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Anagramless Words

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Dunc M

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Oct 14, 2021, 5:47:52 PM10/14/21
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Time to revive the search for common 5-letter words (OED) whose letters - either all or some - cannot be rearranged into other words of at least two letters. The only examples I have found are CIVIC and QUEUE. Are there any others? I'm sure there must be, but they are elusive.
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gerson

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Oct 27, 2021, 8:40:16 PM10/27/21
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> "Dunc M" wrote in message news:7af71892-0069-4720...@googlegroups.com...

> Time to revive the search for common 5-letter words (OED) whose letters - either all or some - cannot be rearranged into other
> words of at least two letters. The only examples I have found are CIVIC and QUEUE. Are there any others? I'm sure there must be,
> but they are elusive.

cynic

G

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Oct 28, 2021, 5:39:46 AM10/28/21
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There is "yin" as in "Yin and Yang".

G

leflynn

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Oct 28, 2021, 12:05:20 PM10/28/21
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On Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 5:47:52 PM UTC-4, Dunc M wrote:
> Time to revive the search for common 5-letter words (OED) whose letters - either all or some - cannot be rearranged into other words of at least two letters. The only examples I have found are CIVIC and QUEUE. Are there any others? I'm sure there must be, but they are elusive.
Is the challenge to find a word without any arrangements of every combination of two to five of the letter that are other words or to find a word where at least one of the letters cannot be used to make a new word in combination with any choice of one to four or the other letters?
L. Flynn

leflynn

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Oct 28, 2021, 8:42:28 PM10/28/21
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On Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 5:47:52 PM UTC-4, Dunc M wrote:
> Time to revive the search for common 5-letter words (OED) whose letters - either all or some - cannot be rearranged into other words of at least two letters. The only examples I have found are CIVIC and QUEUE. Are there any others? I'm sure there must be, but they are elusive.

The one I found is LYNCH. VIZIR is not as common and I could not determine if this spelling is in the OED. CIRRI, an option for the plural of CIRRUS is not very common, as cirrus is usually used as collective noun.

L. Flynn

Mark Brader

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Oct 28, 2021, 10:45:16 PM10/28/21
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Dunc M.:
> Time to revive the search for common 5-letter words (OED) whose letters
> - either all or some - cannot be rearranged into other words of at least
> two letters.

If this is meant to be a mental puzzle, please ignore this response.

I don't have access to a list of words in the OED, and I doubt that
one is available online, but I do have access to the "Webster's 2nd"
word list, and I wrote a suitable Perl program and ran it on that list.

It claimed three hits: CIRRI, CIVIC, and QUICK.

(I know some dictionaries admit QI as a word these days, which would
disallow QUICK, but I say bah humbug to that. If Q occurs in a word
followed by a letter other than U, it's not English.)

As to the suggestions posted by other people, some due to
misunderstanding the question, my program disallowed them because
the words at right, or perhaps I should say the forms at right,
were words in the list:

QUEEN UN
QUEER QERE
QUELL ULE
QUERY QUEY
QUEST QUET
CRAZY CRY
LIVID LI
PENNY PEN
LYNCH LY

(I know, I wouldn't accept QERE as English myself, but there's RE, too.)
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "To err is human, but to error requires a computer."
m...@vex.net | -- Harry Lethall

My text in this article is in the public domain.

leflynn

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Oct 29, 2021, 11:22:53 AM10/29/21
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On Thursday, October 28, 2021 at 10:45:16 PM UTC-4, Mark Brader wrote:
> Dunc M.:
> > Time to revive the search for common 5-letter words (OED) whose letters
> > - either all or some - cannot be rearranged into other words of at least
> > two letters.
> If this is meant to be a mental puzzle, please ignore this response.
>
> I don't have access to a list of words in the OED, and I doubt that
> one is available online, but I do have access to the "Webster's 2nd"
> word list, and I wrote a suitable Perl program and ran it on that list.
>
> It claimed three hits: CIRRI, CIVIC, and QUICK.
>
> (I know some dictionaries admit QI as a word these days, which would
> disallow QUICK, but I say bah humbug to that. If Q occurs in a word
> followed by a letter other than U, it's not English.)
>
> As to the suggestions posted by other people, some due to
> misunderstanding the question, my program disallowed them because
> the words at right, or perhaps I should say the forms at right,
> were words in the list:
>
> LYNCH LY
>
> Mark Brader, Toronto | "To err is human, but to error requires a computer."
> m...@vex.net | -- Harry Lethall
>
> My text in this article is in the public domain.

