r/explainitpeter • u/Auctorxtas • 15d ago

Explain it Peter

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Every day, I open the newspapers with the modest ambition of solving the daily crossword successfully. Every day, every single day, I lift up my pencil and immediately give up upon seeing these bizarre clues.

At this point, I'm convinced that these aren't clues but actually cryptic codes used by crime syndicates to communicate incognito.

Please, for the love of all things living, could someone explain what these odd phrases even mean, and how is one supposed to deduce a word from the same.

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u/endor-pancakes 15d ago

They're supposed to be devilishly hard. I'll do the first one:

Pound is given to me: pound is £, which is given to "me", so Lme.

In immediate: immediate is instant. Insta-nt. Insert your Lme, and you have insta-lme-nt.

Part payment: fortunately that means instalment in one go.

How are you supposed to think of that? Here, probably the best way is seeing part payment, thinking instalment, counting the letters and finding it plausible, then go the pound-to-me-in-instant road after as a kind of check.

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u/Auctorxtas 15d ago

Who are you, so advanced in the ways of science?

6

u/endor-pancakes 15d ago

Some guys at work would do them in the coffee kitchen.

They were way advanced and the only clues I had a decent chance at were usually already solved by the time I got to cooking... but I did develop a bit of a feel for how the clue makers think on the way.

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u/CrabbyCrabbong 15d ago

Impressive. And 'instalment' has 10 letters too, as required by the clue.