Against my will, I noticed that l and y are a ROT-13 pair, which makes spotting adverbs in encrypted text remarkably intuitive. Or perhaps I should say, erznexnoyl vaghvgvir.

Tang gnats! Kind of like meal worms, maybe?

TNH once posted the list of letter-pairs for Rot-13. I briefly considered memorizing them, so that I could be able to read it on the fly - but I talked myself out of it when I realized that

a) learning the Rot-13 alphabet would involve a non-negligible amount of work; and
b) learning to read Rot-13 completely defeats the point of there being Rot-13.

All might be explained here.

Or not.

The FAQ is full of all sorts of hfrshy info. For instance:

"Official insecticide is nitrogen tri-iodide, though you can't really spray your plants with it as it deals with insects by blowing them to pieces."

irk / vex is definitely the prize - I found no other word which was its own synonym. Tang / gnat comes close as the only palindrome of note. I didn't spot nowhere / abjurer though.

The big question is what to call them? I thought 'triskadekagram' sounded promising, but lack the Latin or Greek background to manufacture authentic double barrelled words.

Goodness. As a resident of said Shed, and long-time lurker here, I suppose I should say hello at this point. "Hello".

And, yes, indeed there are. Another one that crops up from time to time is the ROT that's an anagram of its unROTted self :- bought<=>obhtug. We don't have a word for that either.

As an illustration of the basic point that some things are just plain improved by a good ROT, I offer our once-Great Leader, Onebarff Gungpure.

I believe some web-browsers have plugins to do this with, but I don't have details - I don't think I've met rot13 on the web before, since I use a Proper Newsreader for newsgroups. This also explains why I tend to only lurk on web-comments; this stuff is just so _clumsy_ by comparison.

My life was never so happy as when I found that the ROT-13 for Honor (as in Honor Harrington) is Ubabe.

Neither of these is easy; I offer it as a challenge to the many (or several, if I'm feeling more arrogant) people here who are smarter than I am.

#8 Dave Bell: from the Shed FAQ: "...has an inimitable prose style which set the tone for the newsgroup."

*snrk* Sounds like a fun place.

Some of my kinkier friends (the ones with dungeons in their basements) would doubtless be pleased to hear that the uk.rec.sheds FAQ confers upon "properly arranged cellars" the status of near equivalence to sheds.

Simple and convenient is, open $texteditor, and type 2 lines, A-M and N-Z; and you just have to look up or down. If you really want to get serious, print this out, tear off and stick on a corner of your screen

It replaces selected text with the transformed text without reloading the page, which I think is clever though I'm not at all sure how that's managed.

what⇔Jung

I like it!

rot13 </usr/share/dict/words |tr A-Z\' a-z|xargs -i egrep ^{}$ /usr/share/dict/words;

with, of course, alias rot13="tr A-Za-z N-ZA-Mn-za-m"

When I tried this the best I could come up with was "What if one errs" = "Jung vs bar reef". Various attempts at irking an onyx ant or putting Carl Jung up against abba envy lead me nowhere.

Basically I don't think there are enough pairs of real words. If you give up on that and try to make nonsense words that sound pronounceably silly you can have some fun with names and insults.

I hadn't seen Richard Robinson's "Onebarff Gungpure" at #10 but it's great. Now I'm at it, Bibi Netanyahu is Ovov Argnalnuh which is ok.

rot13 is good for sounding rude
cunt=phag
shag=funt
frking=sexvat
The laxative fybogel=slobtry

I think you could produce something that's readable as an English sentence both ways if you relax the conditions to allow phonetic misspellings and the like, but I never did that because writing the smart word searcher sounded like work.

(Since all single-letters are listed as "words" trivial one-letter matches omitted.)

12 2-letter pairings
ab no
ah nu
ah nu
an na
ar ne
ba on
be or
bu oh
bu oh
en ra
er re
fu sh
ha un
he ur
la yn

60 3-letter pairings
aba non
abe nor
abo nob
aha nun
aho nub
ana nan
ana nan
ana nan
ana nan
ann naa
ann naa
ant nag
arc nep
arc nep
arn nea
aro neb
avo nib
ban ona
ban ona
ban ona
ban ona
bar one
beg ort
bel ory
bel ory
ben ora
ben ora
ber ore
bes orf
bin ova
bin ova
bor obe
bub oho
cha pun
che pur
cho pub
cub pho
erg ret
err ree
err ree
ers ref
fra sen
fub sho
fun sha
fur she
fur she
gel try
gen tra
gra ten
grr tee
gul thy
gun tha
gur the
han una
hen ura
her ure
hin uva
ing vat
ing vat
irk vex

