The rot-13 Page
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The rot-13 Decoder

If your browser supports JavaScript, you can use this decoder to scramble and unscramble rot-13 text.

What is rot-13?

Rot-13 is a cipher commonly used in the Usenet newsgroups. It scrambles the text of a message so that it is not immediately readable. Rot-13 is often used as a courtesy, to avoid spoiling the ending of a movie or to hide an offensive joke. To read the scrambled message, the user must apply rot-13 again, which reveals the readable text. Most newsreader programs provide a way to apply rot-13.

The cipher is very simple: each character in the text is rotated 13 positions in the alphabet, cycling around at the end. Numbers and punctuation are not affected. To unscramble the text, reapply rot-13. Since there are 26 letters in the alphabet, performing rot-13 twice returns the text to its original state.

Rot-13 Substitutions
`a -> n`	`n -> a`	`A -> N`	`N -> A`
`b -> o`	`o -> b`	`B -> O`	`O -> B`
`c -> p`	`p -> c`	`C -> P`	`P -> C`
`d -> q`	`q -> d`	`D -> Q`	`Q -> D`
`e -> r`	`r -> e`	`E -> R`	`R -> E`
`f -> s`	`s -> f`	`F -> S`	`S -> F`
`g -> t`	`t -> g`	`G -> T`	`T -> G`
`h -> u`	`u -> h`	`H -> U`	`U -> H`
`i -> v`	`v -> i`	`I -> V`	`V -> I`
`j -> w`	`w -> j`	`J -> W`	`W -> J`
`k -> x`	`x -> k`	`K -> X`	`X -> K`
`l -> y`	`y -> l`	`L -> Y`	`Y -> L`
`m -> z`	`z -> m`	`M -> Z`	`Z -> M`

Notable rot-13's

Rot-13 Word Pairs

Applying rot-13 to one word in the pair will produce the other.

aba	non
abba	noon
Abe	Nor
abjurer	nowhere
ah	nu
aha	nun
Ana	Nan
anil	navy
ant	nag
Arvy	Neil
balk	onyx
banana	onanan
bar	one
Barny	Oneal
barf	ones
be	or

Becuna	Orphan
bin	ova
BS	OF
Byran	Olena
clerk	pyrex
cha	pun
chat	pung
Chechen	Purpura
Cher	Pure
Cheryl	Purely
crag	pent
crax	penk
crex	perk
Cuba	Phon
cynar	plane
ebbs	roof

envy	rail
erne	rear
errs	reef
ers	ref
Faber	Snore
faro	sneb
flap	sync
fubby	shoon
fubar	shone
fur	she
gag	tnt
gel	try
Genre	Traer
GI	TV
Glare	Tyner
Glee	Tyrr

Glen	Tyra
gnat	tang
green	terra
Greeny	Terral
gurl	they
hern	urea
HEY	URL
INK	VAX
Iraq	Vend
irk	vex
Ivan	Vina
Junes	Wharf
Jung	What
Jura	When
jr	we
IQ	VD

Rot-13 Anagrams

Some rot-13's produce the same letters, but rearranged.

argenten	netragna
baboon	onobba
bought	obhtug
gnat	tang
ravine	enivar
tangantangan	gnatnagnatna

Generated Lists

Here is a Perl script to generate rot-13 word pairs and anagrams from word lists: rot13analyzer.pl.

The script reads one or more word lists that you provide and searches them for interesting rot-13's. Word-pair matches are written with a "W:" prefix, and anagram matches are written with an "A:" prefix.

I ran the script on two different word lists available on the Internet:

From the Moby word list, I generated these results: rot13-mwords.txt.
From the SCOWL word list, I got these results: rot13-scowl5.txt.

Challenge

If you discover any other rot-13 word pairs or anagrams, please let me know, and I will add them to the list.

Thanks to all who have contributed.

[HOME] - Darin Franklin | dfranklin@pobox.com

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