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How to Decipher Cryptograms

A cryptogram is a kind of puzzle that uses a code to encrypt a piece of text. Usually the code is a simple substitution cipher that exchanges one letter of the alphabet for another. In order to solve the puzzle, it is necessary to work out the substitutions that were used.

Most cryptograms retain the spaces between the words in the original message, and many also keep the punctuation. Therefore, with a little thought, it is simple to find the first few words. Once this is done, the rest of the words are usually easy to figure out.

Things You'll Need

Pencil and paper

Instructions

- 1
  There are three secrets to solving a cryptogram. First, keep in mind that any short words you find in the encrypted text are likely to be "and," "the," "a," "I." Also, an apostrophe followed by one or two letters usually will be contractions, such as "can't," "won't," "don't," "I'm," "I'll," "he'll," "she'll," and "it's."
  
  The second secret is to know the most frequently used letters. In English, E is the most common letter, followed closely by T, A, and O. Many people find the nonsense phrase "ETAOIN SHRDLU" useful for remembering these letters. The phrase's letters correspond fairly closely to the frequency of letters in the language.
  
  Third, become familiar with how words are constructed; this will help you to notice where vowels and consonants typically are placed in words.
- 2
  As an example, we will use the following cryptogram. The solution is a famous quote. The cipher text will be in upper-case, and letters we have found will be in lower-case.
  
  E PWTWJ GWA Q GQP E IEIP'A UEXW.
  
  A good place to start here is with the one-letter words E and Q, since these are almost certainly "a" and "i." Taking E to mean "i" and Q to mean "a," since there is a 50% chance of being correct, and also replacing the other E's and Q's in the puzzle, we have the following:
  
  i _____ ___ a _a_ i _i__'_ _i__.
- 3
  Note the next-to-last word, with the apostrophe at the end. This is clearly a contraction. We already know the second letter is "i," and the most common contraction that fits this pattern is "didn't." We can therefore replace those letters in the rest of the puzzle to get:
  
  i n____ __t a _an i didn't _i__.
- 4
  Notice how many W's there are in the text. Also, one of them comes after the "n" in the second word. This means that W most likely represents a vowel. Since we have already decided that Q represents "a," we can guess that W represents "e."
  
  i ne_e_ _et a _an i didn't _i_e.
- 5
  Observe the G's that would complete the phrase "_et a _an." There are several consonants that would complete these words, but not all of them yield meaningful phrases. A likely possibility is "m," as in "met a man." Substituting this into the text gives:
  
  i ne_e_ met a man i didn't _i_e.
- 6
  At this point, most people should recognize the solution, which is a famous quote from the humorist Will Rogers:
  
  "I never met a man I didn't like."
  
  If the quote were unfamiliar, it would still be fairly easy to deduce the words "never" and "like," using the techniques discussed above.

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