What Haley said

[Wrecan]

Haley's gibberish is not gibberish at all, but an acrostic in which each letter has been replaced by one consistent letter throughout. It's a puzzle you find in many newspapers by the crossword puzzle.

Here's the whole thing translated. It should be noted that Rich made two errors. First, Rich should have put "p" where he put "b" in treasure. (Or he intended that both "p" and "b" would represent "e".) He also misspelled "freakin'" by transposing the "i" and "k".

Mnbrvcnp!!
Treasure!!

Wiup! Rdd is fm wiup!! F tru’m epdfpjp fm’v rdd wiup!
Gone! All of it gone!! I can’t believe it’s all gone!

F wim prmpu eh r ynrwiu sin mqrm snprfzu’ mnbrvcnp!
I got eaten by a dragon for that freaikn’ treasure!

F wim jiafmpy ck! Eh r yfvwcvmfuw rtfy-enprmqfuw ynrwiu! Ruy uix fm’v WIUP!
I got vomited up! By a disgusting acid-breathing dragon! And now it’s GONE!

Uim MQP diim, AH diim. Afup!
Not THE loot, MY loot. Mine!

Xrfm, xqh yi F vicuy scuuh? Qpddi? Qpddi?
Wait, why do I sound funny? Hello? Hello?

Xqrm? Ui! Yiu’m hic yrnp!
What? No! don’t you dare!

Vuprz rmmrtz eiim mi mqp srtp!
Sneak attack boot to the face!

Yrnu vmnrfwqm.
Damn straight.

[Fale]

You have way too much free time. I must admit however I tried to decypher it too. Thanks for the translation.

[Hamburger]

Well, either you got it wrong or Rich fixed it, because "snprzfu" is spelled correctly in the comic.

And yeah, it's a bit odd b and p both stand for e. If Haley had said words with j, q, x, and z in them Rich would've been hard-up for another letter.

Oh, plus it's "darn straight". Edit: Oops, Renloth just pointed that out. Oh well.

"Extra jumpy quizzes..."? Nah.

Edit: In the main strip Rich posted that Wrecan copied it wrong. Sorry, bud.

[Big_Jake]

At least I know I'm not the only one that translated it! I didn't notice that E was both B and P until I stopped and looked after I had finished.

[Renloth]

Thanks, I was just about to post and see if anyone else noticed patterns in her speech, or if I was just crazy. :P

Also, two words in your translation contradict themselves.

Xqrm? Ui! Yiu’m hic yrnp!
What? No! don’t you dare!

Yrnu vmnrfwqm.
Damn straight.

In the first, n = r, but in the second n = m.
Also, all other instinces of U=n, so I think the last line is:
"Darn Straight."

More family friendly. :)

[NEO|Phyte]

if anyone cares, here is the decryption key

a - r
b - e
c - t
d - y
e - p/b
f - s
g - w
h - q
i - f
j -
k - z
l - d
m - a
n - u
o - i
p - k
q -
r - n
s - v
t - m
u - c
v - j
w - x
x -
y - h
z -

[Bogardan_Mage]

The final line is actually "Darn straight" not "Damn straight". Otherwise it would have to be "Damn stmaight" ;).

EDIT: Bah, I was staring at this post for too long. Other people posted in the mean time.

[Renloth]

As I just stated. :)

Edit: Just wanted to say that I apoligize if I can off as a jerk, its just sometimes I get excited and well... Anyway... Sorry.

[Xenon]

the really weird thing? i found this thread before i noticed the new comic was up.

[Wally]

Argh, I couldn't get through the comic until I deciphered the code. I figured out that it wasn't rot13; also half-attempted some other cracks before my mind told me to read the rest of it.

[Solara]

Great job! I tried to translate but didn't have the attention span to guess more than a few letters. (Knew it couldn't be gibberish though because certain words were used to consistently.)

Is there any pattern as to what got replaced with what?

Though I guess the real question is, why is she talking this way? I know it's possible for people to short out the language centers in their brain in real life, but that seems a little deep for a comic strip.

[Pax]

Haley's gibberish is not gibberish at all, but an acrostic in which each letter has been replaced by one consistent letter throughout. It's a puzzle you find in many newspapers by the crossword puzzle.

Darn - scooped by just over an hour, AND it only tookl my g/f and I some five minutes, maybe ten, to break it - the key, for me, was the line "Xqrm? Ui! Yiu'm hic yrnp!" .... now, to me, it seemd obvious from context that when Haley said "Ui! Yui'm [...]" .... those two words were "No! Don't [...]".

From there, it was a matter of replacing all the other U's, I's, Y's, and M's ... and filling in the blanks, figuring out what various words were to figure out OTHER letters (thats the part where my other half came in especially useful!).

Once we started discerning words, which gave us letters to spread through the rest of the sentences - and especially given the sheer amount of stuff to decrypt (rule of thumb, by the by: "the bigger the sample, the weaker the encryption") ... it fell into place extremely rapidly.

The transcript of my own translation is as follows:

Mnbrvcnp!
Treasure!

