Cryptic crosswords are famously difficult to learn because they have their own logic that you kind of need someone to teach you before you can participate. They're kind of like a Rubik's Cube, in that if you don't know anything about how it works it seems totally impossible, but with a little basic instruction most people can participate on some level.
I'm going to use https://www.minutecryptic.com/ puzzles over this week to teach anyone interested how to think about cryptic clues (unless this post sinks like a stone haha). I happen to have had several different friends who would take the time to explain to me how to read clues and then we'd solve them together. I'm going to explain how to read the above clue and let anyone who wants try to guess the answer (you can just follow the link and they'll give you successive hints, it's a good site for learning honestly.) I will spoiler tag any hints.
THE BASICS
THE STRAIGHT CLUE:
Every cryptic clue has a word or string of words at the beginning or end (but never in the middle) of the clue that acts like a regular crossword clue. A question mark at the end works like in a regular crossword clue, indicating that it'snot a straightforward reading of the clue, in the case of this clue we know from the start that we're looking for an 6-letter word that either means "slender", "strikers", "steel strikers" or possibly even "sharpened steel strikers". The last possibility would be a lot, but the question mark implies we should stay open to possibilities of funny stuff. This part of the clue is ALWAYS unrelated to the 'wordplay' part of the clue:
THE WORDPLAY:
The rest of the clue offers some way to create the answer to the straight clue by chopping up, rearranging and concatenating the other words in the clue (or their synonyms). This section can be much looser and obeys a series of different types of rules.
For example, a clue may ask you to make an anagram of an adjacent word (or words) by using an 'indicator' word like 'mixed up', 'crazy', 'damaged', 'in a storm', etc. (This is often the easiest indicator for beginners, as once you get a sense there may be an anagram indicator, the next step would be to count letters in the words adjacent to the indicator and compare them to the letters in the answer.) Other types of indicators might suggest you remove letters from an adjacent word ('headless' may indicate removing the first letter, 'naked' might suggest removing the outer letters, etc) or put something inside a word ('containing' or 'protects' might suggest the preceding string would surround the following string to create the answer) and so on.
Slender shiny sharpened steel strikers
It is frustrating that on day 2 of my effort to teach beginners, Minute Cryptic chose one of the only clues I've ever seen that doesn't follow the above logic. This clue is what's called
spoiler
an "&lit" clue, in which all the words are part of the "straight clue" and all the words are part of the "wordplay".
So we're looking for a 6-letter word that
spoiler
a) means "slender shiny sharpened steel strikers" and b) is plural, since our clue is plural.
spoiler
Since all the words are also part of the wordplay, another way to get to our answer is to find some way to describe all five words of our clue - as you can see they have something in common.
If you just want the answer you can click the link above, they supply incremental hints (and in this case an alternative clue), and they supply good explainer videos that explain the reasoning of the puzzle assuming you've already learned the answer, but if you want to have a go you can have a guess and I can tell you if you're right, but usually once you get the answer you know it's correct because it satisfies both parts of the clue.
me forgetting how numbers work for a moment
Staples??The alternate clue on Minute Cryptic was significantly easier, though!
me forgetting how numbers work for a moment
it's a bat, it's a fucking bat