Send a Message in Secret Code: Acrostics

In her encounters with the Wicked Witch of West Texas, one of the skills Lulu must employ is unraveling secret codes. The first one she encounters is an acrostic. An acrostic is a coded message that looks like an ordinary piece of writing, but it really hides a second meaning if you know how to look. How does it doe such a thing? Well, the real message is made up of only a few of the letters in the original piece of writing.

For example, say I want to send a message that says: "I'll get you Lulu." (Of course, I wouldn't want to send such a message, but someone we all know of might.)

I might send a message like this: "In lemon lolipops grand elephants trampoline. Young otters understand levity unless levitation undermines."

That, certainly, is a foolish enough message that it makes a person think it's either nonsense, or it hides another sort of sense, if only we could figure out what it is. Well, in this case, the first letter of each word is the only one that counts. So, we would read the message like this:

"In lemon lolipops grand elephants trampoline. Young otters understand levity unless levitation undermines."

Write down only the letters in pink, the first of each word, and suddenly an real message appears from the silliness. If you were sending a message like this one, it helps if the person you are sending it to also knows the code, of course. Otherwise she'll assume it's a silly bunch of nonsense. So, now that you know about acrostics, maybe you should try one of your own with a friend.

Posted by: Zelda del West