I'm guessing that if we can put the letter in the correct order we may find a clue to who stole them. Here are the letters that were removed from the memorial.
The vandal or vandals took 22 letters: three of the letter a, two each of the letters w, g, e, n and m, and the letters u, l, t, d, i, y, s, r and o.
a a a d e e g g i l m m n n o r s t u w w y
Is there some background on this that might be helpful? From what I've gathered from the 2 posts you made already, there is a memorial to the I-35 bridge collapse and someone has vandalized it by removing some letters. Is that about right? Were there letters left on it? Is there a concerted effort to find the vandal? Is this just something you're taking on yourself, or is it part of a larger "contest", etc? Help a brother out!
ReplyDeleteAlso, the word "memorial" can be taken from the letters removed. That seems like an almost obvious choice to go with your "and". In fact, if I take the word "memorial" and the word "and", the letters that remain spell "any" "guest" and "gww". Maybe I'm just making matters worse, though, come to think of it...
ReplyDeleteWhat letters were left on the memorial?
ReplyDeleteok, found the full quote:
ReplyDelete"Our lives are not only defined by what happens, but by how we act in the face of it, not only by what life brings us, but by what we bring to life. Selfless actions and compassion create enduring community out of tragic events."
(and some more info...)
The 179 letters, three commas and two periods are rendered in metal letters a couple of inches tall (the capital letters are 4 inches high) and half an inch thick. Each letter has two or more screws affixed to its back, and the screws were glued with an epoxy into holes drilled in the granite; each letter stood proud of the wall by an inch or so.
Assuming:
ReplyDeleteLetters taken spell something.
The words "memorial" and "and" are in the solution:
Here are the possible combinations:
memorial and gewgaw nu sty
memorial and twangs we guy
memorial and gnaws wet guy
memorial and gnaws yew gut
memorial and gnaws yew tug
memorial and twang sew guy
memorial and twang we guys
memorial and gnaw west guy
memorial and gnaw wets guy
memorial and gnaw stew guy
memorial and gnaw yews gut
memorial and gnaw yews tug
memorial and gnaw wet guys
memorial and gnaw we gusty
memorial and gnaw we gutsy
memorial and gnaw yew guts
memorial and gnaw yew tugs
memorial and gnaw yew gust
memorial and swag newt guy
memorial and swag went guy
memorial and wags newt guy
memorial and wags went guy
memorial and tag yew swung
memorial and wag newts guy
memorial and wag newsy gut
memorial and wag newsy tug
memorial and wag newt guys
memorial and wag went guys
memorial and wag new gusty
memorial and wag new gutsy
memorial and wag wen gusty
memorial and wag wen gutsy
memorial and wag yet swung
memorial and wag yew stung
memorial and gay wet swung
memorial and yaw get swung
memorial and way get swung
memorial and wag we gnu sty
memorial and wag we gun sty
Nothing in there stands out immediately.
I love the internet. Ask and you shall receive. I got to thinking that someone must have a scrabble cheater that assembles words for you, there is, but it's limited to the max number of tiles in scrabble play.
ReplyDeleteBut I discovered a tool that allows more letters, an 'anagrammer' if you will. anagrammer.com allows the use of 24 letters, no spaces.
I'm playing with it right now and it's coming up with some interesting phrases and words, like 'immoral'.
Look at this query here...
http://yourname.anagrammer.com/index.php?request=form&letters=aaadeeggilmmnnorstuwwy&dictionaryName=TWL06&anagramCountMax=100&anagramWordCountMax=20&anagramContainsPhrase=immoral&anagramWordLengthMin=1
the beauty of anagrammer is that you can add in phrases or words you'd like in the results, which then limits the rest of the combinations.
ReplyDeleteI love this challenge. But I have to wonder: Could it be possible that the letters were just taken off at random? You know, like general "vandalism" style?
ReplyDeleteOr am I just being an asshole and ruining all the fun?