51 4-letter pairings
abba noon
anan nana
anan nana
anil navy
arba neon
avar nine
balk onyx
bana onan
bare oner
bare oner
bean orna
birl ovey
chab puno
chal puny
chat pung
chee purr
crag pent
crax penk
crea pern
crex perk
cuba phon
cuvy phil
envy rail
erne rear
fant snag
faro sneb
flap sync
funt shag
gent trag
genu trah
gers tref
ghan tuna
ghat tung
ghee turr
glee tyrr
gnar tane
gnat tang
gnat tang
grat teng
guna than
gunj thaw
gurl they
gurr thee
hern urea
iraq vend
iraq vend
ivan vina
ivin viva
june whar
june whar
jura when

10 5 -letter pairings
brava oenin
cheer purre
clerk pyrex
clerk pyrex
creel perry
dhoon qubba
erava renin
freen serra
freir serve
fubby shool

3 6-letter pairings
becuna orphan
cheery purrel
greeny terral

2 7-letter pairings
abjurer nowhere
chechen purpura

http://www.ioccc.org/1989/westley.c
with partial explanation at
http://www.ioccc.org/1989/westley.hint

For a more efficient version as a shell pipeline, try instead
rot13 < /usr/share/dict/words | sort | comm -12 - /usr/share/dict/words

(OK, that bypasses the lowercasing, as rot13 actually appears as a built-in on this system, as an alias to the "caesar" cipher program.)

To get lowercasing and omit the appearance of individual letters without getting too convoluted, I first switched it to:

cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -v '^.$' | tr 'A-Za-z' 'n-za-mn-za-m' | sort | comm -12 - /usr/share/dict/words

which has a subtle bug and thence ultimately to:

tr 'A-Z' 'a-z' lcwords
cat lcwords | rot13 | sort | comm -12 - lcwords

This just prints the words that have a rot13 double; it doesn't pair them up.

I do know of people reading news on (x)emacs, so I assume there's a similar feature to be found somewhere there...

If I said that 'trn' uses whatever you specify in $VISUAL (which at least on some systems defaults to 'vi'), would I be showing how long it is since I last used Usenet?

Back on topic:

I considered doing something similar to this a couple of days ago, when all the rot13 poetry started turning up. But I wouldn't have been looking for pairs where both sides were intelligible words: I'd have been looking for pairs where one side was a word and the other was pronouncable (by at least some set of rules). And then I'd fuzzily build a rhyming dictionary from them. So you could write poetry that scans & rhymes in rot13 and makes sense in English. :)

terra gnat ova - one bar

green tang bin - bar one

The first, of course, is full of insect eggs and needs to be kept at atmospheric pressure.

The second is obviously part of a storage system for a green powdered drink.

grep '..' /usr/share/dict/words|rot13|sort - /usr/share/dict/words|uniq -d

I do know of people reading news on (x)emacs, so I assume there's a similar feature to be found somewhere there...

By definition, any feature you can describe is in emacs, and a (subtly incompatible) version is in xemacs.

It's not widely known, but it was a brief introduction to emacs that inspired Borges to write "The Library of Babel".

Yes. In this case, it is called by typing the following arcane command sequence: M-x rot13-other-window (that's "meta-x").

T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang emanating, is sad. I'd assign it a name: gnat dirt upset on drab pot toilet.

Heh.

I figured geeky people would want to figure that out for themselves. But since you ask, I'll warn the others:

Don't look at the following if you want the fun of working it out for yourself!

Pbafvqre n pvcure gung gnxrf "cnyva" gb "xmbez". Vs lbh ybbx ng gur yrggre cnvef, lbh zvtug svther bhg gur fvzcyrfg bar. Lbh pbhyq draw a diagram vs vg qbrfa'g yrnc bhg ng lbh. Gura nccyl vg gb "jvmneq" naq frr jung lbh trg.

Hkruub!

1) Tense. Past tense is a problem because of d⇔q. Q is a totally dead letter in ROT-13, because u⇔h, and dh+(r,n,b,h,v) never occurs in English. You have to stick entirely to verbs with irregular past tenses. Future tense is out, because 'll⇔'yy, and, well, try putting consecutive y's in a sentence. Present tense is also a hassle because of:

2) Conjugation. s⇔f is a tricky bastard because they both have limited placement, and they're hard to avoid--typically, either you've got plurals, or you are dealing with an s at the end of the verb. S-less plurals are to be treasured.

The best I've managed so far: "Terra! Oh, your very sun--gone!"⇔"Green bulb heir elf hat bar."

Right now, I think it might be easier to make an English sentence that ROT-13s into a sentence in a different language--specifically, Welsh.

one of⇔ barbs
oh you babe⇔ bulb honor

R gsrmp gsv yvhg mznv uli gsv xrksvi rh "lnvtzkh".

