Mark’s clever, in a manner of speaking (5,6)
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I believe the answer is:
acute accent
'mark's' is the definition.
(acute accent is a kind of mark)
'clever in a manner of speaking' is the wordplay.
'clever' becomes 'cute' (I've seen this before).
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'manner of speaking' becomes 'accent' (accent is a kind of manner of speaking).
'a'+'accent'='aaccent'
'cute' placed into 'aaccent' is 'ACUTE ACCENT'.
(Another definition for acute accent that I've seen is " This vowel adjustment".)
I've seen this clue in The Times.
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