"Memorial was gay newt dung" is in the letters. Probably not it. :)
ReplyDelete"Immoral Unwed Gay ...." fits in there with some other words...
ReplyDeletehttp://yourname.anagrammer.com/index.php?request=form&letters=aaadeeggilmmnnorstuwwy&dictionaryName=TWL06&anagramCountMax=1000&anagramWordCountMax=20&anagramContainsPhrase=immoral+unwed+gay&anagramWordLengthMin=1
Not sure if this leads anywhere, but "Gang Wasted Memorial" comes out of there, leaving only the letters N U W Y.
ReplyDelete2 questions:
ReplyDelete1. Were any of the stolen letters uppercase?
Upper case letters may indicate the beginning of a word, phrase, or name, giving additional clues to the message.
2. What was the order of the stolen letters? Specifically, which positions were they taken from?
If we're assuming the person was trying to spell something out, and we also assume they didn't come with an ordered inventory of letters to steal (rather, it was ordered by the message, not by alphabet), it's possible they searched for letters in order of the phrase being created, moving from left to right across the wall - only going back if they didn't find the next letter near the location of the previous found letter. For instance, if the d was taken from "enduring" in the original sentence and not from "defined", it may indicate that the d comes later in the new phrase. if the n was also taken from "enduring," it would hint that n and d are in proximity in the new phrase.
Answers:
ReplyDelete1. The 'N' starting the second line in the word 'Not' was the only uppercase
2. here is the original phrase with the missing letters removed and their orientation on the wall (not counting the sentence wrapping limitations of the comment box:)
O r ives are o only efined by what happens, but by ho we ct n the face of it,
ot only b wh t life brings us, but by what e brin to lif .
Selfless ction and compassion create endu ing co unity out f tra ic vents.
see photos of vandalized wall here
http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/578*328/1memo0803b.jpg
http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/555*328/2memo0803.jpg
Is there also a comma missing after "happens?" It looks like it from some other pictures I've seen.
ReplyDeleteGood points, Josh. That adds a wrinkle, for sure...
ReplyDeleteJason S. - yeah, you're right, the comma is missing there.
ReplyDeleteBest photos of the missing letters I've seen so far are here http://kstp.com/article/stories/S2226162.shtml?cat=12157
Jason - an opinion about the thieves process, if there is one. Assuming they were working left to right off of their paper with the phrase on it (assuming they had a phrase), they'd stand to the center and grab the letters that visually appeared to them first. I do think it likely that letters near each other in their phrase could likely have been grabbed near each other of the wall. Like the two m's in 'community'.
ReplyDeleteSomehow this smacks of fringe religiosity ala Pat Roberts blaming the Haiti earthquake on God punishing immorality, or the people who protest at soldiers' funerals for the same reason. Only someone with a twisted worldview could logically talk themselves into an atrocious act like this. Makes me think the word 'immoral' is in the phrase, (again, if there is a phrase).
Looking at those photos, you can see that the n on the second line is lowercase. Ah well - was worth a shot.
ReplyDeleteOther possible words:
ReplyDeleteminnesota
tragedy
staged
memory
And don't forget what stupid things may come from a teenager trying to impress a girl... Ie:
nate and emily
Man, some good thinking in here. Thomas, just a spot were I was hoping to gather big brains like yours to see if we can crack this thing. Striegel, that stupid-things-that-come-from-teenagers area of thought seems fruitful to me, especially with the proximity to the U. Could these letters be in a dorm or frat right now? Given the volume of student housing in the area. It is very possible.
ReplyDeleteMore stupid stuff
ReplyDeleteMuggy (could this infernal humidity be what drove the vandals to act?);)
Mugger
Law
drugs
gang (2 g's)
I find it hard to believe that someone would go to the area with a prying implement, and attack the sign randomly. Would they just start at a spot and keep pulling off letters consecutively? Seems more likely that someone would see a sign like this and see a message that can be left if letters are removed or see the letters they needed to spell out something that was already in their head. Seems to make me think that the vandal probably passed by the sign at least once before actually vandalizing the sign.
