Experiments in Style: ROT13
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!
Certainly looks like a word puzzle when you see it. Was it a deliberate decision to make each chunk of text 5 characters long, or did the ROT13 encoder you used do this automatically?
Congrats on the 75, btw. Big milestone!
You know what that made me think of? Remember back in the eighties on shortwave you could hear east German voices barking out number sequences that were code? Oh, just me listening to shortwave as a teen then... Anyway, they were coded messages to agents across Europe and also, oddly enough, a mainstay of Avant Garde ensemble X using tapes and found sounds. Yes, I had a thrilling teenage life. But what I really want to know is are you, or have you ever been, a member of the communist party?