First of all, the pattern strongly suggests that it is made up of letters represented by two-digit codes. The apostrophe limits the values "37" to S,M, and D. The real key to solving this puzzle is to concentrate on "18281422361218", a seven letter word with 1st and last letters matching, and no other letters matching. This word occurs three times. It is preceded by "12", a single letter word. "12" is a vowel, so "18" must be a consonant. "18" is the first letter of the two letter word "1836". All the possible two letter words beginnning with a consonant are: be, by, do, go, me, my, no, so, to, we. All the possible one letter words are:
a,i. So we are looking for a seven letter word of this form:
no matching letters except for the 1st and 7th letters
1st letter = 7th letter = N,B,T,D,M,G,S or W
5th letter: O (if 1st letter = N,G,D,T,S)
5th letter = E or Y if 1st letter = B,M,or W.
6th letter = A or I
Now the puzzle becomes easy, due to the fact that there is ONLY ONE WORD like that in the English language: TUGBOAT. (You don't need a computer program to figure that out. All you need is a methodical approach, and one of the Internet "crossword puzzle guides" that list all the seven-letter words).
So we plug in: 18=T, 28=U, 14=G, 22=B, 36=O, 12=A. Then you just look at the result, make a succession of intelligent guesses, figure out the remaining substitutions, and (although this sure doen't sound like a "children's rhyme" to me...):
MISS SUSY HAD A TUGBOAT,
THE TUGBOAT HAD A BELL,
MISS SUSY WENT TO HEAVEN,
HER TUGBOAT WENT TO...
WELL, THAT'S ENOUGH SINGING FOR NOW..
Edited on December 3, 2003, 2:53 pm
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Posted by Penny
on 2003-12-03 07:16:03 |
FULL SOLUTION (No computer program used)
