THE DANCING MEN ALPHABET

THE DANCING MEN ALPHABET

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INDEX

introduction

THE DANCING MEN

deciphering

ALPHABET

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SYMBOLS

INTRODUCTION

• Wanted to enlist in the army.
• Was too old.

Arthur conan doyle's

ThE adventure of the dancing men

In the story, landowner Hilton Cubitt, and his new American wife Elsie, start receiving strange messages. The messages show dancing men with arms and legs in differing positions and carrying flags. Their arrival causes Elsie much distress and Cubitt seeks SHerlock's help.

deciphering the dancing men

Sherlock realises the message uses a simple substitution cipher where a letter is always represented by the same dancing man: The alphabet is a simple character substitution. He uses a technique called frequency analysis to decipher the message. It is based on the assumption that some symbols or letters are more likely to occur than others in a given language. In English, the most common letters used are E, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R, D, and L.

deciphering the dancing men

In English, the most common letters used are:E, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R, D, and L. THEN an analysis of which stickmen are used most frequently can be used to decipher the message.

Dancing man symbols

Each symbol may have two forms: a dancing man and the same dancing man holding a flag to represent the separation of two words. In his manuscript, Conan Doyle used 18 symbols for the 18 letters needed in his cyphers. it appears that there is no connection between the postures of the men and the letters they stand for, Note that P and V have almost the same dancing man symbol (in the V the foot is slightly sloping to the left).

Dancing man COMPLETE ALPHABET

In Doyle's manuscript 8 letters (F, J, K, Q, U, W, X, Z) were not used and then have no known symbols. the alphabet was completed by A DANISH SCHOLAR, Aage Rieck Sørensen, who also added numerals.

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THANK YOU FOR LISTENING

ThE Strand

The Strand Magazine is a British monthly magazine published from 1891 to 1950

Arthur Conan Doyle was a huge contributor with novels, short stories, poems and articles.