Today's Cryptogram

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

GCSLQ GEE ZSWCM SZ CHMYGVU, DWSDBUTF HM YBU CSMY QWGYKHYSKM. - QUSWQU UEHSY, CHOOEUCGWTB

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

You can find this fun quotation puzzle, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications. I challenge us with the best ones out there.

The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram).

Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be intimidated, you’ll be solving them all within a few days. If you’re stumped, take a break and return to it.

PLEASE DO NOT post the answer in general comments, but DO post your time and how you made out.

You can certainly send your solution to my private reply, or if you need a hint for today’s Cryptogram ASK THE GROUP FOR HELP!

I suggest printing these out and work them on paper. If you need a little help you can copy and paste it to Hal’s Helper below.

You can then work on the puzzle without using pen and paper, but I recommend that you do NOT look at the letter counter.

HAL'S CRYPTOGRAM HELPER

One last request. Feel free to post a fun or clever clue, the more tangential to the quotation the better, but please don’t put the actual words of the quote in the clue.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

If you need a clue ask the group to send you a letter to your private reply.

4 minutes good
3 minutes excellent
2 minutes exceptional
90 seconds superior

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Previous puzzle Friday January 26, 2024

WEFQFWFAU WCUIA IMAFIE QVMP WEMLQAUMPAVFR - SIKZFA, W. 400 G.W.

Solution to previous Puzzle: (select the yellow text with your cursor to read):

CRITICISM COMES EASIER THAN CRAFTSMANSHIP - ZEUXIS, C. 400 K.C.

HAL'S CRYPTOGRAM HELPER

[grey_whiskers]

1 Thessalonians 5:20

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

The Eight Circle of Hell, in Dante's Inferno, where there is a ditch where soothsayers, fortunetellers and sorcerers are condemned to walk with their heads on backwards

[Apparatchik]

[Baldwin77]

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

2 Peter 1:19–21

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

Meant to add to above post….. so if it contradicts God’s Word (the Holy Bible), then it is not TRUE!

[FroggyTheGremlim]

ZEUXIS, c. 400 B.C.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

You are correct. Actually that was how I made my first break into it. Poor proof reading on my part when posting.

[Magnum44]

[scrabblehack]

Mary Ann Evans, eventually Cross as I recall.

Are the letters chosen randomly? I forget.

There aren’t many words with the GEE pattern, and the chosen letters eliminate many of the stronger possibilities.

[gitmo]

1 Corinthians 4:1

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

In newspaper cryptograms, and here on Today's Cryptogram, we use what is known as a monoalphabetic substitution cipher, as you have already figured out. The substitution pattern is ALMOST random with the the restriction that no letter can represent itself. (This is considered a cryptological weakness, removing one degree of freedom.) There are 25! (25 x 24 x 23 x ... x2 x 1, more than 15 trillion-trillion) possible substitutions.

Julius Caesar used what is now known as a Caesar cipher in which b substituted for a, c for b, etc., with a for z. This has zero degrees of freedom and is actually just a privacy device, a person glancing at the message would not be able to decipher it. Ciphers in which letters are shifted circularly like this, but not necessarily one place, are called Caesar codes, and have a mere 25 possible patterns.