VMs: Variable abbreviation within a page...?

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

Looking at f53r yesterday, I noticed some interesting patterns in the text 
either side of the stem (the paragraph crosses over the stem of the plant).

	okod		-
	qokchod	-	otcho
	qokod		-	ykchdy
	okod		-	ykchody
	ctho		-	ykeeod o y
	
The left column looks like it's being progressively abbreviated or perhaps 
cycled:
	okod -> qokchod -> qokod -> okod

The right column looks like it's being varied in a similar way:
	ykchdy -> ykchody -> ykeeod [o] y

I've bracketed the final [o] because (a) it doesn't seem to fit the general 
word-construction pattern, and (b) it seems to me as though it is a null, 
inserted to divert attention away from the <dy> pair.

What's really going on here? Having thought about this for a day, I now 
suspect that the encoder has an additional mechanism and design aim which 
haven't really been explored much on-list - inserting nulls and 
abbreviating in different ways *in order to avoid obvious repetition of 
words on a page* (because those words would be likely cribs for 
code-breakers). If true, then we might be able identify cribs by using 
slightly looser match criteria - just an thought.

Or perhaps it's only because I read the text in a structured 
(pair-oriented) way that I'm comfortable asserting this [o] to be a null 
inserted into a <dy>: but anyone who sees the VMS as an early crypto system 
of some sort shouldn't really be surprised to find at least some nulls - 
the question is whether we can be sure enough of the rest of the text to be 
able to identify them.

Also: what is <dy>? Is it:-
- a word (ie, a free-standing <dy> pair)?
- a functional suffix (ie, a <-dy> pair)?
- a functional prefix (ie, a <dy-> pair)?
- a common suffix and prefix run together to hide a word boundary (ie, <-d 
y->)?
- a common sequence of non-paired letters (ie, <d><y>)?
- some or all of the above, depending on context?

The reason I bring this up here is that in f53r, the <dy> grouping is twice 
split up across the stem, on consecutive lines - and this is the only place 
in the entire manuscript I can find <dy> split into two by an intervening stem.

Perhaps this was important in this page to obscure an (otherwise obviously 
visible) word repetition of some sort: I don't know, I'm just "calling it 
how I see it" here. :-o

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....


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