I love ones like “Famous tower” They are the reason I do crosswords!
There was one today in the *USAToday *- 5 letters - “All but one in a million?”
English cryptics make me want to drive a pencil through my ears. Even though I understand most of the “rules” and clue types behind them, as well as the how the wording of the clues often reveals the type of wordplay involved, I still don’t think I’ve ever gotten more than one or two answers in a cryptic.
zeros
Those question marks are always a tipoff to think outside the box.
Anyone who has ever constructed a crossword puzzle, as opposed to just doing one, knows that once you have arranged all of your theme words/phrases, you have to choose words that fit around them. These filler words are often not planned choices, but compromises forced by the rest of the puzzle.
That is where words like “aped” and “adze” come in, as well as rapper’s names, Jewish holidays, and Biblical words/names. To make your puzzle work, you have to find a word with an “a” in the first position and and an “e” in the third spot. If you can’t find a word with a “z” in that third spot, you have to rearrange your entire puzzle, or replace really good theme words.
You’d be surprised how few relatively common English words fit such specific criteria. Rappers’ names, which are often short, and have unusual combinations of consonants and vowels, are a godsend. (JayZ is the first example that comes to mind. DrDre, as mentioned, is another one.) The Jewish holidays and Biblical words work on the same principle.
Are you new to crosswords, then? The best clues are like that. The clues I hate arethe ones that rely on geographic knowledge of a specific city which only its inhabitants would possess.
I always said if I had a child I would name him/her something like Ajeb.
Four letters, alternation of the two most common vowels plus two relatively uncommon consonants.
Assuming the kid ever did anything even minorly noteworthy s/he would live on in crossword puzzles FOREVER.
Yep .just the last 50 years. Pretty new.
Person who tows. I remember that one.
I have constructed a crossword (to NYT “standards”). Of course this is true. My puzzle contains at least 2 words that would make you roll your eyes and say “ugh, not again.”
But I think that anyone who does crosswords on a regular basis knows that they are a necessary evil. Doesn’t mean we can’t bitch about it, though! 
P.s. My Aunt Edna was a hoer from Riga. Okay, that’s a lie, though I am 1/4 Latvian, so who knows?
Hey–let’s have a game! Who can fit the most “crosswordese” into one sentence?
My favorite was from a crossword I did in high school.
Clue: A little lower? (4 letters)
Answer: Calf
Clue: IJKLMN (5 letters)
Answer:
water - ‘H’ to ‘O’ or H2O
This one is still my favorite.
I’m developing a taste for the NYT crossword. I just cheat with Google on the clues I’m stuck on. 
The ones I hate in the New York Times are those that involve letter substitution, so that, for example, only the letter “T” is filled in, but you have to read “time” for each across and down answer. Sometimes I don’t catch on immediately, and then it takes me a long time to solve them. And I never studied French, so I dislike the ones involving French words.
The Thursday and Sunday ones that involve a theme in the long answers can be good, if I catch on early enough where he’s going with it. Because if I can fill in the long answers first, the rest comes much easier.
If you do not get the theme ,they can be a lot of work.
The hard ones are the ones with 3 letters in a box. They do not tell you. You have to come up with one that has to be that way. Then comes the Ah I get it moment.
Many EONS ago, when I was an ESNE, I was swinging my ADZE towards the ENE when I hit an ERNE that was APING an EMU.
How’s that?
I’ve always liked the NYT puzzles, but when Eugene Maleska was editing, they (well, most likely, he) drove me crazy. Not only did he love opera, but he also seemed to assume that solvers knew New York intimately. And sometimes, he’d mix the two: a typical clue would be something like “Tenor at the Met.” The idea that you were stuck unless you were an opera-loving New Yorker who frequented the Metropolitan Opera House was kind of off-putting. 
Many thanks to Will Shortz for making NYT puzzles enjoyable to all nowadays!
I hate clues that aren’t like that, that are just rote memorization or word association and don’t require any thought or cleverness. Where’s the fun in that?
What I hate are the words that are in foreign languages, especially French (as about 90% of them are). It’s unforgivable if two of them intersect. That’s bullshit (pardon my French).
And I get a little :dubious: about bogus pluralizations. You know, things like “Humperdinck, and others” for the word “ENGELBERTS.” You’re not allowed to use that unless you can show me that more than one of them actually exist.
And yes, I know there really are more than one Engelbert Humperdinck. It’s the only example I could come up with off the top of my head.
Six letters: “Little hooters.”
OWLETS, naturally.
I haven’t known Will Shortz do that. It’s always something like “Mariah, Jim, & Drew, loosely.”
The first time I saw a cryptic puzzle was probably about 20 years ago in Games magazine, and I got absolutely nowhere with it.
But for some reason, five or six years ago I found the puzzle in Atlantic magazine, and gave it a try. I actually started making some progress. I was glad it was a monthly though; it was taking me about that long. Of course, with a regular crossword you have to finish the whole thing to get a real sense of accomplishment. With a cryptic, each word is a triumph.
(That’s not the only mental hurdle in their puzzles; the whole theme can be pretty out there. I felt a certain smug satisfaction several months ago when the theme, including several unclued entries, was the instruments and corresponding animals in Peter and the Wolf.)
I gradually got better. I’m kinda sorry that the Atlantic took the puzzle out of their print edition. (Last I heard it was still available online for subscribers.) I just picked up the new Harper’s yesterday and have four words so far. And the theme is a doozy.
Ok, I still don’t get this one.