Ever heard of “The Snicket?”

Well I hadn’t, but colloquially, it is the name for the pedestrian pathway that leads down to Billyard Avenue from Macleay Street, and this is where the X-Ray Specs were found.

Thanks Kerri.

Spotted by Rachel a couple of days ago, on Roslyn St, down near St Luke’s Hospital was this.

Deep breath.

It’s all okay. “R” is followed by “S” and “T”.

Hours later, two emails popped up in my inbox from readers, Shawn and Fred, saying they had (independently) captured the chalker’s latest stunt, on the Hardie Street wall of the Darlo Bar: “L is for Libation.”

Reemski commented about “K is for Kleptomania,” too, but didn’t get a snap.

Following a couple of leads, I found the chalker.

He thought it seemed a shame to ruin a good mystery. I agree, but we reckon we owe it to you guys.

The This Is For That series/chalk alphabet is just a celebration of great words, or at least favourite words. They’re not, as a rule, linked to the location or what’s going on in the world, just words that are excellent for some reason.

The first one was “a is for atom” on a toilet door, then “b is for brain” on the footbridge, then “c is for cephalopod,” which was the first one to get photo’d, and is of course another word for a squid.

Other words are really normal, but when put out there on their own they get weird, like “igloo.”

Some are great sounding like “wobble,” or kind of moving like “heartache” or “fiasco.”

Some are beautiful words and things like “filament” and some are excellent concepts like “entropy.”

Then others are interesting concepts that need a bit of research, like “azimuth” (which someone modified by adding “z is for zenith”, which is a word describing a similar thing, but starting with z… brilliant).

Other great modifications include someone taking letters out of “g is for gyroscope” and making “g is for goop.”

I’m up to my second alphabet now. Currently up to, um, “m”… not sure what that’s for yet.

The z is for zipper is the z from the last alphabet.

So, the mystery is solved!

Hmm, turns out that had we the nous to type “a is for azimuth” into a search engine, the mystery may have been solved long ago. But where is the fun in that?

Incidentally, the letter m, it’s for meddling.

Is that “meddling” directed at us?

Someone, crack the code!

UPDATE (28/8/09):

This one on the left is fading, it’s on Liverpool Street between Womerah Avenue and Victoria Street in Darlinghurst – just across from the Green Park Hotel. The one on the right is newer, it’s on Liverpool Street, near Darlinghurst Road (thanks, Blake).

So now we have:

A is for “azimuth”
C is for “cephlapod”
E is for “entropy”
K is for “kibosh”
M is for “modulate”
N is for “nebulous”
T is for “thought bubble”
Y is for “yesterday”
Z is for “zipper”

Riddle or just randomly chalked letter clarifications?

Here’s the latest, scribbled on the wall of St Canice’s catholic church on Roslyn Gardens, near the corner of Roslyn Street.

UPDATE: Thanks to @alliejt‘s keen eye, we’ve got another clue.

So now we’ve had:

A is for “azimuth”
C is for “cephlapod”
K is for “kibosh”
M is for “modulate”
N is for “nebulous”
Z is for “zipper”

Is it a riddle?

Two months later, there’s more. This time on Liverpool Street.

They’re taken with a phone, so the resolution isn’t great.

Pretty charming stuff, I’d love to get photos of the whole alphabet…

We’d also love to know who’s behind these adorable chalk pieces of graffiti. Keep them coming whoever you are.