day 227 of an experiment in which i press the "random word" button on onelook and make a cryptic clue out of it.

day 226, day 225

weeks 29 to 32 (days 197 to 224)

weeks 25 to 28 (days 169 to 196)

weeks 21 to 24 (days 141 to 168)

weeks 17 to 20 (days 113 to 140)

weeks 13 to 16 (days 85 to 112)

weeks 9 to 12 (days 57 to 84)

weeks 5 to 8 (days 29 to 56)

weeks 1 to 4 (days 1 to 28)

This one might work better for Americans (like myself). From what I've read, the answer word is used a little differently elsewhere.

Bonus: if you have nothing better to do after solving this one, here are some unsolved TOTW submissions of mine:

Unit with Björn at the head — one entertaining billions (4) https://www.reddit.com/r/crosswords/s/02gCMbpxQ8

Women I have given sons? (5) https://www.reddit.com/r/crosswords/s/R1Chli0DIA

Edit: a commenter fairly pointed out this was long, repetitive and assumed you knew the game, so I have rewritten it from scratch. Second edit: the stray asterisks are gone too, that was me pasting markdown into the wrong editor.

The mods gave me the OK to ask here, so thanks for that.

I make Wordy Bunch, a daily word game that runs on Reddit at r/WordyBunch. Each day the game deals a letter grid and players race to find ordinary words hidden in it. No clues and nothing to download, it plays inside a Reddit post.

Hidden across this year's grids are twenty secret words that look like any other word on the day. When somebody finds one, the whole sub is shown two things: a title the finder earned, and a single line explaining that title. The word itself is never shown. Working out which word it was is the community's puzzle.

One got found on 24 August, and it has everyone stuck.

The answer is one ordinary word that was sitting on that day's grid. Finding it earned the title "Like a Natural". The game explains the title with one line, under the heading "Why this title?": "Not a metaphor. Like one, though." The game also says every hidden word "belongs to a family of words".

So the line is not aimed at the word. It explains the title, and the title is what the word earned. Two steps between the line and the answer.

My players have argued it down to two candidates: Fourth and Fourths. The pair being that close is probably part of the difficulty, and it may want reading as wordplay, which is why I have come to a cryptic crowd.

To be straight about what this is: it is not a proper cryptic clue. There is no fodder to pull apart and no definition sitting off to one side. It is one line of misdirection, and misdirection is your day job.

The ask is small. Even one line on what you reckon the wording is doing would help them along. What is "Not a metaphor" there for? Is "Like one, though" pointing at something, or is it just pleased with itself?

I promised my players I would not confirm or deny anything, here or in my own sub, so I will read along and keep my mouth shut. If this is not what the sub is for, no hard feelings, I will take it down

You've spotted the anagram indicator. You've got every letter. And you still can't see it, because your eye keeps reading the letters in the order the setter handed them to you. Shuffling is the first step, because the setter has arranged that fodder to read as a phrase, and the phrase is sticky.

Seven or eight letters and you can usually shuffle your way there. Once you're at eleven or twelve, the letters turn to mush.

Someone suggested splitting the vowels and consonants into two piles and it's made a huge difference.

Two reasons it helps. First, it properly destroys the setter's arrangement. Shuffling letters around still leaves them close to their old neighbours; sorting by type doesn't. Second, the consonants carry most of the information. We read shorthand fine without vowels [cnsnnt, crsswrd] so the consonant pile is something your brain can complete rather than something it has to search. And the vowel pile tells you the shape before you've got the word. Only a couple of vowels among ten letters and the consonants have to be clustering somewhere: STR, NGTH, CH. Look at STRENGTH: seven consonants, one vowel, and it still works because they bunch.

I've added a "split mode" to The Anagrind. Thanks to David S for this great suggestion. One tap and the board separates into a vowel column and a consonant column. You can keep shuffling within each column and drag letters into slots as things start to click. Same as always, it doesn't give you answers, it just lets you move tiles around.

An example from RK in last Thursday's Sydney Morning Herald …

Brain study develops cures? Nice one? (12)

Fodder is cures nice one, anagrind is develops. Twelve letters with six vowels in them [U E I E O E] which is exactly the kind of thing that goes to porridge on a board.

Split it and the consonant column reads C R S N C N. You still have to shuffle those, but six tiles is a far smaller job than twelve, and with a definition pointing at brain study, N-R-S-C-N-C turns up quickly. Then the vowels drop in around it: NEUROSCIENCE.

One call I wasn't sure about: I've put Y with the consonants by default, which is right for YELLOW and obviously wrong for RHYTHM. Is that the right call, or should Y sit with the vowels?

When you hit an eleven or twelve letter anagram, do you have a system, or do you just stare at it until it moves?

day 226 of an experiment in which i press the "random word" button on onelook and make a cryptic clue out of it.

day 225

weeks 29 to 32 (days 197 to 224)

weeks 25 to 28 (days 169 to 196)

weeks 21 to 24 (days 141 to 168)

weeks 17 to 20 (days 113 to 140)

weeks 13 to 16 (days 85 to 112)

weeks 9 to 12 (days 57 to 84)

weeks 5 to 8 (days 29 to 56)

weeks 1 to 4 (days 1 to 28)

I posted this with a silly error before, corrected now.

Full puzzle: https://crosshare.org/crosswords/vF4sLz5KnCsoXvP1lAzs/the-butler-cryptic-11