A while ago I came up with a simple riddle while driving (no, I don't need a cell phone to be distracted, TYVM). I haven't really figured out the best way to describe it, but this is the premise:
There exist sets of five words (in english) such that the only difference between the words is that one of the letters can be replaced by each of the five vowels. As an example, the pattern "b_g" expands into "bag", "beg", "big", "bog", and "bug". I believe all the three letter combinations are that plus "f_r", "p_p", "p_t", and "t_n".
I know of a similar set consisting of words of seven letters. The challenge is to find it. Is it the longest?
A secondary challenge is to simply find other sets, of any length.
No comments here, but a few via Google's Buzz.
ReplyDeleteI feel I have to add another 3 letter combination - 'b_t'. I initially didn't like 'bot' as a word, but I think it's valid enough even if it's not considered 'dictionary-worthy' by some.
I will not add 'l_ck' because I don't think that 'leck' is sufficiently word, even though it has an entry at http://wordnik.com/
Speaking of, you can now do searches at Wordnik using '@' as a vowel-wildcard, which can make searching much easier.
And since some people are starting to try to get some 4-letter combinations, I'll start everyone off with this one:
l_st (or l@st, if you prefer)
Chris