Cryptoquotes

[iago]

I had a thread on cryptoquotes somewhere, but somehow it's gotten lost and I can't find it (:-o!), so I'm going to start a new one. 

Online cryptoquotes -- I was doing the daily one for awhile, but I got bored with doing them online.  Nothing but pencil+paper for me!  Now I do the daily one in the newspaper and I bought a book. 

In the book, I went straight to the "expert" section.  I've finished about 13/20 of them, and I'm doing them in order. 

Just for fun, here's two of the harder ones that I can't believe I got (and I got them without help from people, computers, or dictionaries):

1 [answer]

AJPNYBXK JLMX DIBX KXXY IR
DIYXNC EJLK IR ABPEPAC.
 - QICXWJ QIHTXBE

2 [answer]

ZYPNCNGE RYEA RFZ JFNC
JSLFE YQ ZYSEG CFEUFKNASYZ.
 - HNRFE ATXKIFK

And here's another one that's also in the experts section, but it's not so hard.  Plus, it's an awesome quote.  Note the third word.. it's probably the most famous word in cryptoquotes. 
3 [answer]

XPP WTD VTPVET XOZEL
ZAGTORXJAG J NPPG RJAGDCBM.
 - YJHTR QTJOG

<edit> hmm! *moves to riddle forum*

[Sidoh]

Haha, sandwich.  I'm pretty bad at solving these sorts of puzzles.  Any tips?

[iago]

Well, first of all, don't start with the hard ones. 

My favorite thing to do is substitute "the" for each 3 letter word until one of them works.  Plus, the classic patterns:

A = A or I
ABB = ALL or OFF
ABCDC = WHERE or THERE
ABCB = HERE
ABC'D = __N'T
ABAC'D = DIDN'T
ABCADB = PEOPLE

I find that just by starting off with those simple ones, you can get most cryptoquotes.  If none of those are there, then it gets tricky. 

*** SPOILERS COMING UP ***



The first one I posted, I have no idea how I got started.  I stared at it for at least a total of 2-3 hours.  I tried substituting stuff for KXXY and IR but that got me nowhere.  I concluded with like 99% sureness that X was E, so I drew that in darkly.  Then I looked at the two 4-letter words in the top line.  After enough time, I actually realized that they were "HAVE MORE".  I don't know how, it was a moment of clarity.  From there, it was easy. 


The second one I posted, I guess that YQ was OF and filled it in.  From there, I had RYEA RFZ -> ?O?? .  Then in another moment of clarity I got "MOST MEN".  Again, this was after a ton of staring.  After that, it fell into place.

On the third one I posted, I instantly recognized "PEOPLE".  Once that was filled in, I had _OO.  That was obviously TOO.  TOO _E_ PEOPLE was pretty obvious, and everything else fell into place. 


The reason I love doing these so much is getting the really tricky ones.  I'll usually spend my whole bus ride staring at a tough one, or lie in bed going over things in my mind.  When I get them, it feels so friggin' good! 

Another structure I was stuck on was:

ABC DEC CFG.  Basically, __C __C C__.  I spent hours with that running through my mind.  That was the only lead in the puzzle, the rest was tough.  Eventually, I write "THE" in the last one,  So I had, __T __T THE.  After much pondering, I got "BUT NOT THE", and sure enough it was right. 

[Sidoh]

Ah, nice little tricks!

[iago]

Here's my path, beginning to end, of an easier one:
http://www.javaop.com/~iago/crypto4.txt

I did it from beginning to end just now, for the purposes of demonstration.  I was actually stuck at one step, the one where I eventually realized I had forgotten the T in DO NOT.  But besides that, I only made one mistake, my first move.  The only reason I included it was so you could see my mental process. 

If you want to have some fun, here's another non-expert one that I've done (I can post the answer):

NGK OATENJL'V EZKJ DQ
GKRR EV J ORJSK YGKTK
KHKTMPDZM GJV ND IELZ GEV
DYL PAVELKVV. 
 - YKLZKRR OGERREOV

There are a few places where you can start here.  I actually forget where I started. 

Good luck!

[Ergot]

Hey! I actually got one, a pretty good one too. I didn't feel like typing out the jibberish.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

I started with doing "I" then doing "It is" and the only single letter words I know are "I" and "a" and since "I" is taken i did "a" the rest was just filled in.

[iago]

Yeah, I missed that one.  AB AC is usually IT IS.  I wrote out a list of all 2-letter words on a piece of paper, and it has yet to help me.  But maybe one day..!