[Lonesome in Massachussets]

You can find this fun quotation puzzle, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications. I challenge us with the best ones out there.

The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram).

Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be intimidated, you’ll be solving them all within a few days. If you’re stumped, take a break and return to it.

PLEASE DO NOT post the answer in general comments, but DO post your time and how you made out.

You can certainly send your solution to my private reply, or if you need a hint for today’s Cryptogram ASK THE GROUP FOR HELP!

I suggest printing these out and work them on paper. If you need a little help you can copy and paste it to Hal’s Helper below.

You can then work on the puzzle without using pen and paper, but I recommend that you do NOT look at the letter counter.

HAL'S CRYPTOGRAM HELPER

One last request. Feel free to post a fun or clever clue, the more tangential to the quotation the better, but please don’t put the actual words of the quote in the clue.## ping list message

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

If you need a clue ask the group to send you a letter to your private reply.

4 minutes good
3 minutes excellent
2 minutes exceptional
90 seconds superior

[Magnum44]

[doorgunner69]

Totally swept under the rug

[SunkenCiv]

The only one of these I’ve ever done was pretty obvious at a glance (a Ford quote). Now I know why I usually skip these. Anyway, from reading one of those youth adventure books (back when I was a youth) it seemed like a good way in is to treat these like simple substitution ciphers, since that’s apparently what they are. :^)

https://tomshli.azurewebsites.net/Home/LetterFrequencyCounter

https://www3.nd.edu/~busiforc/handouts/cryptography/letterfrequencies.html

[SunkenCiv]

...to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers...

• Love bacon? Just one slice is all it takes to raise your risk of dementia [01/21/2025]
• Babylon Bee: Elderly Dementia Patient Cruelly Evicted From Home [01/20/2025]

[ComputerGuy]

It’s been a good first week. Here’s hoping.

[FrankRizzo890]

Just for S & G’s I sent it to Google’s Gemini AI, and it explained how I could solve it myself.

I sent it to Microsoft’s Copilot, and it spit out an answer in 2 seconds.

I haven’t tried the rest.

YES, I know this is for PEOPLE to do to potentially ward off early stage dementia. I just wanted to see how AI would do at it.

[manna]

Thanks.

[TheLooseThread]

When evaluating how fast you solved this, just remember that it is all relative.