"Go," said the gorilla. "no," said the Octopus

If the message above contains a code that reads, "Go," what is the secret message below?

in an igloo saT leaf. He said "i want make bIgger opening, big like van." So he asked sIx elves to help him. "we will help if you give uS tea to driNk and hats tO keep warm." "okay" said the eskimo. as he Traveled, he met a cat. "gIve me an apple" she said. "why? don'T you eat rats?" he asked. "no," she hissed. "dogs do." to make up for This, he invited heR to staY in his igloo thAt niGht and bought her ten Apples. leaf left and walked away Into the suNset.

(In reply to re(3): I agree completely with Mark by pcbouhid)

It is unfortunate that English, when written correctly, allows the discrepancy that you point out.  I agree with you that given the meaning of the instructions of the puzzle that MathManiac did not write something more like:

If the message above contains a code that reads, "GO" (ignoring the quotation marks,) what is the secret message below?

Again we find the strange behavior of sticking the comma inside the paranthesis, but that's just the way English has evolved to this point.


As with many riddles on this site, many cryptography puzzles can be interpretted differently (as this puzzle demonstrates so well) while still providing possibly valid answers, just not the single intended answer.  I guess we'll have to wait for MathManiac to return to the site to clarify the intended solution.

Posted by Erik O. on 2005-05-26 16:50:33