Anagram-less words
Carl G.
rearranged into another common word. Find a common word with more than
three letters that can't be turned into another common word, even if a
letter was removed or added. For a definition of "common words", use the
average college dictionary of the English language. For additional
challenge, find a word with more than three letters that has no anagram even
if up to two letters can be added or removed.
Carl G.
Ted
"Carl G." wrote:
Is "floccinaucinihilipilification" a common word? :-)
Only 3 more days until MSB13 results!
--Ted I have always challenged the "psychoses." Why don't
fe...@banet.net you have a right to say you are Jesus? And why isn't
the proper response to that congratulations?"
Thomas Szasz, "Reason" Magazine, July 2000
wig...@mailexcite.com
wrote:
>I suppose that there are several common words whose letters can't be
>rearranged into another common word. Find a common word with more than
>three letters that can't be turned into another common word, even if a
>letter was removed or added. For a definition of "common words", use the
>average college dictionary of the English language. For additional
>challenge, find a word with more than three letters that has no anagram even
>if up to two letters can be added or removed.
>
>Carl G.
Here's two:
syzygy
queue - (if you ignore the trivial queues and queued.)
Wiggs
Jim Waters
I've also seen Ted's reply proposing a very long word. I think
Carl had in mind more common words, perhaps whose anagramlessness
would not be so obvious.
Has anyone thought of compiling an "anagrammer's dictionary"?
It would be constructed very simply by having a computer program
loop through a dictionary and for each particular word, as well as
for each and every tense and alternate form of that word, it would
alphabetize the letters, search for the result in its list, insert
that result with the source word into the list if not yet present;
but just add the new reference it is already present.
The end result would be a cannonical list of alphabetized strings
each referencing all their source words; an authoritative table of
all single word anagrams. All anagram-less words would stand out
as strings having just one entry!
-- Jim Waters <jwa...@az.com>
P.S.: Hey, this would be GREAT for solving the daily "jumbles"
puzzle, as well as the "Scrabble-grams by Judd" puzzle which
each run in some newspapers!
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Emil
> It would be constructed very simply by having a computer program
> loop through a dictionary and for each particular word, as well as
> for each and every tense and alternate form of that word, it would
> alphabetize the letters, search for the result in its list, insert
> that result with the source word into the list if not yet present;
> but just add the new reference it is already present.
>
> The end result would be a cannonical list of alphabetized strings
> each referencing all their source words; an authoritative table of
> all single word anagrams. All anagram-less words would stand out
> as strings having just one entry!
>
> -- Jim Waters <jwa...@az.com>
>
> P.S.: Hey, this would be GREAT for solving the daily "jumbles"
> puzzle, as well as the "Scrabble-grams by Judd" puzzle which
> each run in some newspapers!
Aside from not doing the tenses/alternate forms, I used to have
one.
Someone got me a file of words (just words, seperated by one
space,
spanning blocks on the tape) from which I made an indexed file
whose
key was the alphabetized letters. With one indexed read of the
file
you'd get the answer to a Jumble. Had it for words of 4 to 10
letters.
[Anyone remember Xerox Sigma series mainframes? or CP-V ??]
But that was 20 years ago...
--Emil
Jon Delfin
> I suppose that there are several common words whose letters can't be
> rearranged into another common word. Find a common word with more than
> three letters that can't be turned into another common word, even if a
> letter was removed or added. For a definition of "common words", use the
> average college dictionary of the English language. For additional
> challenge, find a word with more than three letters that has no anagram even
> if up to two letters can be added or removed.
>
> Carl G.
How about STRENGTH? I assume STRENGTHS doesn't count as a rearrangement with an
added letter....
Eytan Zweig
"Carl G." <cgi...@microprizes.com> wrote in message
news:8mhup9$evv$1...@slb3.atl.mindspring.net...
> I suppose that there are several common words whose letters can't be
> rearranged into another common word. Find a common word with more than
> three letters that can't be turned into another common word, even if a
> letter was removed or added. For a definition of "common words", use the
> average college dictionary of the English language. For additional
> challenge, find a word with more than three letters that has no anagram
even
> if up to two letters can be added or removed.
>
> Carl G.
>
Well, it's not really a challange with very long words - I doubt you could
find a single-word anagram of Encylcopedia, even if any single letter was
removed or added (except for a plural S). Longer words are even more likely
to answer the criteria.
I think you should limit the puzzle to 3-5 letter words - that's where the
major overlap between words lies, and the number of solutions will be very
small.
