Experiments in Style: ROT13
A milestone: number 75. Woo hoo! 🎂🎂🎂
One of the things I’ve been trying out is reworking a piece of text into completely different styles. A full exposition and explanation are given here:
In today’s experiment I’d like to write the story as in the form of a code. This was an idea given to me by
, who writes the extremely interesting newsletter. There’s a brief explanation of ROT13 below.The original (template) text
In the middle of the night, I woke up (if you can call being semi-conscious being awake), walked purposefully towards the door to go to the bathroom — and almost knocked myself out.
The reason was that in the twin states of entire darkness and semi-somnambulance I was facing in a different direction from the one I thought I was facing. As a result, instead of walking through the door, I tried to walk through the wall.
The next few days brought nausea and headaches. After much prevarication I went to Accident and Emergency, where I waited petrified among people for whom “social distancing” means not quite touching you, and who wore their masks as a chin-warmer.
An hour and a half later I emerged into the twilight, secure in the knowledge that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion. I failed to do much writing, but I was pleased to have read a further 17% of my book.
ROT13 version
ROT13 is a way to encode text. It replaces each letter in the text by another letter that's 13 letters away from it.
VAGUR ZVQQY RBSGU RAVTU GVJBX RHCV SLBHP NAPNY YORVA TFRZV PBAF PVBHF ORVAT NJNXR JNYX RQCHE CBFRS HYYLG BJNEQ FGURQ BBEGB TBGBG URONG UEBBZ —NAQN YZBFG XABPX RQZLF RYSBH GGURE RNFBA JNFGU NGVAG URGJV AFGNG RFBSR AGVER QNEXA RFFNA QFRZV FBZA NZOHY NAPRV JNFSN PVATV ANQVS SRERA GQVER PGVBA SEBZG URBAR VGUBH TUGVJ NFSNP VATNF NERFH YGVAF GRNQB SJNYX VATGU EBHTU GURQB BEVGE VRQGB JNYXG UEBHT UGURJ NYYGU RARKG SRJQN LFOEB HTUGA NHFRN NAQUR NQNPU RFNSG REZHP UCERI NEVPN GVBAV JRAGG BNPPV QRAGN AQRZR ETRAP LJURE RVJNV GRQCR GEVSV RQNZB ATCRB CYRSB EJUBZ FBPVN YQVFG NAPVA TZRNA FABGD HVGRG BHPUV ATLBH NAQJU BJBER GURVE ZNFXF NFNPU VAJN EZREN AUBHE NAQNU NYSYN GREVR ZRETR QVAGB GURGJ VYVTU GFRPH ERVAG URXAB JYRQT RGUNG VUNQA BGUVA TZBER FREVB HFGUN AZVYQ PBAPH FFVBA VSNVY RQGBQ BZHPU JEVGV ATOHG VJNFC YRNFR QGBUN IRERN QNSHE GUREF RIRAG RRACR EPRAG BSZLO BBX
I hope you have enjoyed this version of the story. Comments are welcomed, as always. If you’d like to dig deeper, I often write an ‘Experiments in style extra’ post to explain how a version came about, or how I did it. That’s for paid subscribers.
If you’re new to the series, you can see the index of my experiments here: Index.
Thank you for reading!
I sent Terry an email with the noodling that follows. I was a hesitant to post it in the comments section ... part out of a desire to avoid cementing my reputation as nerd even more snuggly than ever and partly because it doesn't fit the "style" of comments sections. But Terry encouraged me to post, so here it is:
Your experiment today made me think of boundaries that I haven't really considered, but that are actually made quite visible with you various experiments. Basically today's experiment made me wonder about writing styles and "codes." I bet this is a boring bit of info in the oulipo world, but it was new to me.
What is the boundary between code and style?
It made me think of the notion of "code-switching," which has kinda ridden the wake of identity politics and the like. I guess that is a bigger thing in the US than in the UK, since it seems everything is about "identity" in the US. (And I do think that it isn't a positive thing that we're obsessed with on this side of the pond.) For a definition: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching
The ROT-13 try violated the human intelligibility standard that I bet applies in oulipo, but it made me wonder how oulipo audiences draw the line, so to speak.
Just a note and speculation.
No voiceover?! 😉😂