Which juxtaposition makes me wonder if perhaps rot-13 could have been used as a euphemism in that recent kerfuffle where the girls said the word that they were told not to use.

The Intvan Monologues

Sheol ⇔ Furby

English, no, but I just grepped my words file, and turned up:

Andhra
Dhritarashtra
Hadhramautian
Madhva

There are probably more.

The first word I tried when I noticed the dh thing was 'Ghandhi.' I thought it was concievable that there were some workable words down that path, but it seemed like borrowing trouble. Same with m⇔z: maybe I could get it to work (zany!) but why try when e⇔r and a⇔n were giving me trouble enough?

Best I could come up with is

ONE     BAR
NUN =>  AHA
ENO     RAB

Which sounds like an ambient music composer's relative in Holy Orders transformed into the discovery of one Mr Nesbitt in his habitual environment.

-----
* You know, the one where all creation is the tube of the Great Wave.

SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS

SEMES

EDILE

MINIM

ELIDE

SEMES

I hadn't thought of a "four-way" word square, in which we don't require a palindrome, only that the square be made up of words in all four rotations. There should more of them.

yb szmw

alias revcode='tr A-Za-z ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBAzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba'

With the necessary adjustments to cope with the ASCII ranges of uppercase and lowercase letters, it is a trivial matter to modify the Rot-13 Javascript which was posted above, and produce a revcode equivalent:

javascript:inText=window.getSelection()+'';if(inText==''){void(inText=prompt('Phrase...',''))};if(!inText)%7BoutText='No%20text%20selected'%7Delse%7BoutText='';for(i=0;i%3CinText.length;i++)%7Bt=inText.charCodeAt(i);if((t%3E64&&t%3C91))%7Bt=155-t%7Delse%7Bif((t%3E96&&t%3C123))%7Bt=219-t%7D%7DoutText+=String.fromCharCode(t)%7D%7Dalert(outText)

I probably could also submit patch diffs to the Leetkey maintainer, come to think of it.

For I have the POWER of teh 1337 c0ding skillz0r!

I can totally type in 1337 though, and I own a black leather jacket. I've even got this totally sweet pseudonym! Can I be a badass haX0r anyways?

How about a compromise: call it something that makes it a little more clear how it works, perhaps "zaxb". Or maybe "zaxbyc" or "zaxbycwd".

"Zaxbycwd" looks like a bizarre combination of Czech and Welsh, which particularly amuses.

I didn't invent the cipher, just the name I use for it, and I'm sure other names have been and will be used. I'm not even the person who discovered the property of "wizard" (and I don't recall where I heard it), though I did invent the name "kzormdrome" for what it is. If granted, my wish for user-generated ciphers added to leetkey (with user-supplied names) will let a thousand flowers bloom.

Still, I don't understand "Zaxbycwd". Do you mean "Zaybxcwd"?

Still, I don't understand "Zaxbycwd". Do you mean "Zaybxcwd"?

Um. Actually, I did.

The interstellar empire of the Zaybxcwd contacts Earth, and the highest ambassador, the Zaybxc, conveys a message to all Earth of peace, goodwill, and mutually agreeable trade from the highest political figure in the empire, the Zayb.

Due to several tyops, the carefully crafted reply transforms the terms for the empire, the ambassador, and the Emperor, into the worst insults that can be expressed in their native language.

The resulting war results in the extinction of humanity.

All die. O the embarrassment.

Moving right along: Perhaps "Azby" would be a better term.

However, I felt certain that this simple cipher had been used, and named, centuries ago. Sure enough, I discovered that it is called "Atbash".

So if I ever do submit patch diffs to the Leetkey maintainer, that is what I will call it.

The following words map to themselves under rot13+reverse:

fans
fobs
gnat
ravine
robe
serf
tang
thug
uh

And the following pairs of words (loosely defined) map to each other:

ably ~ lyon
ani ~ van
arm ~ zen
aver ~ erin
bare ~ reno
farm ~ zens
gabs ~ font
gyro ~ belt
hat ~ gnu
labor ~ ebony
leers ~ ferry
lent ~ gary
les ~ fry
liar ~ envy
loon ~ abby
manes ~ franz
mrs ~ fez
mu ~ hz
nan ~ ana
nary ~ lena
nun ~ aha
panes ~ franc
pen ~ arc
rare ~ rene
rely ~ lyre
rev ~ ire
revs ~ fire
ron ~ abe
tans ~ fang
thy ~ lug
try ~ leg
veneers ~ ferrari (!)
zero ~ berm

Have at it!