Eytan
Hugo van der Sanden
> Has anyone thought of compiling an "anagrammer's dictionary"?
> It would be constructed very simply by having a computer program
> loop through a dictionary and for each particular word, as well as
> for each and every tense and alternate form of that word, it would
> alphabetize the letters, search for the result in its list, insert
> that result with the source word into the list if not yet present;
> but just add the new reference it is already present.
It is a bit easier than that, particularly if your dictionary includes
inflections:
perl -wnle 'push @{$a{join "", sort split //}}, $_; END { print "@$_"
for values %a }' /usr/dict/words
Hugo
Carl G.
that meets the requirements.
Carl G.
Eytan Zweig wrote in message <8mkok7$lom$1...@news.huji.ac.il>...
Tedstennis
>I agree that the word length should be limited. Find a five
letter word
>that meets the requirements.
>
>Carl G.
How about "CRWTH", a word which is common for Scrabble players?
"ZAZEN" is also in the OSPD2, although that's no longer official.
Does anybody know if it's in SOWPODS? Ditto for forms of
"HAJJI" and the related roots, as well as "ZLOTY" and "VODKA".
:-) [If only getting my Perl scripts to run were this easy.]
--Ted (my server is still slow....) fe...@banet.net
--Ted "I have always challenged the 'psychoses.' Why don't
fe...@banet.net you have a right to say you are Jesus? And why isn't
the proper response to that 'congratulations?'"
Thomas Szasz, "Reason" Magazine, July 2000
-----------------------------------------------------------
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Fairygdmther
>major overlap between words lies, and the number of solutions will be very
>small.
how about "jig" or "jog" or "jag"
"jury" "jewel"
Fairygdmther //\ /*
Mark Brader
> Well, it's not really a challange with very long words - I doubt you could
No? What about "Encyclopedia"? :-)
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "But I want credit for all the words
m...@vex.net I spelled *right*!" -- BEETLE BAILEY
Roy Thearle
"Carl G." wrote:
> I agree that the word length should be limited. Find a five letter word
> that meets the requirements.
crwth
queue
whizz
hajji
Roy
Jon Delfin
> "Carl G." <cgi...@microprizes.com> wrote:
> >I agree that the word length should be limited. Find a five
> letter word
> >that meets the requirements.
> >
> >Carl G.
>
> How about "CRWTH", a word which is common for Scrabble players? [snip]
add an E and mix to get WRETCH.
Jeff Kenton
>
> > Has anyone thought of compiling an "anagrammer's dictionary"?
I have a copy of Chambers Anagrams, which is exactly that.
lta...@my-deja.com
csi...@attglobal.net wrote:
>
>
> "Carl G." wrote:
>
> > I agree that the word length should be limited. Find a five letter
word
> > that meets the requirements.
>
> queue
> whizz
> hajji
>
Queue seems to hold up, but there's wretch (as cleverly noted) and
simply whiz and hajj.
Unless 'lich' in the phrase 'lich gate' counts, I think zilch and milch
both work. Some y-heavy words, like gypsy, pygmy, dryly and slyly.
Oddly myrrh doesn't work because of rhymer. But oddly might. How
about cubit? There must be many more 5-letter solutions.
Larry
Yaboo Korkoona
deny.
Jim Waters
Jeff Kenton <JeffK...@mediaone.net> wrote:
> Emil wrote:
> >
> > > Has anyone thought of compiling an "anagrammer's dictionary"?
Uh, it was actually *I* who asked that question. Emil was quoting me.
>
> I have a copy of Chambers Anagrams, which is exactly that.
>
Chambers Anagrams? - I'll have to ask for that next time in a book
store.
This thread has continued along a different branch with people giving
answers which are obvious -- usually with an unusually large number of
rarely used letters. Could you look inside your book and see if you
can find some strings with only one reference, and perhaps verify that
you can add any single letter added in does NOT produce a listed
string? I would think that with your book you could easily find
answers whose anagram-lessness is not obvious.
-- Jim Waters <jwa...@az.com>
Mark Brader
Dyne.
--
Mark Brader "Thus the metric system did not really catch on
Toronto in the States, unless you count the increasing
m...@vex.net popularity of the 9 mm bullet." -- Dave Barry
Lynn Johannesen
: In article <398FC842...@attglobal.net>,
: csi...@attglobal.net wrote:
: Unless 'lich' in the phrase 'lich gate' counts, I think zilch and milch
: both work.
