See if you can extract the message encrypted in this text box:
I F Y O U R E H A P P Y A N D Y O U K N O W I T C L A P Y O U R H A N D S I F Y O U R E H A P P Y A N D Y O U K N O W I T C L A P Y O U R H A N D S I F Y O U R E H A P P Y A N D Y O U K N O W I T A N D Y O U R E A L L Y W A N T T O S H O W I T I F Y O U R E H A P P Y A N D Y O U K N O W I T C .
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L L O V P E N Y B I R E L A O N W A C U N H N E U E I E A D T R E F A I U T R O N S E F A L L A C F E O K P A L E U < M I I I C L M R N O C L O I H S R A N G O V U U R I G U W E L N N C E V H L U F E O A U R E L W L A K I R O A A I G E L A N E R L W L F A I E E O R E M I E K R N I U X E M E L
I E L E E L A P O P O A U H M I I U E M L I T N T M M O M D E U A O R O R E E C I E A F U O E T I A R N S I U I I S E A D T G N A R U I T I S T F R A U L W A L E N R E E N R E T P S I O E E E L R F X Z R N I M M A I U S L A R E C L O N L K B T O O O O O E G L R T E A P F N S A I B T E A P S A
H D K R N I B E U I S R H T I M N L D B Y C E S L A L P S S R P D S R N F M E E O R S E G H A I L R V O N L S L T N W U R H I S A E T T R O H F I U S P A R L R T A S C A A S A M E T L D R N U K L T I T C N O S Y H G Y I M B T Y L C E E O H N E H S B H P I A Y R L T O T S B S N L O T S
C S D E L T N E N N O G H R I E C E L I U I O A S D N O C H A O O E R E E C S A I T T E E I E L Q R E Y L S E T L I I T S L T S S U N S E E H C H T A I E C N R E I S T E A L Y Y H O L T R E S
F E G I A H I O T S E D S N W R N T T P S D O C E I R N N R L D R I L S I I E G A T L C N R N D L Y N E H T R
N T O N S S G I A Y D N C G E N N O N E G A
G E R S N P I N G G N T R N
G N T T
G
E
R
R
O
R
>
It's time for some gentle hints:
If you've studied the text box for a while, you've probably guessed that the text which needs to be decrypted is the top row, "IF YOU'RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT..."
If you've given some thought to the title, you've probably figured out that the "icebergs" are the vertical words.
If the vertical words are icebergs, then you've probably surmised that the drawn line (second row) represents the waterline or sea level, with the tips of the icebergs above the waterline, and the submerged parts of the icebergs below the waterline.
Afterword
Congratulations to @MOehm for solving it all in one swoop!
If you would like to know what the fourth hint would have been, here it is:
The tips of the icebergs are above the waterline where we can see them, and the submerged parts of the icebergs are below the waterline where the sea creatures can see them.
In other words:
If the sea creatures can only see the submerged parts of the icebergs, and they understand that the icebergs must make complete words, then what might they guess the tips (i.e., the message) would read?
On the construction of the puzzle:
I wasn't concerned if the icebergs read up-to-down or down-to-up. People can read vertical words almost as well in either direction.
I was mainly concerned with finding pairs of words such as LAUGHTER/DAUGHTER in which the "submerged" part (–AUGHTER) is shared, thus creating a mapping between the "tips" ("L" to "D").
I also wanted the icebergs to be as unambiguous as possible, ideally with only two possibilities like LAUGHTER/DAUGHTER. Turns out, however, this is more difficult than you might think. There are some letter pairs for which there is no shared iceberg (see next paragraph). There are also letter pairs which do have shared icebergs, but those icebergs are also shared with many other words. So I just went down the line: first look for icebergs with two possible tips, then three possible tips, then four possible tips, etc. For those icebergs with multiple possibilities, the puzzle becomes a little bit like Sudoku — you have to pencil in all the possibilities and then pick the right one based on context.
There are also some pretty common letter combinations for which I could find no shared iceberg and thus no mapping. For example, it's difficult to find an iceberg pair that maps "I" to "J", or "I" to "V". In this particular puzzle, I could find no shared iceberg to convert "W" to "U" except for some really tough and uncommon ones (FEW/FEU and SOW/SOU) which I didn't think were fair, so I just cheekily wrote "ENCODING ERROR".
For letters which are the same in both the original message and in the encrypted message, and therefore don't change upon encryption, I looked for icebergs for which there is only one possibility. For example, there is only one tip which completes –NLY and that's "O". For another example, there is only one tip which completes –MPORTANT and that's "I".
