Editor's note: This was previously a comment on another post. I'm moving this to it's own post so that we can research potential name solutions under this thread.
I'd like to start this post with a quick thought:
The vandalization of the i35 memorial was a high-visibility, risky move.
As such, I've been thinking that it's unlikely someone would do this on a whim to obtain a phrase of only marginal meaning. I won't completely discount a funny movie quote, say an "O'doyle rules"-style catch phrase, but would you really take the time, effort and risk to deface the memorial for a quick laugh? For a while I was thinking it might be something poetic or with a deeper meaning, but wouldn't someone with poetic intent be less inclined to destroy someone else's art, someone else's message?
This leads me to think:
1. this is just 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).
This leaves us with personal. A message that's important or fundamentally meaningful to the vandal.
Looking at the length of the phrase, we're left with a few options for the nature of what it contains:
- 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, or perhaps a combination of shorter words and a longer one
- 2 really long words, which would be particularly 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. If I'm right, closing the solution set to names gives us a few more things to postulate about. For instance, going on names, here's another potential clue -- or a total red herring (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!" But there do exist some very common names, particularly Irish or Scottish surnames, which have an apostrophe. And an apostrophe is really, after all, just a spirited comma doing a high jump.
There's no c in the ciphertext, so Mc'grady and his clan are out. But what about people like our friend O'doyle?
I'm pretty convinced it's a name. If I'm right, closing the solution set to names gives us a few more things to postulate about. For instance, going on names, here's another potential clue -- or a total red herring (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!" But there do exist some very common names, particularly Irish or Scottish surnames, which have an apostrophe. And an apostrophe is really, after all, just a spirited comma doing a high jump.
There's no c in the ciphertext, so Mc'grady and his clan are out. But what about people like our friend O'doyle?
The stakes to this puzzle have been raised. Figure out who rules - O'grady, O'leary, ... - and you discover the name of our vandal.
