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Re: I am a five letter word namely 1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you

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When I rejoined rec.puzzles ten months ago, I posted a puzzle with
hints given NOT via rot13 but via skip ciphers.  Skip ciphers are a nifty
way to embed secrets in ordinary text; they were in common use 420 years
ago during the Golden Age of the London theater.

Here's a simple example with a secret word ("CHAIR") embedded in text using
a skip-4 cipher:

|||   backs the team which tries.
|||     *-- -*- --*- --*-- -*
|||     C    H    A    I    R

I think (but ain't sure) that two rec.puzzlers MIGHT have solved  one of
skip ciphers.  But I'm doubtful:  The thread "Famous half-siblings" was
never solved in its entirety and NEITHER of the hints (presented using
skip ciphers) was decoded.  <disappointed>

I had a very specific reason for hoping that skip ciphers would be of interest:
There is a VERY famous Dedication to a VERY famous book of poems which
apparently presents "secrets" in skip cipher.  The clear-text of the dedication
and its formatting are rather mysterious but this text contains:
(1) a three-digit code which describes the (deceased) poet's name;
(2) a skip-word code, using those same three digits as the progressive
   skip counts, which confirms that that poet did write all the poems;
(3) the 11-letter surname of "Mr. W.H.", the dedicatee using another skip code;
(4) the 5-letter given name of that dedicatee.

I asked rec.puzzlers whether these messages were deliberate, or just the
sort of coincidental matches one might find by chance if one looks hard
enough.  One can use ordinary probability estimations to guess at this.

Neither the skip codes, nor the authorship mystery attracted any attention.
and I lost interest before summarizing the puzzle or a probabilistic approach.

"gerson" <gerson@bigpond.net.au> posted: 
> 
> > "James Dow Allen"  wrote in message 
> > news:1755486095-4353@newsgrouper.org...
> 
> > >
> > > I am a five letter word namely
> > >                  ---------   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you
> > >
> > > If you put out 1, it's above you
> > > If you put out 1 and 2, it's around you
> > > What am I?
> 
> > (A smart gambler) backs the team which tries.
> 
> I suppose this is a cryptic hint, a clue -
> I know the answer, but I don't get the hint

Sometimes I think I have a mild form of anterograde amnesia (cf. *Memento*)
and it a while for me to believe I'd even posted this ten months ago!

But then I did fid the answer to gerson's question:

backs the team which tries.
  *-- -*- --*- --*-- -*
  C    H    A    I    R

(Is this the answer you got, gerson?  It wouldn't surprise me if there
were an alternative solution.)

Cheers, J
 

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I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you HenHanna@NewsGrouper <user4055@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2025-08-18 00:10 +0000
  Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you HenHanna@NewsGrouper <user4055@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2025-08-18 01:42 +0000
  Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you James Dow Allen <user4353@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2025-08-18 03:01 +0000
    Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you "gerson" <gerson@bigpond.net.au> - 2026-06-08 17:32 +1000
      Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you James Dow Allen <user4353@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2026-06-09 09:57 +0000
        Re: I am a five letter word namely 1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-06-09 10:22 +0000
        Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you "gerson" <gerson@bigpond.net.au> - 2026-06-10 10:00 +1000
          Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you "gerson" <gerson@bigpond.net.au> - 2026-06-12 17:17 +1000
        Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you David Entwistle <qnivq.ragjvfgyr@ogvagrearg.pbz> - 2026-06-10 03:23 +0000
      Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you David Entwistle <qnivq.ragjvfgyr@ogvagrearg.pbz> - 2026-06-13 10:02 +0000
        Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you James Dow Allen <user4353@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2026-06-13 18:06 +0000
  Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you James Dow Allen <user4353@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2026-06-14 10:53 +0000
    Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you David Entwistle <qnivq.ragjvfgyr@ogvagrearg.pbz> - 2026-06-14 11:30 +0000
      Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you James Dow Allen <user4353@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2026-06-14 15:44 +0000
    Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you David Entwistle <qnivq.ragjvfgyr@ogvagrearg.pbz> - 2026-06-18 07:59 +0000
      Re: I am a five letter word namely   1 2 3 4 5 ... which is under you James Dow Allen <user4353@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2026-06-19 10:54 +0000

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