"Cryptic" is short for "cryptic crossword puzzle."
The numbers at the end are word lengths. Which are obvious from the grid in this case, but that's not true of Uc's usual puzzles (which often involve added or subtracted letters). It's traditional for word lengths to be given after clues in cryptic crosswords.
Also -- and I never realized this until I had a book of them and got some practice -- there is a highly specific grammar to the ways the clues can be written, which helps tremendously in parsing them. I used to look at pages of cryptics and go, "... These are clearly from some other planet."
Thanks for posting this! And thanks ucaoimhu for writing it!
A minor LiveJournal style note: the text you put in a lj-cut doesn't show up in the post itself. So this page doesn't have any explanation of where the puzzle came from (aside from the puzzle's title).
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-10-22 04:16 am (UTC)numbers at the end are?
#
no subject
Date: 2010-10-22 04:26 am (UTC)The numbers at the end are word lengths. Which are obvious from the grid in this case, but that's not true of Uc's usual puzzles (which often involve added or subtracted letters). It's traditional for word lengths to be given after clues in cryptic crosswords.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-22 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-22 04:54 am (UTC)#
no subject
Date: 2010-10-22 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-22 07:41 pm (UTC)A minor LiveJournal style note: the text you put in a lj-cut doesn't show up in the post itself. So this page doesn't have any explanation of where the puzzle came from (aside from the puzzle's title).
no subject
Date: 2010-10-24 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 09:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 09:56 pm (UTC)