Ooh! What could it be which is well worth the money? A new rock-crusher, perhaps? Or something even more exciting?
The bargain spotlighted in tonight's diary was featured in a recent news story. Alas, it's something most folks here at Daily Kos wouldn't have been eligible for. But in case the opportunity does come up again, you can find out what it was by solving tonight's puzzles.
Welcome to Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up, a weekly series for people who enjoy light mental exercise spiced with politics, humor, and odd bits of trivia.
The theme of the warm-up puzzles in recent weeks has been good quotes. Last week's quote, solved by JoeXM, was: "The surest indicator that Hillary Clinton will not be the next President of the United States: Bill Kristol thinks she's going to win."
Here's tonight's quote:
Blather Milkthyler yemptieyn xtht clitpt etiu pubbnhym cuhn flyylist Etpu Whmq'yl ygttwdr. Yumipym blot an anhsnliu eu ft.
Of course, you'll need to decode it first if you want to read it. It's a Crypto-Gremlin (a kind of cryptogram which can't be solved by computer code-cracking programs but can be solved with human wits).
Tonight's diary includes:
- an explanation of how Crypto-Gremlins work,
- a step-by-step demonstration of how to solve a Crypto-Gremlin, and
- a new JulieCrostic (revealing the source of tonight's quote)
IMPORTANT NOTE: I'll be away, with no computer access, both tonight for the warm-up diary and tomorrow for the regular Sunday Puzzle diary.
I'll check comments when I get home Monday. But I don't think you folks will have too much trouble solving this weekend's puzzles without me. Have fun, and I'll see you next weekend.
Also, an EVEN MORE IMPORTANT NOTE: don't forget that next week pucklady will be hosting our monthly Potluck Puzzle Party! So if you've got a puzzle you'd like to share, KosMail it to pucklady before April 5th (or bring it along to post in a comment in the April 5th diary).
I: Instructions for solving Crypto-Gremlins
For anyone new to Sunday Puzzle, please note that the encoded quote is not a regular cryptogram; it's a Crypto-Gremlin. Crypto-Gremlins are a special kind of cryptogram. If you're not familiar with Crypto-Gremlins you can find a detailed explanation of how they work here.
(And you can find a handy tool to help you with letter substitutions here.)
II: Sunday Puzzle Workshop: how to solve a Crypto-Gremlin
Crypto-Gremlins may look complicated at first, but they're actually pretty easy to solve once you get the hang of them. Here's a step-by-step walk-through of how to solve last week's puzzle.
The coded text for last week quote was:
Los thustle tncknbyleum loylh Onaayum Banclecy inaas celh gs los csply Dustnkscle cews los Hcnlsky Tlylstm: Gnaae Runtlean loncrtm tos'ty zenczs le inch.
- 1. make a list of the word-ending letters. There are 6 word-ending letters in the message text: S, E, M, H, Y and N. These are the substitutions for the standard vowels a, e, i, o, u and y. We don't know yet which of these letters stands for which vowel, but we do now know which letters in the message text are vowels and which are consonants.
- 2: look for 3-letter words. The 3-letter word LOS appears three times.
LOS has the pattern consonant-consonant-vowel. That makes it highly likely that LOS is the. Plug in L=t, O=h, S=e.
- 3. Look at LOYLH. If LOS = the, then LOYLH = th-t-. That's almost certainly the word that (with an add-on vowel at the end). Plug in Y=a.
- 4. Now look at TLYLSTM, which has translated to -tate--. The only consonant which could precede the first t is s, making the word states (with an add-on vowel at the end). Plug in T=s.
Ah! TOS'TY translates to she'sa (she's with an add-on a) confirming that our guesses so far appear to be correct.
- 5. LE = t-. That could be a 1-letter word (a or I) with an add-on consonant; or it could be a genuine 2-letter word (to).
It can't be a, because the letter a is already taken. It can't be I, because it's not capitalized. So LE = to. Plug in E=o.
- 6. LOS HCNLSKY TLYLSTM looks like it's the United States. Plug in D=u, H=n, C=i, and K=i.
- 7. THUSTLE now translates to su_esto. That must be surest (with an add-on o). Plug in U=r.
- 8. What we have for the quotation now is: The suresto sindi-ator- thatu Hi--ar- --intona -i--e notu -e the ne-ta -residento no-e the -Uniteda states-: -i--o -risto-i thin-s- she'sa -oin-e to -inu.
It's easy to see that the quote begins: The surest indicator that Hillary Clinton will not be the next president of the United States... Plugging in B=c, A=l, I=w, G=b, P=s, D=p, and W=f, the entire quote becomes clear: we can now read the entire sentence:
Final translation: "The surest indicator that Hillary Clinton will not be the next president of the United States: Bill Kristol thinks she's going to win".
That's from a February 21st item at Mark Evanier's site NewsFromME, in which he linked to a Salon article commenting on the fact that a conservative pundit with a truly terrible track record is predicting Hillary Clinton's victory.
III: tonight's JulieCrostic
If you're familiar with how JulieCrostics work, you can jump right in; if you're new and don't yet know how JulieCrostics work, you can find complete instructions in the bottom part of the diary.
(Also if you're new, a request: please don't post any answers or other spoilers in comment subject lines. Instead, please put any guesses at possible answers into the comment itself. Thanks!)
Okay, I think that covers the basics. Tonight's puzzle has 7 rows, with 3 answers per row. Here are the clues. Have fun! I won't be able to be here tonight, but I'll check comments when I get home Monday -- and I'll be back with new warm-up puzzles next week.
1. well-known princess
2. expire
3. well-known senator
4. weird guy
5. well-known prince
6. molten rock
7. Limbaugh specialty
8. Chris Pratt, Daniel Craig, Kate Hudson, and Beyonce are all known for theirs
9. sacks
10. soldier
11. card game exclamation
12. acquire
13. doctor
14. apt description for many Republican house members and presidential contenders
15. kind of skirt
16. legendary continent
17. Australian bird
18. list of options
IV: instructions for solving JulieCrostics.
In JulieCrostics you are given a set of clues, such as these:
To solve the puzzle, figure out the answers to the clues and enter them into a grid of rows and columns, like so:
All the rows in the grid will be the same length (i.e. have the same number of answers). All the answers in a column will be the same length (i.e. have the same number of letters). And the words in each column are one letter longer than the words in the column to its left. That's because each word in a row has all the letters of the word before it plus one new letter.
For instance, if the clues for a row were
1. say what's not so
2. resting
3. concede
then the answers might be LIE, IDLE (= LIE + D), and YIELD (= IDLE + Y)
Write the added letter in the space between the word which doesn't have it and the word which does. For the row in the example you'd write:
1. LIE D 2. IDLE Y 3. YIELD
When you have solved all the clues and written down all the added letters, the added letters will form columns that spell out a message of some sort. It might be a person's name, it might be the title of a book, it might be a familiar phrase, or it might be a series of related words. Your challenge is to solve all the clues, fill in the vertical columns, and figure out what the vertical columns mean.
In the example given, the verticals read DAIL YKOS. With proper spacing and capitalization that spells out Daily Kos!