saw that Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, the unofficial king and queen of US crypticdom, had used “snail” to define GASTROPOD.

A related issue is the use of first names to define last names, and vice versa. We wouldn’t use “John” to define DEERE, EDWARDS or WAYNE, because there are just too many Johns in the world, and the “no defining by example” guideline kicks in. But we might feel justified in using “John” to define LENNON, since this particular John is so often referred to by just his first name. And an unusual first name (such as “Zbigniew”) can surely be used to define the corresponding last name (BRZEZINSKI in this case) and likewise in the other direction (“Scowcroft” for BRENT, say).

In short, as with so much else, we see this as a judgment call. Our apologies to those solvers who prefer ironclad rules to flexible guidelines!

How do you feel about definitions in cryptic crosswords? Please share here, along with any quibbles, questions, kudos or complaints about the current puzzle or any previous puzzle. To comment (and see other readers’ comments), please click on this post’s title and scroll to the bottom of the resulting screen.

Finally, a note about Puzzle #3278. There was a nearly invisible theme, which was noticed by Braze, the blogger we mention above, but was missed by every single one of our test solvers. About half the clues included a family member: daughter, aunt, nephew, son, etc. It was a somewhat gratuitous theme that did not affect solving, which explains why it was missed by so many. Kudos to Braze!

To Be Continued...

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto on April 18, 2013 - 2:01 PM ET

Earlier this week, a solver posted this question in a public forum: “I haven’t been doing the Nation puzzle for that long. What is the significance of the ellipsis at the end and beginning of consecutive clues?” It’s a great question, and an example of the kind of thing that can become so transparent to experienced solvers and constructors that we lose sight of the possibility for confusion.

The short answer is that the ellipsis is there purely to help the surface of the clues read in a natural way. The premise is that two clues joined by an ellipsis can be construed as a single sentence or phrase, reading right across the clue boundary. But that’s only on the surface, mind you—when it comes to solving, each clue stands alone and yields its own answer.

As constructors, we find that we resort to ellipses under two conditions: opportunity and necessity. Sometimes we join two clues together simply because we can—when the workings of random chance lead to consecutive clues that either share a subject matter or have syntax that goes well in combination.

Here’s an example of two consecutive clues sharing a subject, probably (if memory serves) placed together by design rather than chance:
ESTONIANS Northern Europeans’ surprising sensation… (9)
CROATIANS …tattered raincoats for Southern Europeans (9)

And another:
PENALTIES Palestine suffering punishments… (9)
TRESTLE …from violent settler frame (7)

More often, it’s the possibility of smooth syntax that prompts us to use the ellipsis, as in this example:
BYPASS Go around near spas, running amok… (6)
ODDLY …in a peculiar fashion—or did I lay this way? (5)

But by far the most common thing that prompts us to use ellipses is sheer necessity—when a clue simply can’t make good surface sense on its own. Often that’s because the definition is a preposition or a conjunction, which are awkward at either the beginning or end of a clue. So we do things like this:
PETROLEUM Favorite part? Er… It yields gas…(9)
NEATH …under unmixed hydrogen (5)

Or this:
AGAMEMNON Mythical king is willing, with Minoan leader coming in soon… (9)
TOP HAT …to cool stovepipe (3,3)

All of these examples fall under the general rule that punctuation can be safely ignored while solving. But don’t forget that no rule is completely inviolable. Solvers, for instance, ignored punctuation here at their peril:
SEMICOLON Wise lawmaker eats stewed mice;…(9)
SHERBET …for example, oregano stuffing prescribed for dessert (7)

One of these days, ELLIPSIS is sure to show up in a grid, and then all bets will be off.

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Do you have thoughts or concerns about the use of ellipses in clues? Please share here, along with any quibbles, questions, kudos or complaints about the current puzzle or any previous puzzle. To comment (and see other readers’ comments), please click on this post’s title and scroll to the bottom of the resulting screen.

Hidden Meanings

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto on April 11, 2013 - 2:42 PM ET

You may recall that there are “British rules” and “American rules” for cryptic crosswords, which we discussed in a previous post. This is the first in a series of posts in which we will get more specific, using quotations from Peter Biddlecombe, the cryptic crossword editor at The Sunday Times (in London). The quotes are from his series on cryptic clues, which you can find on his clueing contest page. (Scroll to the bottom for the links.)

In a definition and wordplay clue, there may be more than one wordplay or definition. Putting a definition between two alternative wordplays is one way of breaking the apparent rule that “the definition must be at the beginning or end of the clue.” This happens in the vast majority of clues, and all the clues in many puzzles, but it is not always true.

In principle, as we mentioned before, we see no reason to forbid three-part clues. Our predecessor at The Nation used them, and the break with the routine is entertaining. The fact that we have not done this very often does not mean we will not do it in the future.

But Biddlecombe goes further: He suggests inserting the definition between two pieces of wordplay! What a strange and wonderful idea. Here is our first attempt at something along those lines:
BANDANA BA’s headgear with down inside—something you might slip on? (7)
In this clue, the definition (“headgear”) is safely nestled between two completely independent pieces of wordplay, both pointing to the same answer: “BA” (rebus wordplay: B AND AN A) and D (“down”) inside BANANA (“something you might slip on”).

The reverse is also possible—one could have definitions at either end, with wordplay in the middle. For example:
GANDER Goose ranged freely for a look (6)
Here we have anagrammatic wordplay (“ranged freely”) separating two distinct definitions (“goose” and “look”).

There are other ways besides tripartite clues to violate (or let’s say vary) the usual rule about the definition always coming at the beginning or end of a clue. Biddlecombe continues:

Artfully-worded phrases at the beginning or end of the clue can act as linkwords, and provide another way of writing clues with the definition in the middle.

