Vowels and vowel combinations can have different sounds depending on the word. Room and wood both have a double o but sound different. Read and read sound different depending on the verb tense. Who cares, right? Consider this. Take the word friend. The ie has a short e sound. Drop the r, and you have fiend with a long e sound. Drop the i and you have fend, back to a short e sound.
Think of a word with a vowel combination. Drop a letter to get a word with a different vowel sound. Drop another letter to get a word with the first vowel sound. Finally, drop one more letter to get a word with the second vowel sound. The vowel sound pattern should be ABAB. What words are these?
Photo courtesy of
A:
"Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub...the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker...
The baker pondered how much flour
One cup, two, three maybe four.
Too thin, too thick, the batter for our
Cake 't would be either or.
I've thought of one correct solution, but I see no correlation with "Rub-a-dub-dub", or bathtubs.
ReplyDeleteMy solution starts as a 5-letter word; drop a consonant and the new word has a second vowel sound; now drop one of its vowels to get the 1st vowel sound; and finally drop the final consonant to get the 2nd vowel sound again.
There might be a correlation with the 2nd word, but even that is pretty weak.
I'm sure you have a different solution. Feel free to post it if you want. Or leave a clue.
DeleteOk, here it is, ROT13'd for those who'd not like it spoiled yet:
Deleteoernq --> ornq --> orq --> or
Fbzr crbcyr yvxr gb gnxr onguf jvgu "ongu ornqf". Gung'f gur bayl pbaarpgvba V pbhyq svaq gb ongugho.
Not my intended answer but you don't know how close you are. The title (directly) and the image (artistic license) do indeed correlate to the solution, yours and mine.
DeleteVf gur cbvag bs gur gvgyr gung gur svefg yrggref bs rnpu flyynoyr gur yrggref gb qebc va beqre? (e,n,q?)
DeleteThe point of the title is that it's a title.
DeleteI have a solution that matches E&WAf's pattern(thanks for the insight, E&WAf), but I see pretty strong connections to the title at the first and last words, and a possible connection with the third word(especially for John Lennon).
ReplyDeleteCt gvehy hwpayvwz ouh ysr hucr uh R&OUg'h.
ReplyDeleteV zwo suir uzwysre; ysrer cut dr cwer.
V muz'y drpvrir twa vzyrzbrb uireufr fath, Ywc, yw bvivzr twae vzhlveuyvwz.
Or maybe I can.
DeleteOk, I'm stumped trying to find the key to your Vigenere Cipher. What I have figured out is that if
DeleteR&OUg'h is supposed to decode into E&WAf's, then the key must contain "NSUBP"; albeit possibly through wrap-around. ("Subpeon" decodes your post still into garbage, but with "E&WAf's" produced.) Also, if your reply "Or maybe I can" means that your post contains "I can't", then the key must contain "NKUMF".
It's not Vigenere this time.
DeleteOk, so what cipher is it this time, and what was the problem with simple ROT13?
DeleteThe whole point was to simply provide a way to post what we think is the answer and allow Tommy Boy to respond without spoiling it for those who don't want it spoiled yet.
I see no problem with using Vigenere Cipher for Blaine's Puzzle blog in which the puzzle answer is needed to use as the key, but why do we need even THAT, HERE!!??
As for this new cipher of yours, have you got a free website that can decode with it; the equivalent of Sharky's Vigenere Cipher for Vigenere Ciphers?
It's a simple cryptogram such as you might find in a newspaper; in fact, it's even simpler, since I added a constraint not usually found in newspaper cryptograms.
ReplyDeleteE&WAf, E&WAf is the key. The restriction Paul refers to is E=R, R=E, W=O, O=W, etc.
DeleteAs for you, Paul, anyone who posts as rpwdarzypt as you is far from uireufr.
Please ignore/excuse my use of 'reflexive property' below. I think I need to consult a dictionary. Tommy's description of my restriction is correct. Eloquence is as eloquence does.
DeleteIn addition to the portions of the cryptogram E&WAf has already discerned, there is 'intended average guys, Tom', which points to MEANT/MEAN/MEN/ME(the pronoun the person addressed would use). The added constraint imposed on the letter substitution is that it has the same reflexive property as ROT13.
ReplyDeleteThe John Lennon song I was thinking of has not only a bed/bath connection, but beyond that a connection to one of the examples in the original statement of the puzzle.
That's good, isn't it?
I had hopes of finding a solution in the thorough/through/though/trough(the use to which those tubs in the field seem to have been put)/tough/rough quagmire, but did not. I did not intend my use of 'rough' to be insulting; if it was, I apologize.
I also liked: paté(or maté)/ate/at/a, but it contains no combined vowels, and I'm not all that sure about the pronunciation of the foreign words.