Proverb Cryptograms

Every Proverb quote in the collection, encoded fresh for print. Each answer page carries the year and the source we verified the wording from.

Fifteen sayings with no author to credit, which is exactly why they are grouped separately. Some were first written down by Heywood in 1546, some come out of the Greek by way of Aesop around 400 BC, and some surface in print no earlier than the 1880s while plainly being older than that. Where the record is honest we print the earliest attestation we could verify rather than inventing a name for it.

Sayings are compressed on purpose, and compression removes the padding a solver leans on. There are fewer THEs, fewer of the long Latinate words whose shapes are unmistakable, and a much higher proportion of short blunt words that could be several things at once. On the other hand the phrasing is familiar, so a single correct word often lets you guess the whole line — the trick is then to verify it letter by letter rather than trusting the ear.

Good for a mixed group, because almost everybody recognises at least half of these once they have three or four letters. Also the set most likely to start an argument about where a saying actually came from, which the answer page settles.

This section: 15 quotations, written between 400 BC and 1900, 40 to 73 letters long, graded medium / hard / expert. Voices you will meet: Proverb.

The 3 sheets

• Set 1

  5 puzzles · Medium, Hard, Expert

• Set 2

  5 puzzles · Medium, Hard, Expert

• Set 3

  5 puzzles · Medium, Hard

Every sheet prints on US Letter with half-inch margins, gives you a blank line under each cipher letter, and keeps the answer key on its own page so nothing is spoiled while you work.