Again we see no reason not to do that, as long as the cryptic reading is solid. For example:
INSANE One can get mad when mixing sienna (6)
Note that the definition here (“mad”) is in the middle of the clue—yet the process of deriving the answer is described perfectly clearly.

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Can you, dear reader, write clues along these lines? Please share here, along with any quibbles, questions, kudos or complaints about the current puzzle or any previous puzzle. To comment (and see other readers’ comments), please click on this post’s title and scroll to the bottom of the resulting screen.

Be sure to check out last week’s Word Salad post, “What’s So Great About Two?”

What's So Great About Two?

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto on April 4, 2013 - 3:51 PM ET

One of the best-known and wittiest precepts about cryptic crosswords was the British constructor Ximenes’s description of a cryptic clue as containing three things: (1) a definition, (2) wordplay and (3) nothing else. (See “Fair and Square.”)

Yet in practice, the wide and eclectic world of cryptic crosswording admits of other possibilities. Some British constructors allow for clues that consist only of straight definitions, if they’re done in a punny or unorthodox way. They call these “cryptic definitions.” Here are some examples taken from Don Manley’s Chambers Crossword Manual:
CANDLE A wicked thing (6)
SWINDLER Keen observer of gulls? (8)
LAST TRAIN Presumably one doesn’t run after it? (4,5)

Some constructors and editors also approve of clues that point to the answer in three different ways—with three definitions in place of the usual two, for instance, or with one standard wordplay and two definitions.

These are never going to be used more than occasionally, but they do show up in cryptics. Or at least, they do elsewhere. In The Nation, not so much.

Nation reader Tom Atkins recently wrote, “I miss Frank Lewis! His cavalier ways with the rules of constructing cryptic crosswords put me off for a long time, but I eventually came to appreciate the ambiguity of his random mixture of one-, two- and three-part clues. Some of Kosman and Picciotto’s clues are fiendishly clever, but…they seldom bend the rules.”

Guilty as charged! It’s true that we have consistently stuck with the idea that a cryptic clue has two parts, definition and wordplay. Usually the parts are disjointed, sometimes they are coterminous (see “Lit Parade”). On this front, our biggest deviation from US orthodoxy is the occasional clue in which we allow the definition to leak into the wordplay (see “Breaching the Firewall”).

Yet, as solvers, we do enjoy “cryptic definition” clues when they are used in non-cryptic crosswords, and feel the same about the not-as-frequent Frank Lewis three-part cryptic clues. Why do we not use such clues ourselves?

It’s certainly not because we play strictly by the rules. After all, we have pushed the envelope with new types of clues (see “The Rebus Clue,” <“a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/172274/i-hear-you">I Hear You” and “Going to the Bank”). We have followed in Frank Lewis’s footsteps by splitting entries into different locations in the diagram, and having clues cross-reference each other, as well as in other respects (see “The Etymological Taboo” and “What’s a Three-Letter Word For?”).

So it’s not that we’re beholden to any particular dogma. The truth is much more mundane: We probably stick to two-part clues mostly from force of habit. But stay tuned: this may change.

Do you miss one- and three-part clues? Please share your thoughts here, along with any quibbles, questions, kudos or complaints about the current puzzle or any previous puzzle. To comment (and see other readers’ comments), please click on this post’s title and scroll to the bottom of the resulting screen.

And here are three links:
• The current puzzle.
• Our puzzle-solving guidelines.
• A Nation puzzle solver’s blog where you can ask for and offer hints, and where every one of our clues is explained in detail.

Roasting Chestnuts

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto on March 28, 2013 - 1:05 PM ET

Every once in a while, as we’re filling a puzzle grid or writing clues, one of us will put in an entry that makes the other one look askance. “Well, that’s kind of a chestnut,” he’ll say about a particular piece of wordplay.

And it’s true: For all the incalculable wealth and versatility of the English language, it’s just not possible to make every piece of wordplay be something brand-new and original. Certain puns, certain anagrams and certain pieces of word manipulation tend to call out to the constructor and beg for inclusion. And when they do, we generally pay heed to their cries.

Note that we’re not talking here about clichés—the overused, tired clueing strategies that get recycled from one puzzle to the next because they fit the needs of a constructor. Rather, what we’re talking about are pieces of enjoyable or clever wordplay that are no longer fresh discoveries.

At least, they’re not discoveries for everyone. But the reason we are generally not fazed by the charge of chestnuttery is always the same: For any given chestnut, there’s always a solver who’s encountering it for the first time. Or even a constructor.

The entry at 1-Across in this week’s puzzle is a case in point. It’s a joke that been used now and again in various puzzling contexts over the years, but it retains the power to amuse. One of us (never mind which) put it into this week’s grid with a slightly apologetic note: “I know it’s an oldie, but it’ll be new to someone.” The other replied: “It was new to me.”

Here are a few examples of wordplay chestnuts that have managed to find their way into the Nation puzzle:
ASTRONOMER Moon starer, possibly! (10)
BRITNEY SPEARS Presbyterians converted pop star (7,6)
DECIMAL POINT Remarkably, I’m a pencil dot! (7,5)
MOUNT ST. HELENS Prepares the telescope to find a volcano (5,2,6)
OSLO City in Czechoslovakia (4)
PULITZER PRIZE Talking chicken gets unexpected recognition (8,5)

Do you have any examples of chestnuts that made you sigh with exasperation? For that matter, do you know why a familiar old joke or story is called a chestnut? Please weigh in here, along with any quibbles, questions, kudos or complaints about the current puzzle or any previous puzzle. To comment (and see other readers’ comments), please click on this post’s title and scroll to the bottom of the resulting screen.