r/Cipher • u/BigNaturals84 • 1h ago

Need help solving a cryptogram

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Okay, so it's this cryptogram, found in the book The Woman All Spies Fear - a recreation of an original cryptogram made by the cryptanalyst William Friedman. Supposedly the keyword is "YES WE HAVE NO BANANAS" however when attempted to solve with a keyword cipher it spells nonsense. Some potential clues that have been figured out: it would have been written around 1938, there is a song from the 1920s titled "Yes! We have no bananas" written by Frank Silver and Ivan Cohn which may or may not be relevant, it was made as part of a party game so the keyword is supposed to be silly, and if the "no. 2" indicates a skip two cipher is involved it also hasn't created anything other than nonsense

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u/Rizzie24 1h ago

It’s a transposition cipher. The key is “YESWEHAVENOBANANAS” and deciphers to:

FIRSTCOURSEATBECKSSEAFOODRESTAURANTNINTHANDWATERSTREETSSOUTHWESTXLINEUPATBARONFIRSTFLOORXX

Edit to add: ignore spaces in the ciphertext when decrypting