Deciphering Cryptograms: A Puzzling Way to Start the Year?
I like puzzles, starting with jigsaws and progressing to crosswords, and now, concluding with miscellaneous word and even Sudoku puzzles. Puzzle magazines are particularly absorbing and a welcome pleasure while waiting 3 hours on the La Guardia runway, in New York City, awaiting takeoff to Kansas City International airport. Magazines I like to peruse include Games Magazine, Dell Variety puzzles, MENSA publications of puzzles, and wordfind booklets.
When you find you haven’t any ready-made puzzles available, consider creating your own, such as from a word list you need to study, or from a word list you find or build yourself, such as a vocabulary list from A Christmas Carol.
Here is an example of a funny cryptogram, a cryptogram being a short statement, often a quote or aphorism, that needs decrypting, in this case a quote from John Steinbeck:
WUBYN YAB VWSB AYRRWGN. PTE IBG Y LTEOVB YCU
VBYAC QTX GT QYCUVB GQBJ,
YCU OABGGP NTTC PTE
QYZB Y UTFBC. –HTQC NGBWCRBLS
A quote with an author can give you insight into the substitution letters. In the example, if we decide that –HTQC refers to “John,” we could then substitute the appropriate letters throughout the encoded passage, leading to more insights. As Mr. Kennedy writes in his book, Funny Cryptograms, laughter is “…like internal jogging; it increases the heartbeat, brings in oxygen, and stimulates circulation.” (Kennedy 4). He elaborates that laughter helps us to relax, makes us feel better, and “it allows us to maintain a positive attitude when we’re faced with all of life’s little challenges.” (Kennedy 4).
I like Kennedy’s explanation of solving a cryptogram. First, the word, “cryptogram” refers to a hidden (crypto-) written message (gram). The original message is the “plain text” while the coded message is the “cipher text.” The original quotation, the plain text, has had its letters replaced by other letters to form the puzzle.
For example, here is the cryptogram and cipher text:
EZCRYPTR SCM EXCQ, where the original letters in the message were the following: “Laughing out loud.” As you can see, each “C” in the cryptogram stands for “u,” while each “x” stands for “o.” (Kennedy 4)
He offers us three more hints to help us solve these puzzles, such as
1. First, the letter in the cryptogram must be different from the original letter;
2. Second, a one-letter word is easy to solve, since it must be an “A” or an “I;”
3. Third, it helps to look for prepositions such as “of,” “or,” “is,” “at,” “to,” and the like. The word “that” can be easy to spot as it begins and ends with the same letter. Locating “that” can also reveal where “the” might be lurking. Other words to watch for include “did,” “going,” “never,” “little,” and “people.” (Kennedy 5)
Cryptogram 1
WUBYN YAB VWSB AYRRWGN. PTE IBG Y LTEOVB GQBJ, YCU OABGGP NTTC PTE QYZB Y UTFBC. – HTQC NGWCRBLS
Cryptogram 2
F CVTOY OCPL VODCWSZ CXSEW LFV HZOQOZODPOV QSZ WLO HZOVFYODPM, CDY DFDOWM-VFA VODCWSZV OCPL ZOPOFROY SDO RSWO. –BS LD Q. TODDOYM
Solution to Cryptogram 1
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to
handle them and pretty soon you have a dozen. – John Steinbeck
(12 Kennedy)
Solution to Cryptogram 2
I asked each senator about his preferences for the presidency
and ninety-six senators each received one vote. –John F. Kennedy
Work Cited
Kennedy, Shawn. Funny Cryptograms. New York: Sterling Publishing. 2003.
