{"id":39322,"date":"2023-10-07T08:08:48","date_gmt":"2023-10-07T13:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=39322"},"modified":"2023-10-07T08:08:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-07T13:08:48","slug":"word-of-the-day-917","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2023\/10\/07\/word-of-the-day-917\/","title":{"rendered":"Word Of The Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Nomenclators<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One once-common variant of the substitution cipher is the\u00a0<b>nomenclator<\/b>. Named after the public official who announced the titles of visiting dignitaries, this\u00a0<a title=\"Cipher\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cipher\">cipher<\/a>\u00a0uses a small\u00a0<a title=\"Code (cryptography)\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Code_(cryptography)\">code<\/a>\u00a0sheet containing letter, syllable and word substitution tables, sometimes homophonic, that typically converted symbols into numbers. Originally the code portion was restricted to the names of important people, hence the name of the cipher; in later years, it covered many common words and place names as well. The symbols for whole words (<i><a class=\"mw-redirect\" title=\"Codeword\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Codeword\">codewords<\/a><\/i>\u00a0in modern parlance) and letters (<i>cipher<\/i>\u00a0in modern parlance) were not distinguished in the ciphertext. The\u00a0<a title=\"Rossignols\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rossignols\">Rossignols<\/a>&#8216;\u00a0<a title=\"Great Cipher\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Great_Cipher\">Great Cipher<\/a>\u00a0used by\u00a0<a class=\"mw-redirect\" title=\"Louis XIV of France\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Louis_XIV_of_France\">Louis XIV of France<\/a>\u00a0was one.<em> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Substitution_cipher#Nomenclator\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Wikipedia<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Not quite a match for my example, though, which is in &#8220;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg25934570-900-how-scientists-are-cracking-historical-codes-to-reveal-lost-secrets\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">How scientists are cracking historical codes to reveal lost secrets,<\/a><\/em>&#8221; Joshua Howgego, <strong><em>NewScientist<\/em><\/strong> (23 September 2023, paywall):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But unless your cipher is very basic, it won\u2019t stop there. Many historical ciphers also contain elements called nomenclators, symbols that represent syllables, whole common words or names. These can be extremely hard to crack unless you have some sense of what the letter is about or who wrote it and can make an educated guess about what the nomenclators mean. Sometimes, these symbols can even be \u201cnulls\u201d \u2013 characters that have no meaning and should be discounted \u2013 just to throw adversaries off the scent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Perhaps an example of language changing over time? In any case, a fascinating intro article on the automation of encryption breaking. No mention of everyone&#8217;s favorite encrypted, or so at least some speculate, manuscript, the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Voynich_manuscript\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Voynich Manuscript<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nomenclators: One once-common variant of the substitution cipher is the\u00a0nomenclator. Named after the public official who announced the titles of visiting dignitaries, this\u00a0cipher\u00a0uses a small\u00a0code\u00a0sheet containing letter, syllable and word substitution tables, sometimes homophonic, that typically converted symbols into numbers. Originally the code portion was restricted to the names of \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2023\/10\/07\/word-of-the-day-917\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39323,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39322\/revisions\/39323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}