'Lich' is common in fantasy games as a type of monster. It doesn't
seem to have made it into dictionaries yet, but it probably will.
Martin Julian DeMello
Fantasy novels, too. Plus it's in the OED as a corpse, which is more or
less where it's fantasy usage derives (though there I've mostly seen it used
to describe a drowned and magically reanimated body).
--
Martin DeMello
Mike Keith
Firstly, I don't think it's been made clear in this thread
what to do about the (somewhat trivial, but I guess that's
arguable) case of adding a letter on the end, like
QUEUE becoming QUEUES. This makes two variations
to consider, one where such a thing _is_ counted as
an anagram (in which case QUEUE would not be a solution),
and one where such things are not counted. But in the
latter case, what exactly should the rule be? Is any
letter appended to the original o.k.? Probably not.
But then what _is_ o.k.? Just -D and -S? What about -R
(applied, say, to MOVE)?
Well, since this is getting muddled, for now I just consider
the first case. The puzzle is then: find a word that cannot
be anagrammed into another word (different from the original)
even if N letters are removed or added. If it can be anagrammed
into a word, no matter how related that word is to the original,
it is not a solution. The original puzzle suggested N=1 and N=2,
though of course any positive N could be considered.
The puzzle also said "common" word. This, of course,
is a two-edged sword. If we use a larger dictionary there
will be more words to choose from but also a greater chance
of a word being knocked out by an anagram (since the
anagrams are determined by the same larger dictionary).
I tried a small and large dictionary and got almost exactly
the same number of solutions for N=1. I'll just report
on the small-dictionary solutions, as they tend to be more
common words.
Here are the solutions I got for N=1, where I've weeded out
any words I deemed "uncommon" (there were other
solutions besides these):
above affix audio baggy bebop bezel biddy blitz bobby bowie buddy
buggy built bunny chaff chevy civil conch cubic divvy dizzy dodgy
doggy dowdy dryly duchy dummy fatty fixed focus foxed funny gamut
gauzy gayly giddy gummy gunny guppy henna hobby humid hutch icily
ivory jenny jerry jetty jimmy jolly juicy kappa khaki kitty livid
lucid lurid mommy muddy muggy mummy nanny newly ninny nutty ochry
patty penny peppy phlox piggy poppy privy puppy pygmy query quick
ritzy rummy runny savvy shyly sissy slyly smoky sully taffy tatty
tizzy tommy tummy unify vexed virus vivid which wryly young
Clearly there are quite a few solutions, even among very
common words. Of these, the following four also work for N=2:
jimmy
khaki
tizzy
I think I've heard "khaki" used as a noun, which would lead
to "khakis", so perhaps that one is a bit dodgy. Obviously
my small dictionary didn't have "zit", or that would have knocked
out "tizzy".
It seems very likely there aren't any N=3 solutions
with five letters, but almost certainly there are with six or seven.
Mike Keith
Word play, math, music:
http://users.aol.com/s6sj7gt/mikehome.htm
Hugo van der Sanden
>
> Here's my crack at some solutions.
> Here are the solutions I got for N=1, where I've weeded out
> any words I deemed "uncommon" (there were other
> solutions besides these):
>
> above affix audio baggy bebop bezel biddy blitz bobby bowie buddy
> buggy built bunny chaff chevy civil conch cubic divvy dizzy dodgy
> doggy dowdy dryly duchy dummy fatty fixed focus foxed funny gamut
> gauzy gayly giddy gummy gunny guppy henna hobby humid hutch icily
> ivory jenny jerry jetty jimmy jolly juicy kappa khaki kitty livid
> lucid lurid mommy muddy muggy mummy nanny newly ninny nutty ochry
> patty penny peppy phlox piggy poppy privy puppy pygmy query quick
> ritzy rummy runny savvy shyly sissy slyly smoky sully taffy tatty
> tizzy tommy tummy unify vexed virus vivid which wryly young
I'm not sure what puzzle you're solving here, but in the above list I
see dummy, mummy, rummy, tummy, all of which are one change away from
each other. I thought the puzzle was to find a word which was not an
anagram of any other word even after N changes, where each change could
be one of: remove a letter; change a letter; add a letter.
Hugo
Mike Keith
It should be apparent, because I stated the puzzle in my post.
Here's what I said:
-----
The puzzle is then: find a word that cannot
be anagrammed into another word (different from the original)
even if N letters are removed or added.
