A cryptogram is a quote with every letter swapped for another, consistently. The solver's job is to work out the substitution. It is one of the most satisfying puzzle types there is — and one of the easiest to make impossible without noticing.
How a solver gets in
Nobody starts a cryptogram by guessing letters at random. They look for structure:
- Single-letter words. In English there are two — A and I — so any one-letter word is immediately half solved.
- Apostrophes. A letter after an apostrophe is almost always S, T or a two-letter ending like RE or LL.
- Three-letter words that repeat. THE is the most common word in English by a wide margin, and it will usually be the repeated three-letter pattern.
- Doubled letters. LL, EE, SS, OO and TT cover most cases.
- Word lengths and shapes. A seven-letter word with a repeated first and fifth letter narrows very fast.
Every one of those is structure. A quote that supplies none of them is not a hard cryptogram, it is a slog.
What makes a good quote
The best ones are ordinary English with plenty of small words. That sounds anticlimactic, but small words are the foothold.
| Quality | Good | Bad |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 40–90 characters | Under 30 — nothing repeats |
| Vocabulary | Everyday words | Technical or archaic terms |
| Structure | Several short words, an apostrophe | One long compound phrase |
| Names | None, or one familiar | Several proper nouns |
Proper nouns are the most common mistake. A name follows no spelling pattern the solver can use, so it turns from a clue into a dead zone — and the solver usually only cracks it after everything else is done, which is backwards.
Very short quotes fail for the opposite reason: with under thirty characters, no letter appears often enough to reveal itself by frequency, and there is nothing to cross-check against.
How many letters to give away
Revealing a couple of letters at the start of a cryptogram is not a concession, it is the on-ramp. Two is usually right for a general audience — enough to start, not enough to unravel it.
Which letters matter more than how many. Revealing E and T, the two most common letters in English, opens the puzzle up considerably. Revealing Q and Z is technically two letters and helps nobody.
For a first-time solver, reveal the letter that appears most often in the quote. They will spot the pattern within a line or two and the puzzle teaches itself.
Printing them
Two things every printed cryptogram needs and half of them lack: a visible line under each blank, so there is somewhere to write, and the coded letter printed small beneath it, so the solver can find every other occurrence of that letter.
Keep whole words on one line. A word split across a line break loses its shape, and shape is most of what the solver is working from.