Charades — A Presidential Salute!
Some words have been wearing masks all along.
When President Donald J. Trump recently read the word “Yosemite” as “Yo, Semite,” some may have regarded this as an atypical glitch of the mind of an otherwise stable genius (self-declared).
But we at Beyond Wordplay recognized it for what it really was — a nod to wordplay at the highest level — a presidential salute, if you will — to charades, words that can be broken into smaller ones — in this case, a phrase. In this way we can see the longer words as “masking” phrases which have been there all along (and aren’t we all getting used to masks these days).
The clues below each define of a phrase which can be read as a solid word, defined in (parentheses). For example:
Badly burn summer drinks (Popular parlor game)
Answer: CHAR ADES (CHARADES).
Once you’ve solved them, the shaded letters will lead you to your final answer: the first shaded letter in each answer, read top to bottom, is a clue to Part A, and the second shaded letter in each answer, read to top bottom, clues Part B. Put these two parts together for your final answer — something associated with some prominent mask-wearers.
Charades mirror the physical form of the classic parlor game, though their appearance as riddles in verse form preceded it. As explained by Joshua Kosman and Henry Picciotto in The Nation, they are a standard type of cryptic crossword clue. Presented as verse-riddles, they date back to the 18th century and even figure in Jane Austen’s novels. (Fans of Emma may recall that a charade written by Mr. Elton serves as an important plot point.) Verse puzzles of this sort would become known as “flats” when the National Puzzlers’ League was founded in 1883, and to this day charades and other flats are published in the NPL’s monthly magazine, The Enigma (where some of the above examples have appeared over the years). For info on joining the NPL, see here.
If you manage to unmask the puzzle, feel free to gloat in the comments below, or give us a shout on Twitter!
