The Irregular Ways Of "Regularly"

Experienced solvers will recognize "regularly" as an indicator to pick odd or even letters from a word/phrase in the clue.

Standard "regularly" clues look like the ones below.

Even letters:
Independent (Crosophile): Soft pedal, say, when regularly used (4) EASY
Even letters of 'pEdAl SaY'

Odd letters:
Guardian 24938 (Puck): Poet writes, dipping into sherry regularly (7) SPENSER
PENS (writes) in SER (odd letters of 'ShErRy')

But there is more to "regularly". The word means "at fixed intervals", and those intervals can be wider than a single letter.

Intervals > 2:
Guardian 25109 (Puck): Language coming from Jack and Vera, regularly (4) JAVA
J (Jack) + every third letter of 'AndVerA'

Another clue with a more helpful indication for picking every third letter:

Times 24747: Ornament and tattoo-marks cut when couples go out regularly (4) TORC
From the letters of 'taTtoOmaRksCut', pairs of letters are dropped in symmetry - the letters that remain spell TORC.

Though theoretically defensible, I haven't come across a clue that uses "regularly" for gaps larger than three - stretching beyond that can make the clue too long, unwieldy and possibly unfair.

Finally, beware of the case in which "regularly" is present in the clue but you aren't supposed to go letter picking at all!

No letter picking:
FT 13701 (Redshank): Drink and travel regularly, showing flexibility (6) SUPPLY
SUP (drink) PLY (travel regularly, as in "On which route does this bus ply?")

Solve These

Guardian 25374 (Crucible): Frank's in gym regularly taking hooks (4)
Enigmatic Variations 969: Welfare state provides regular contributions for bridge player (4)
Times 24810: Staff annoy team by regularly showing up (5)

Annotate this ->
Azed 1898: Clots regularly feeding eggs to dogs? (7) The answer is CRUORES. Can you see how?

Related Posts:

• Letter Picking
• An Odd Question
• Letter Picking Indicators

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