-----
> but in the above list I
>see dummy, mummy, rummy, tummy, all of which are one change away from
>each other. I thought the puzzle was to find a word which was not an
>anagram of any other word even after N changes, where each change could
>be one of: remove a letter; change a letter; add a letter.
>
"Change a letter" is not allowed. Here's Carl's original
problem statment:
-----
I suppose that there are several common words whose letters can't be
rearranged into another common word. Find a common word with more than
three letters that can't be turned into another common word, even if a
letter was removed or added. For a definition of "common words", use the
average college dictionary of the English language. For additional
challenge, find a word with more than three letters that has no anagram even
if up to two letters can be added or removed.
-----
You have, however, identified a possible interpretation problem.
Where Carl says "if up to two letters can be added or
removed", I assumed this meant you could add 1 or add 2
or remove 1 or remove 2. Your version of the problem statement
allows simultaneously adding 1 and removing 1.
I'm not sure which was intended. Anyway, to be precise,
the solutions I gave are for the case "add up to N letters,
OR take away up to N letters, then rearrange".
Your two extensions (allowing both adding and removing,
and allowing changes) are, of course, also interesting,
and would reduce the number of solutions.
Neeraj 'The Ridge' Nagarkatti
"Carl G." wrote:
> I suppose that there are several common words whose letters can't be
> rearranged into another common word. Find a common word with more than
> three letters that can't be turned into another common word, even if a
> letter was removed or added. For a definition of "common words", use the
> average college dictionary of the English language. For additional
> challenge, find a word with more than three letters that has no anagram even
> if up to two letters can be added or removed.
>
> Carl G.
--
If at first you don't succeed,
try and try again.
Hugo van der Sanden
>
> >I'm not sure what puzzle you're solving here,
>
> It should be apparent, because I stated the puzzle in my post.
> Here's what I said:
I'm sorry, my mistake: I both misremembered the puzzle and failed to
spot it quoted in your post.
Hugo
Richard Carr
:Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 23:39:17 +0100
:From: Neeraj 'The Ridge' Nagarkatti <nee...@ntlworld.com>
:Newsgroups: alt.brain.teasers, rec.puzzles
:Subject: Re: Anagram-less words
:
:'rhythm'. I guess words with as few vowels as possible.
It's a myth that this satisfies the additional challenge, though.
:
:
:
:
Richard Carr
:Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 13:43:21 -0700
:From: Carl G. <cgi...@microprizes.com>
:Newsgroups: alt.brain.teasers, rec.puzzles
:Subject: Anagram-less words
:
:I suppose that there are several common words whose letters can't be
:rearranged into another common word. Find a common word with more than
:three letters that can't be turned into another common word, even if a
:letter was removed or added. For a definition of "common words", use the
:average college dictionary of the English language. For additional
:challenge, find a word with more than three letters that has no anagram even
:if up to two letters can be added or removed.
:
:Carl G.
:
I think xystus qualifies, using the OED as a standard average dictionary
to be found in universities- at least they had it at Oxford, but maybe
that was just biasedness..
leowil...@gmail.com
> I suppose that there are several common words whose letters can't be
> rearranged into another common word. Find a common word with more than
> three letters that can't be turned into another common word, even if a
> letter was removed or added. For a definition of "common words", use the
> average college dictionary of the English language. For additional
> challenge, find a word with more than three letters that has no anagram even
> if up to two letters can be added or removed.
>
> Carl G.
Richard Heathfield
For example, "reinquiry" is in my dictionary (which, admittedly, is
rather large, but I just checked an online dictionary and found it there
too), and it would break "inquiry".
In fact, I think it makes the puzzle *too* difficult.
--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within
leflynn
L. Flynn
Richard Heathfield
> One could argue that reinquiry does not re-arrange the letters of inquiry.
The word "commonplace" is interesting, because you can remove as many as
three letters from it without enabling a commonplace anagram. (Removing
a fourth gives you "conceal" and "monocle".)
Whether it observes the rule about *adding* letters without creating an
anagram is not a question I would care to tackle without automated
assistance.
sven...@gmail.com
> I suppose that there are several common words whose letters can't be
> rearranged into another common word. Find a common word with more than
> three letters that can't be turned into another common word, even if a
> letter was removed or added. For a definition of "common words", use the
> average college dictionary of the English language. For additional
> challenge, find a word with more than three letters that has no anagram even
> if up to two letters can be added or removed.
>
> Carl G.
leflynn
spottier (-Y)
L. Flynn