There's also "okqsy hkqa" (the exchange cipher), "eximy nxid" (shuffle), and "hfijl qfia" (unshuffle).

Eximy Nxid, my white whale,
Eateth squid and waveth tail.
Ships do founder every week
In the chunder he doth wreak.

[posted from 87.225.58.135]

ones ⇔ barf

Here's a list of all words (in sowpods.txt) of six or more letters which translate in rot-N for some N:

1 anteed bouffe
1 azlons bampot
4 ganjah kernel
4 lallan pepper
6 fusion layout
6 alohas grungy
6 jigjig pompom
6 bombyx hushed
6 mulmul sarsar
7 inkier purply
7 manful thumbs
10 muumuu weewee
13 cravat pening
13 harira uneven
13 abjurer nowhere

A somewhat nifty ROT13 sentence is
gary lent the rug
if you ROT13 and reverse this, it becomes
the rug gary lent

Normal:
abjurer nowhere
Chechen purpura

ARBTRN Neogea
becuna orphan
cheery purrel
Cheryl purely
farrel sneery

cheer purre
clerk pyrex
craal penny
creel perry
dhoon qubba
farre sneer
freen serra
freir serve
frere serer
green terra

Reverse:
tavering tavering

ferrari veneers

cherup, Enviar, grivet, ravine, rebore themselves

avien Arvin
ebony labor
ferry leers

Moo.

tavering -rot13> gnirevat -reverse> tavering
ravine, rebore, cherup, grivet, Enviar have this propertY too

anteed bouffe 1
steeds tuffet 1
pyrryl rattan 2
ganjah kernel 4
lallan pepper 4
leanna pierre 4
alohas grungy 6
bombyx hushed 6
bulbus harhay 6
fusion layout 6
mulmul sarsar 6
inkier purply 7
manful thumbs 7
reefer annona 9
verity enarch 9
muumuu weewee 10
splits dawted 11
becuna orphan 13
cheery purrel 13
cheryl purely 13
cravat pening 13
greeny terral 13

primero sulphur 3
fusions layouty 6
unfiber bumpily 7
abjurer nowhere 13

Also notable: atbash plus caesar
banana zanana 1
booboo booboo 3
barman denser 5
parser penman 5
bimbos extern 6
duende endued 8
butter hopper 9
copper gutter 9
duffer fodder 9
jitter zapper 9
pewter temper 9
pumice towage 9
furfur grugru 12
collar maddox 15
corned theirs 22
divers snared 22
kiddie mottos 23

creeper greeter 9
ridgils zinkify 17
hilloed pollist 23

pewterer temperer 9

5-letters
drive something or a horse & formations of rocks
snake & steaks

6-letters
horses & what Miss Muffet sat on

2-shift.
3-letters
Soap & horse
seeing organ & cough

4-letters
bottle tops & yellow color
single of glasses & desire

5-letters
relating to odors & past tense of quake

3-shift:
4-letters
not hot & animal that hops
plant grown in a farm & pelts

5-letters
more than one ultimate object & pattern of spirals
toys & informed ygg spelling of groove

7-letters
Spanish for first & the element before chlorine

4-shift:
4-letters
chess piece that there are 8 of & rip or cry
tooth & mean person

5-letters
instrument & type of plant(plural)
nut & dangerous animal

6-letters
of the lowlands of Scotland & type of spice

shifts 5 through 13 coming soon

5-shift:
3-letters
axe & outrage exclamation
opposite & pig pen

4-letters
found in a carbonated drink & middle of leg
places where bacteria may multiply & armies

5-letters
carbonated & with a knee

6-shift:
4-letters
song & where birds layy their eggs
stupid people & not pretty

5-letters
programs that compare files & happy
factories & apology

6-letters
more than one Hawaiian greeting & dirty, grimy
combining & the way things are put out

7-shift:
4-letters
alcoholic drink & doing something in a sick way
narrow road & synagogue

5-letters
tire of a car & toys
device used to measure time & in an apt way

6-letters
resolute or brave & fingers that aren't fingers

8-shift:
3-letters
what a bird lays & sound that a cow makes
deity & type of bird

4-letters
big piece of bread & a part of two
thing you have to do & making something unfair

5-letters
Russian kings & monetary unit of Oman

shifts 9 through 12 coming soon(we can't have 13, the answers will be written in rot13)

2-
ylr & ant
rlr & tnt
pncf & rpeh
fcrp & hetr
bfzvp & dhbxr

3-
pbyq & sebt
pebc & shef
grybv & jubey
qbyyf & tebbi
cevzreb & fhycuhe

4-
cnja & grne
snat & wrex
onawb & sreaf
crpna & gvtre
ynyyna & crccre

The ant and tnt are a coincidence.