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Word: diagraph (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1968-1968
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Usage:

...that three of the most common letters in the ciphertext -O, U and A-are the most mutually exclusive. OA appears twice, OU once, and UO, UA, AO and AU not at all. But NU appears five times in the cryptogram. It happens that the most frequent English vowel diagraph is ea. Thus it is a good bet that U = a. Similarly, since the combination io is most frequent among the three dissident vowels in English, assume that it is represented in the cipher by OA. Therefore...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Books: HOW TO SOLVE A CIPHER | 2/16/1968 | See Source »

...cryptanalyst, ciphertext Y is also significant. In the cryptogram, it runs before N and never follows it; at the same time, it always follows H and never precedes it. This is the usual behavior of plaintext h: the diagraph he is commonplace, but eh is unusual; th is the most frequent diagraph of all, but ht less so. Therefore, in the cryptogram, Y=h and H should equal...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Books: HOW TO SOLVE A CIPHER | 2/16/1968 | See Source »

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