General Discussion » Proper usage of "+ letter" in a Cryptopix
It's not a required convention, but many of us do follow it. So I agree with your squire/esquire example.
Because I use a + to add a sound, then I use a - to subtract a sound, not a prounouced letter. So "delete-D" would be "elite", not "leet". (For me, "lemon-M" wouldn't be either of the two answers you suggested. It wouldn't be Lon because the short "e" sound would remain, and it wouldn't be Leon because that changed the short "e" in "lemon" to a long "e"; and both changed the sound of the "o".)
I once asked one of the moderators about this. He said that the + definitely means to add the sound, not to pronounce the letter. However, he said that the lack of a + is ambiguous. So he feels that "S+choir" = squire, but that "S choir" could be either squire or esquire. I personally don't like ambiguity.
I agree with Philana. (She is the Mistress of Cryptopixes after all!) There's no formal convention. It just seems more intuitive the way you have it.
I think there's actually three options:
1. The name of the letter ( S [picture of a choir] = ESQUIRE)
2. The sound of the letter (S + CHOIR = SQUIRE)
3. The letter itself (S + [picture of a bunny hopping] = SHOPPING)
Number 3 is a little awkward, and I really dislike it when puzzles mix 3 and 2 (or 1):
xxx S + a picture of hair = SHARE xxx
The Cryptopix in question does this, but it doesn't matter because the two "S" sounds blend into one. Avoiding the mixing could be done by changing the last picture to be that LotR tree. But it's better the way it is.
As for subtraction, it's easier to add sounds and blur them together than to break phonemes apart and subtract. For example, shouldn't your example above be LEMON - M = LUN?
I don't think I would get LEMON - M = LON unless there was a picture of the ex vice-president afterwards. : )
And as you suggest, it's difficult differentiate between the different cases when you always need a minus sign.
[2] Oooh, I really don't like your 3rd example. "SH" is a phoneme, a single distinctive sound. It cannot be separated into the sounds of S and H, nor can it be created by merging the sounds of S and H.
I see the PLUS and MINUS signs as mostly being letter math, which is why I'm a big fan of not using them if possible, specifically because of this ambiguity. This means I take letters to represent their SOUNDS, for the most part. So in [2]...
I like and prefer example 1: S [picture of choir]= ESQUIRE
I "see" example 2: S + [picture of choir] as SCHOIR, and not SQUIRE. And if you clued SQUIRE that way, and I was moderating your puzzle, I might suggest an alternate way to clue this.
Or maybe not.
Because... while I feel S + CHOIR being SQUIRE is inelegant, it's definitely understood and accepted here. Meaning, it doesn't stop most people from solving puzzles. And, perhaps more importantly, it allows people to create puzzles more easily... and that's also the point here.
On the old TV show Concentration, they used T + [picture of hat] to be THAT all the time. To me, that's TeeHat, but, of course, if you saw that in a puzzle, ALL of you would get that that's supposed to mean THAT, no problem.
So I blame television :)
Oddly enough, while I feel the plus sign has some wiggle room, the MINUS sign is always math to me. So I see [picture of LEMON] - M as LEON every time.
But that's a pretty lazy way to clue LEON.
If you wanted to remove a letter SOUND fom a word, I'd use the minus sign and also put QUOTES around your letter:
To use [1]...
DELETE - D = ELETE (or a clue for ELITE)
but
DELETE - "D" = LEET
[3] Wow! Your comments really surprised me! Cryptopixes are, and always have been, PHONETIC puzzles that are based on the sounds, not the spelling, of images. And yet you believe that +/- should be used to add/subtract LETTERS instead of SOUNDS? You're gonna hate tonight's cryptopix!!
Well, okay... I had to peek, after you said that, and I think tonight's Cryptopix is perfectly clued.
I'm not saying MINUS should be math, it's just how I'm inclined to see it. It's a carry-over from rebuses, right? In a rebus, BUG + SLED - SD = BUGLE. But if you had a Cryptopix that was [picture of BUG (assuming you could even find one that was clearly a clue for BUG)] + [picture of a SLED] - [picture of South Dakota] and that was supposed to mean BUGLE, I'd say that was a terrible Cryptopix.
I did put the word SOUNDS in all caps in my first paragraph above. We actually agree on this.
I think the trick is to choose clues that are clean, regardless. So, using the example we've been using, I would never use LEMON - M specifically because, well... it's not really clear what that clue's supposed to be. Either go with something that sounds like LEE/LAY + ON or LEE/LAY + YAWN or LEE/LAY + OWN... or better yet, don't :)
And by the way, please no one submit PAWNS/PONDS + DAILY + YAWN now :)
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In June 17th’s Cryptopix
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/5054-6-17-2009
there was a ”+S” added to the puzzle. Some interesting discussion ensued about the proper usage of ”+S” versus simply using “S” without a plus sign.
Here are the comments (with their links):
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/5054-6-17-2009?comments_page=1#comment_304826
and the ”+S” should probably just be “S”
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/5054-6-17-2009?comments_page=1#comment_304842
I agree—the “S” isn’t simply a sound added to the previous image; instead, the letter is fully pronounced.
Is this the generally accepted convention? That the letter is fully pronounced when there is no ”+” sign? This would mean, for example, that
S + [picture of a choir] = Squire; while
S [picture of a choir] = Esquire.
Right?
What about the minus sign?
Lemon – M = ?
Leon, as is Ponce de Leon; or
Lon, a is Lon Chaney; or
either?