There is also the huge possibility that the vandal got interrupted before stealing all the letters. But I kind of doubt it. Whoever did it was able to make off with a pretty large grip of letters.
Just some thoughts.
Yeah, I was half expecting to find a "push butt and release" in there somewhere.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to think like the mind of someone who would do this. While we piece together weird words to form pseudo meanings based on anagram generators, this is almost like translating with Google Translate. It's never quite right.
ReplyDeleteFor example, even though "Gang Wasted Memorial" might work with the letters given, who actually writes like that *before* they remove letters? Whatever it is should probably be more natural sounding.
We should also consider words that are not spelled correctly, abbreviated, etc. They may have not had all the letters they wanted, and thus took shortcuts, or weren't intelligent enough to know how to actually spell a specific word.
As such, it might be just as useful to see what letters were left on the sign. Knowing what they *didn't* choose is probably just as valid as what they did choose. For example, if the letters left could have spelt "We Fucked Your Memorial", it's a good guess that they weren't trying to say "Gang Wasted Memorial". Why not just use the other letters available then? This is just an example obviously.
Also, looking at the photos now, the Y in "only" on the 2nd row is half removed. Should we add that as another letter "stolen". Perhaps it was meant to be but they took off before it was done. Or, perhaps it's proof that this was just random (ie, a group of kids fucking around plucking letters off for fun). Or, lastly, perhaps they went to take the Y and realized they already had one (or couldn't get that Y off, so they went for a different Y).
ReplyDeleteMore thoughts. (Mike, feel free to post this as another thread if worthy)
ReplyDeleteThis is a pretty risky move just to obtain a few relatively unimportant words or a movie quote (though I won't completely discount an "o'doyle rules"-style catch phrase). Also, I'd guess someone with poetic intent would be less inclined to destroy someone else's art.
This leads me to think:
1. this is random destruction
or
2. the phrase is of personal value to someone
Let's discount 1 for reasons stated in earlier comments (and the fact that we can only disprove 1 by finding a solution).
So that leaves us with personal. Based on the phrase length, you could make perhaps:
- 5 tiny words, which is unlikely to create something clever or meaningful
- 4 average-length english words in common usage, which might be possible to lean poetic, but i'm leaning against poets
- 3 longer words, perhaps a surname
- 2 really crazy long words, which would only be possible with something really obscure.
I'm going with the most likely: 3 words. Now, there isn't much text to be sure, but these words seem to also have an unusually high frequency of w, g and m. Even that y seems peculiar in the distribution.
So I'll take it a step further. And by further, I mean all the way back. Back to O'doyle. Three words make a full name. Full names are personal. People have been ignoring better judgement and defacing things with their names since the creation of language. Since the creation of, um, names. You might argue that it's in our DNA to do stupid things to public spaces with our names. Somewhere deep in our consciousness we're helpless to control the urge.
I'm pretty convinced it's a name, but here's another potential clue or a total red herring, so take the rest of this post for what it's worth.
Now, it could be a mistake, perhaps a test experiment to see how the letters can be removed, but what if that missing comma is important. Perhaps, just perhaps, that comma was needed in this person's name. "A comma?", you say, "nobody's name has a comma!" Maybe, but there are some very common names, particularly Irish or Scottish surnames, have an apostrophe, which, after all, is really just a spirited comma doing a high jump.
Mc'grady and his clan are out. There's no c. But what about O'doyle?
If this is the case, the stakes to this puzzle have been raised. Figure out who rules - O'doyle, O'grady, O'leary, ... - and you discover the name of our vandal.
you all should be able to post stuff yourself, now.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mike!
ReplyDeleteI've migrated the name theory to its own post:
http://crackingthei35code.blogspot.com/2011/08/getting-personal.html
Let's discuss possible name solutions over there, and we can continue to brainstorm new ideas here, especially regarding the meaning and frequency of the letters chosen.
http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/126870063.html
ReplyDelete