Chris Johnson:
> > Cape Dear
>
> Typo. Should be: "Cape Fear"
Hmm. On a QWERTY keyboard, "Rear", "Tear", and "Gear" would also be
possible typos for "Fear" formed by hitting an adjacent key instead
of F. Only "Cear" and "Vear" would be non-words.
I wonder what's the greatest number of commonly used words that can be
formed by starting with a particular word and then replacing the same
letter with all the different letters on adjacent keys. Here we have
a set of 5, counting the original word as well; the maximum would be 7.
I did some searching using the /usr/share/dict/words file on this
machine, just changing the first letter of each word, but there are
too many uncommon words in that list. The search found several sets
of the maximum 7 words, but all of them involved uncommon words.
Here they are. (The "original" word in each set is shown first.)
gatter - batter fatter hatter tatter vatter yatter
fain - cain dain gain rain tain vain
fare - care dare gare rare tare vare
fent - cent dent gent rent tent vent
gade - bade fade hade tade vade yade
gare - bare fare hare tare vare yare
gell - bell fell hell tell vell yell
gest - best fest hest test vest yest
gill - bill fill hill till vill yill
fag - cag dag gag rag tag vag
fan - can dan gan ran tan van
fee - cee dee gee ree tee vee
fog - cog dog gog rog tog vog
fum - cum dum gum rum tum vum
gan - ban fan han tan van yan
gat - bat fat hat tat vat yat
Vatter, tain, vare, gan, bleagh! Would anyone like to look for such
sets using common words only, and varying any one of the letters?
The "original" letter must of course be one of S, D, F, H, or J.
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