CipherdayThe rule
Pick a code: say every A becomes Q, every B becomes W, and so on through the alphabet, with no letter left as itself. Write a quote in that code, keeping the spaces and punctuation. Solving it means working the code backward. It is the same puzzle newspapers have run for decades, sometimes called a cryptoquote, and puzzle solvers call it an aristocrat.
An example from puzzle 1
In puzzle 1, NSOVO is the first word and NSLM comes later. Both start with the same two code letters. If those are TH, the two words could be THERE and THAN, and you have six letters. That is the whole method: guess a word, place its letters, and see if the rest still reads.
Where it comes from
Letter-swap codes are ancient, but the puzzle owes a lot to Edgar Allan Poe, who challenged magazine readers to send him ciphers in 1839 and 1840 and made one the heart of his 1843 story "The Gold-Bug". Puzzle 3 is a line from that story.
Questions people ask
Is a cryptogram the same as a cryptoquote?
Yes, in practice. A cryptoquote is a cryptogram whose answer is a quotation, which is what every puzzle here is.
Is a cryptogram hard?
Short, famous quotes are easy once you know to start with one-letter words and THE. Long or unfamiliar ones take longer.
What does cryptogram mean?
From the Greek for "hidden writing": a message written in a code.
Where can I play one every day?
On the home page: a new famous quote every day at midnight, your time, free.