Rearranging:
Probably the easiest and most common, this signpost tells you to rearrange a word or words - to find an anagram.
Common rearranging signposts:
Example: Guns of war or any power play (8). By playing with the words "any power", we can rearrange them into the word "weaponry", for guns of war.
Inserting/Surrounding:
This signpost indicates that you should put letters or words into another word, or put a word around some letters.
Common inserting/surrounding signposts:
- in
- inside
- entering
- outside
- capturing
- without
Example: Old South American hotel outside California (5). By putting "inn" (for hotel) outside "CA" (for California), we can get "Incan" - a person from an old South American culture.
Shortening:
A shortening signpost directs you to remove part of a word, or keep only part of a word.
Common shortening signposts:
- dropping
- without
- disheartened
- empty
- first
- last
- clothing
Example: Fugitive without a landing strip (6). Here, "without a" instructs us to remove an "a" from runaway (for fugitive), giving "runway" - a landing strip!
Alternating:
This signpost asks you to look for every second letter of a word or multiple words.
Common alternating signposts:
Example: Type of lettuce cooks regularly discard (3). By discarding regular letters from "cooks", you get "cos", a type of lettuce!
Containing:
A containing signposts alerts you to a word contained within multiple words.
Common containing signposts:
- within
- containing
- captured
- among
Example: Warship poised to capture semiaquatic animal (5). Captured within "Warship poised" is "hippo", a semiaquatic animal!
Translating:
A translating signpost alerts you to Translate a word - usually a very short common word - into another language.
Common translating signposts:
- the French = "le"
- the Spanish = "el"
Pronouncing:
This signpost wants you to look for homophones. Say a fodder word out loud and replace it with another word that sounds like it.
Common pronouncing signposts:
Example: Owing to some moisture, say (3). "Dew" is some moisture, and sounds like "due", which means "owing".