I believe "LY" only appears as "-ly suffix" in the OED. "QI" is there.
Is "VIZIR" in your Webster's 2nd, and if so how did it fail?

L. Flynn

leflynn

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Oct 29, 2021, 5:10:33 PM10/29/21
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Some of the web2 word lists grabbed everything and removed hyphens
I have three unabridged Websters in hardcopy.

My Webster's 1st and 2nd only have "-ly" as a suffix. The third gives it as an abbreviation for Langley without a capital or period.

CIRRI is in Webster's 1st, 2nd and 3rd as a plural of CIRRUS.

QI is not in any of them. QUA and QUA have mixed presences across the three.

Webster's 2nd has VIZIR as an alternate spelling for VIZIER.

I'll start off the six-letter quest with SYZYGY .

L. Flynn

leflynn

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Oct 29, 2021, 5:44:30 PM10/29/21
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> QI is not in any of them. QUA and QUE have mixed presences across the three.
>
> Webster's 2nd has VIZIR as an alternate spelling for VIZIER.
>
> I'll start off the six-letter quest with SYZYGY .
>
> L. Flynn
That should be QUA and QUE have mixed presences across the three.
I find "CRI" in some dictionaries but as a component of a French phrase.
Similarly "VICI" as a component of a Latin phrase.

Some very uncommon possibilities from a large list of five-letter words:
GYNNY
GHYLL (possibly spoiled by “LY”)
CHYND (possibly by "HYND")
XYLYL (possibly spoiled by “LY”)
CRWTH (possibly spoiled by “TCH”)

Mark Brader

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Oct 30, 2021, 1:55:48 AM10/30/21
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Mark Brader:
> > I don't have access to a list of words in the OED, and I doubt that
> > one is available online, but I do have access to the "Webster's 2nd"
> > word list...

L.E. Flynn:
> Is "VIZIR" in your Webster's 2nd, and if so how did it fail?

I don't have an actual Webster's, but that word isn't in the list.
--
Mark Brader | "Weight... wait... what?"
Toronto | "Last night I had a dream that I weighed less
m...@vex.net | than a thousandth of a gram. I was like, 0mg."

Mark Brader

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Oct 30, 2021, 2:20:45 AM10/30/21
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L.E. Flynn:
> > I'll start off the six-letter quest with SYZYGY .

Tweaking the same program I ran before to do 6-letter words,
that one is the only hit.

I then tried 7-letter words and got no hits.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Something doesn't become ethical just because
m...@vex.net | you can get away with it." --Barry Margolin

Richard Heathfield

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Nov 2, 2021, 8:26:31 AM11/2/21
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On 30/10/2021 06:55, Mark Brader wrote:
> Mark Brader:
>>> I don't have access to a list of words in the OED, and I doubt that
>>> one is available online, but I do have access to the "Webster's 2nd"
>>> word list...
>
> L.E. Flynn:
>> Is "VIZIR" in your Webster's 2nd, and if so how did it fail?
>
> I don't have an actual Webster's, but that word isn't in the list.

Just out of sheer interest, although that word appears in neither of the
two word lists I keep, one the sane /usr/yadayadayada and the other a
somewhat mildly insane list of 431,963 words, the latter does have these:

rjh@me:~/ref$ grep -i vizir bigdict.txt
vizirate
vizirates
vizircraft
vizirial
vizirship
vizirships


--
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

Kerr-Mudd, John

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Aug 4, 2022, 6:39:00 AM8/4/22
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Have you got RHYTHM ?


--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

Kerr-Mudd, John

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Aug 4, 2022, 6:41:30 AM8/4/22
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On Sat, 30 Oct 2021 01:20:33 -0500
m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:

> L.E. Flynn:
> > > I'll start off the six-letter quest with SYZYGY .
>
> Tweaking the same program I ran before to do 6-letter words,
> that one is the only hit.
>
> I then tried 7-letter words and got no hits.

Ah well. RHYTHM has MYRH, I guess.
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