The Telegraph Cross Atlantic Crosswords 1

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One might think that examples of aptagrams are few and far between, but there are more than one might imagine. What makes The Last of Us different, however, is that Ellie, the young girl, and Joel, the adult accompanying her, aren’t related. They are strangers at the beginning of the story, and the tale revolves around them growing closer and trusting each other after the devastating circumstances that have brought them together. Though the apocalypse is the set dressing, it’s that dynamic that pushed The Last of Us to be considered among the best games ever. With the new puzzle joining a stable of games from the ‘Mini’ – a new 5x5 crossword – to the Toughie – an established super-hard cryptic – there will be something for everyone, expert or dabbler. The beginner may find themselves hooked and stay on, trying out ever-harder puzzles. The genius of Cross Atlantic is the diversity in its clues which, while never formally cryptic, will get readers thinking laterally. ‘As one does to an unfit boiler’ runs one in the opening puzzle. I won’t tell you the answer, but it’s a play on words that gets the mind moving just as far and fast as any Toughie, yet which everyone will know. There’s a little something for everyone, no matter what your skill level or how much time you have; our Mini Crossword and PlusWord should only take a couple of minutes of your time each day.

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Perhaps the most well-known example is "moon starer", which is an anagram of ASTRONOMER. This may be slightly unfair on Galileo et al, as the Moon is only one heavenly body out of countless billions, but there's no doubt that it's appropriate.

One thing you shouldn’t give up on, however, is today’s Cross Atlantic. It’s themed around Shrove Tuesday and pancakes, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting a head start on some of the clues. I won’t spoil it any further, as some of you have personal best times to consider; however you should keep an eye out for some ingredients mentioned in creative ways. Some of the puzzles we’ve been running at The Telegraph have been around for decades and decades. Our world famous Cryptic Crossword, for example, is known for playing a crucial part in World War II. In 1942, it was used to test the wits of the fastest solvers in the country, which led to the best of them being invited to work as code-breakers at Bletchley Park. Even with our long history of puzzling, we’re dedicated to giving you new and exciting puzzles. This is where Cross Atlantic comes in. Over the past few weeks, most of us will have been thrilled, disgusted or bored by the Duke of Sussex’s autobiography, Spare. If you’ve managed to avoid reading any excerpts, that’s quite an achievement, given how the book’s contents have found their way into every nook and cranny of news, social media and beyond. All of this was evidence of “an age of restless intellectualism,” writers argued. Columnists coined words such as crossworditis. People worried that puzzles would replace literature, that the utility of three-letter words— gnu! emu! eel!—would rewire people’s brains. Word games were derided as childish, even as a form of madness. “There is a taste for raw meat,” the legendary ad man George Burton Hotchkiss said in 1924. “Plain speaking has become fashionable. Entertainment is sought more widely than instruction, possibly because information is too cheap.” Not until September 1977 did The Atlantic launch its own beloved crossword puzzle, The Atlantic Puzzler, created by a couple now known as puzzle-making royalty, Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon. The duo also ran a biweekly word game for The Atlantic on America Online beginning in March 1995. The Puzzler ended its run in print in 2006, but was briefly revived online. (Its fans complained “loudly and sometimes in Latin” about this move, according to a report at the time.)

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Other words or phrases don't quite anagram to give something of identical meaning, but instead give something very close to the original. DIRTY ROOM becomes DORMITORY; DEBIT CARD contains all the letters of BAD CREDIT; I'LL MAKE A WISE PHRASE jumbles to WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. Our Cross Atlantics are particularly friendly to solvers, as they feature more topical references than our other puzzles, and are created in a more compact style. This means that solving just a handful of clues will give you hints to help you find other answers, and can help get you out of a jam. If only Ellie and Joel’s journey was as simple. Aptagram" may sound like a made-up word, but its meaning is as it sounds: an anagram of a word which is apt when taking into account its meaning. It's a fairly recent coinage, as for many years this kind of wordplay was known as a cognate anagram, "cognate" meaning "derived from the same root". There's no doubt that "aptagram" is far snappier. The first crosswords appeared in newspapers during the Woodrow Wilson presidency, in the years leading up to World War I. Panic began, as it often does, among those who derived deeper meaning from the fad’s furious popularity—the people who saw it as evidence of more dramatic changes under way. (See also: the fidget spinner. And, for that matter, the telegraph.) The machine room at Bletchley Park, where Britain’s WWII code-breakers worked to decipher Nazi messagesA TENDER NAME anagrams to ENDEARMENT; BOTTOMS UP is a jumble of PUB'S MOTTO; and, as my wife reminds me when she's not in the mood for talking, VOICES RANT ON can become CONVERSATION. Importantly, even though our Cross Atlantics look like American-style puzzles, the clues and answers are as British as it gets. You won’t be expected to know your FDA from your NBA, or your FBI from your CSI. It’s no coincidence that this rugby-themed puzzle is appearing on the same day as the Superbowl, after all. However, the fact that THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY is a jumble of OH, NASTY TARTAN POLITICS still raises a smile. You can expect some of the answers of today’s Cross Atlantic to relate to the countries within the Six Nations. The theme is signposted quite clearly; straight off the bat (to use a non-rugby sporting phrase), you might notice the following clue: