Challenge: 23 Words or Less to Use Every Letter of Alphabet

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the challenge of creating a sequence of words that uses every letter of the alphabet within a limit of 23 words. Participants explore different approaches, share their attempts, and evaluate each other's lists in terms of efficiency and completeness.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Debate/contested, Technical explanation

Main Points Raised

  • One participant, DaveE, proposes a method of changing one letter at a time to create new words and claims to have achieved this in 32 words, suggesting that it is theoretically possible within 23 words.
  • Another participant provides a list of 24 words, noting that the letter "e" is repeated, which does not meet the challenge's criteria.
  • DaveE shares a program-generated list of 23 words that successfully uses all letters, asserting that all words are valid according to the Scrabble online dictionary.
  • A different participant presents a list totaling 43 words, expressing uncertainty about its correctness and attempting to meet the challenge.
  • Another participant critiques the 43-word list, pointing out redundancies and missing letters, suggesting that some words are unnecessary for achieving the goal.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on the best solution, as multiple competing lists are presented, and critiques highlight different interpretations of the challenge's requirements.

Contextual Notes

Some lists contain repeated letters or words, and certain letters may not be used at all, indicating that the challenge remains unresolved in terms of finding an optimal solution.

davee123
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So, for whatever reason, I got to thinking. Let's suppose you have a 4 letter word, say "tile". You change one letter to make a new word, "mile", and then again to "mild", and then "mold", etc. How many iterations would you need in order to use *every* letter of the alphabet (in the above I've used only D,E,I,L,M,O, and T), without repeating a word twice?

It took me 32 words to achieve this, and theoretically, it's possible within only 23 words. I'm sure someone can do better. Anyone?

DaveE
 
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Many
Manx
Mane
Maze
Haze
Have
Wave
Wake
Woke
Joke
Poke
Pore
Gore
Bore
Core
Cure
Curl
Furl
Fuel
Duel
Duet
Suet
Suit
Quit

TOTAL: 24
Note: Obviously, this is 1 worse than the theoretical best. In particular, the letter "e" is repeated. It first appears in MANE then disappears after CURE, only to reappear three words later in FUEL and then disappear after SUET.
 
Last edited:
AKG said:
TOTAL: 24

Very nice!

I actually couldn't resist the urge, and fed it into a program, which was able to find a whole bunch of solutions using 23 words. Of course, the word list I used included some words that weren't fit for posting (go figure that it tried to use one of them a *lot*), so using a tamer word list, I got:

quiz
quip
quid
quit
suit
skit
skim
swim
shim
shiv
shin
chin
coin
join
loin
loan
lorn
lore
lobe
loge
logy
fogy
foxy

(All words were found in the Scrabble online dictionary, so I'm calling it good!)

DaveE
 
I don't know if this is correct, but let me try it...here's my list:

rope
robe
rode
role
rose
rote
dote
dole
dome
done
dope
dose
doze
daze
faze
gaze
laze
maze
raze
race
rage
rake
rape
rare
rate
rite
bite
cite
kite
mite
site
side
sire
lire
dire
fire
hire
sire
tire
wire
were
here
mere

Total: 43
 
The idea is to make a list of size 23, but use all the letters. Right away, I see you don't need "mere" at the end, since all it does is introduce an "m", which you've already done when you had "dome". You also use "sire" twice, and the second time is entirely unnecessary (you don't need it to go from "hire" to "tire") so you can get rid of that. On the other hand, you don't appear to have used the letters 'y' and 'x', so it's not even complete yet.
 

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