This puzzle is a cryptogram of some very famous text. Well …um …er …um …sort of …
Problems: In order to make the cryptogram somewhat more of a challenge, an extra encoded letter has been added to either the beginning or ending of 30 of the words. Also, there is no punctuation.
Mitigating Circumstances: The extra letters, when decoded, will spell out the author and source of the text. Additionally, the code letters representing A through H, in that order, will spell out a related work.
Can you figure out the text, author, source, and related work?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This evil cryptogram proves to be even more difficult than I had anticipated. Therefore, a hint may be in order. If you are interested in such a hint, please check the spoiler below.
Words 2, 16, 17, 23, 25, 30, and 36 consist of the following (though not necessarily in this order): 4 proper names, 1 proper adjective, a common slang word-- sometimes capitalized, but not included in the *Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary 2nd Edition *-- and finally another common slang term that is in the WNUUD2–but not as the slang term but instead as an obsolete word referring to certain parts of the body or as a tree
I think it might be the extra letters, randomly distributed onto the front or backend of most words. That makes it extremely difficult to apply ordinary techniques of finding common elements and statistical patterns. For example, “GKJ” is repeated three times, but it is impossible to know whether that is meaningful here, especially with “VJKT” being correct.
As another example, there seems to be only one way to decrypt “VMMVRKNRL”, but then you end up with the case of one letter being the same for both the encrypted and unencrypted text. So, unless you’re being extra diabolical, it has to be some nondictionary word.
There was a similar puzzle here once, but the technique of interspersing letters for a sub-puzzle was handled differently, and afforded a reasonably efficient means for isolating them. I worked on this one for several hours over three days, but eventually gave up. I looked at your hints this morning, but they aren’t really very meaningful unless you already know what they are.
OK. I’ll admit to this puzzle being ultra-sneaky—and maybe bordering on unfair. And yet…
I can say that the source for the puzzle is well known by, I surely hope, a vast majority of people here. (I am 100% certain that you know it, Libertarian!)
Source familiarity is usually not the case with a standard cryptogram where there is no reason to believe the solver has ever heard the unencrypted text before.
I can further tell you that:
No letter is represented by itself. All are substituted.
There are several more letters added to the end of words than the beginning—(19 to 11 by my count)—and extra letters never create a new word (unless it is some crossword puzzle type pseudo-word that I’ve never encountered).
It seems to me that if one can determine the letters that must be vowels, or perhaps stumble onto a word or two that allows a few other words to form and thereby, just perhaps, causes a lightbulb to go off as to what is really happening here…
I’m betting this will be solved eventually. While difficult…it is not impossible by any means. Well, we’ll see.
Finally, for anyone wanting a major near-giveaway hint, I will begrudgingly tell you that:
The letter combination VMMVRKNRL is a common word and does not contain an extra letter.
No need for additional magic with soup! If you have a bowl of soup, it is certainly word 11, and is possibly found on word 27, and is probably just the thing for you with a word 32!
I’m working with all the clues, including the ones in the spoiler boxes. There are some tantalizing leads, but it just won’t crack. For example, you can have wet soup on a tray for your toothache, which ends up producing Eeyore, but the rest is still gibberish.
I’m confident that we have enough information to solve this, but I’m still looking forward to another hint.
I wondered where you were. I only have a couple more days (word 4) and I can chalk up the second win in the Biotop column. Now if I can only learn to quit giving out hints!
[spoiler]To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
This was definitely one of the hardest puzzles I’ve seen. Ordinary solving techniques, such as making intelligent guesses from context, were useless. By the way, I forgot to give the author, so for the record:
