Denise Sutherland

Cryptography offers you the chance to solve all kinds of puzzles. Use basic solving techniques to crack substitution ciphers, including the Freemason’s cipher. Encode your own messages, decode incoming communications, and have fun trying to figure out conspiracies, codes, and cryptograms!Cryptography 101: Basic solving techniques for substitution ciphersIt doesn’t matter whether a cryptogram presents you with letters, numbers, arcane symbols, lines and dots, or weird alien squiggles — if you’re asked to replace each letter in the alphabet with another symbol, you’re dealing with a simple substitution cipher.

These five cryptograms are all letter substitution ciphers, at an Easy level. Each letter of the alphabet is substituted by another letter, and no letter is encrypted as itself.To start out on these puzzles, look for the most frequent letter in each cryptogram — you’ll find it’s almost always E. Single-letter words will be A or I.

People love to do puzzles of all kinds, but cryptic crosswords are often seen as a challenging form of entertainment — delight may be rare to anyone new to cryptics! This cheat sheet covers the basics of how to start on a cryptic crossword grid, and you’ll also find some handy reference lists and explanations to spotting certain clue devices.

While they do look completely incomprehensible at first glance, cryptic clues are actually written along strict guidelines. The majority of clues in a cryptic crossword adhere to these standards: Every cryptic clue includes a straight definition of the answer, just like in a ‘regular’ crossword. Astonishing, but true!

Here are some basic abbreviations that are very useful to have by your side when cracking cryptic clues! The list is concise and only focuses on the harder abbreviations. Straightforward abbreviations and simple foreign words have been omitted from this list. 10 = X 100 = C 1,000 = M 5 = V 50 = L a follower = B about = C, CE, RE against = V (versus) alien = ET American soldier = GI ancient city = UR ancient times = BC Anglo-Saxon = AS Arabic = AR artist = RA (Royal Academy) Asian = E (Eastern) at home = IN bishop = B (chess) Bond’s boss = M book = B bridge player = N, S, E, W British = B, BR Capone = AL carbon copy = CC castle = R (rook) chapter = C or CH chief = CH Church of England = CE civil engineer = CE cross = X club/s = C (cards) Common Era = CE Cyprus = CY daughter = D degree = D, BA, MA diamond/s = D (cards) Diana = DI direction = N, S, E,W doctor = DR, MB, MD, MO dram = DR duck = O (cricketing) Elizabeth = E English = E exercise = PT or PE exist = BE fine = F (pencil), OK first = IST (1st) first class = AI (A1) fish = LING, EEL, COD etc.

Indicator words are vital words that are found in many (but not all) cryptic clues for crosswords. These are words that indicate the type of wordplay being used, so they’re giving you a sort of coded message about what to do to get to the answer.The main clue devices that should always use indicator words are anagrams, containers, hidden words, reversals, deletions and homophones.

Freemasons have used ciphers since at least the 18th century. The Freemason’s Cipher is sometimes called the Pigpen Cipher, because the alphabet is written into a grid of lines, which may look like pigpens, and a cross shape from two diagonal lines. A letter is enciphered by drawing the shape of the cell that encompasses it.