Wiup! Rdd is fm, wiup!! F tru'm epdfpjp fm'v rdd wiup!
Gone! All of it, gone!! I can't believe it's all gone!

F wim prmpu eh r ynrwiu sin mqrm snprzfu' mnbrvcnp!
I got eaten by a dragon for that freakin' treasure!

F wim jiafmpy ck! Eh r yfvwcvmfuw rtfy-enprmqfuw ynrwiu! Ruy uix fm'v WIUP!
I got vomited up! By a disgusting acid-breathing dragon! And now it's GONE!

Uim MQP diim, AH diim. Afup!
Not THE loot, MY loot. Mine!

Xrfm, xqh yi F vicuy scuuh? Qpddi? Qpddi?
Wait, why do I sound funny? Hello? Hello?

Xqrm? Ui! Yiu'm hic yrnp!
What? No? Don't you dare!

Vuprz rmmrtz eiim mi mqp srtp!
Sneak attack boot to the face!

Yrnu vmnrfwqm.[i]
Darn straight.

:)

[Solara]

You know, given that the readers figured all this out so quickly, why can't V?

Granted, we have the benefit of seeing the text, but aren't elves supposed to be good at languages anyway?

[Soluna]

yay i am not crazy for wanting to do this.

I did get inturrupted for dinner but that double e thing got me. i was trying to make it work without doubling up on the letter. :S

*modified*

Haley isnt an elf. or at least i never thought so.

[Sucros]

Dang, here I was all thinking I was the only one who figured it out and feeling all clever.

[Spuddly]

You know, given that the readers figured all this out so quickly, why can't V?

Fairly simple.

For us readers it's all symbology. For V, she gets to hear it. Read some of it outloud, then try spelling it. It's about as bad as French.

[TarSheva]

Yep. That's what you get with gamers. :)

I couldn't finish the comic today until I had solved the code either. Then, of course, I went back and re-read it, adding Haley's "real" text where it belonged. :D

[Soluna]

me too! then do haley's part for my boyfriend while he was reading the strip.

he was rolling up a character while i was reading this. cracking the code.

*smacks forhead*

[BurntOfferings]

You know, given that the readers figured all this out so quickly, why can't V?

Maybe because he hasn't heard it yet? V isn't in this comic. ;)

[Fanatic-Templar]

And I thought I was the only one who translated this. What an arrogant fool I was :D.

[Gorbash Kazdar]

I actually enjoyed trying to pronounce Haley's parts out loud the first time I read it through. I just wish I'd cracked the cypher first... oh well.

[Servoz]

I didn't find this thread till after I finished translating it myself. I do gotta ask though. Did anyone else get just a little bit of a rush from translating it? Like maybe you were solving some ancient text?

[sailor_charon]

if anyone cares, here is the decryption key

a - r
b - e
c - t
d - y
e - p/b
f - s
g - w
h - q
i - f
j -
k - z
l - d
m - a
n - u
o - i
p - k
q -
r - n
s - v
t - m
u - c
v - j
w - x
x -
y - h
z -

Just to nitpick, that's an encryption key, not a decryption key. Essentially the same thing, but an important difference for how to use them.

[JessmanCA]

I figured that it was letter substitution too, but was hoping someone else would figure it out for me, because I am lazy.

Thanks.

[Nikolai_II]

[...] acrostic [...]

Here's the whole thing translated. It should be noted that Rich made two errors. First, Rich should have put "p" where he put "b" in treasure. (Or he intended that both "p" and "b" would represent "e".) He also misspelled "freakin'" by transposing the "i" and "k".

[...]

F wim prmpu eh r ynrwiu sin mqrm snprfzu’ mnbrvcnp!
I got eaten by a dragon for that freaikn’ treasure!

[...]

Yrnu vmnrfwqm.
Damn straight.

Being "first" is all right, but it is better to be "right" ;)

snprzfu = freakin' - Rich had it right, and it was right the whole time.

It also is "Darn", as a strange bow towards "clean language" even when encrypted ;)

*Wonders how acrostic would apply here: http://dictionary.reference.com/sear...amp;q=acrostic *

[happyjenn97]

I figured that it was letter substitution too, but was hoping someone else would figure it out for me, because I am lazy.

Thanks.

Same here. :)

[Dark]

Translating what Haley said was great fun. And yes, I knew better than to check the forums before I was done :)

[xyzchyx]

Just to nitpick here...

Since so many people managed to figure it out so quickly, why didn't Durkon's Comprehend Languages spell work?

It seems to me that the only way CL _wouldn't_ have worked is if she really was just babbling, not actually uttering coherent sentences in what only initially appeared to be incomprensible gibberish.

This is one of those "laws of comedic physics" things, right?

[Qutha]

I had the whole thing translated and my computer crashes. Luckly I remembered enough to put it back together.

It was fun to translate. Eh, what else is there to do at 2 in the morning.

[Kish]

Just to nitpick here...

Since so many people managed to figure it out so quickly, why didn't Durkon's Comprehend Languages spell work?

Because it's not a language. A simple code--a mental condition--neither is covered by the Comprehend Languages spell.