Eight-Letter Word Search: abcbabcb Pattern

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around identifying an eight-letter word that follows the pattern abcbabcb. Participants explore various candidates, share insights about word origins, and suggest methods for finding such words, including parsing lists and using pattern-matching techniques.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Technical explanation
  • Mathematical reasoning

Main Points Raised

  • One participant proposes the word "lavalava" as a candidate, noting its Oceanic origin.
  • Another suggests "kava-kava" and mentions its medical research background.
  • Several participants list other potential words, including "hotshots," "caracara," and "couscous," while distinguishing between those that fit the abcbabcb pattern and those that do not.
  • There is a discussion about the methodology for finding words, with suggestions to use lists of eight-letter words and tools like 'grep' for pattern matching.
  • One participant expresses uncertainty about the classification of vowels and consonants in the pattern.
  • Another participant humorously suggests "BoraBora" and "CocaCola," but these are dismissed as not fitting the pattern.
  • A later post confirms that "lavalava" is indeed the correct word for the context of a codeword puzzle.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

While there is some consensus around "lavalava" being a valid candidate, multiple competing views and suggestions for other words remain unresolved. Participants do not reach a definitive agreement on the methodology for finding the word or the classification of letters in the pattern.

Contextual Notes

Some participants note limitations in their word lists and the need for more comprehensive resources to ensure all potential candidates are considered. There are also discussions about the compatibility of formatting in their posts.

Who May Find This Useful

Individuals interested in word puzzles, linguistics, or pattern recognition may find this discussion relevant, particularly those looking for creative approaches to word searches.

DaveC426913
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I am looking for a common eight-letter word of the form abcbabcb.
So monomono, or bakabaka or tikitiki would all match, if they were actual words.
There's some Scrabble solvers, but none of the ones I've found support pattern-matching.
Maybe I'll have to write one...
 
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Mathematics news on Phys.org
lavalava - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava-lava
This word is shown hyphenated in the title, but without the hyphen in the body of the article.

Sing Sing - the prison in Ossining, NY

Noncandidates, as they're too long - Walla Walla and Hamma Hamma, both are place names where I live.
 
lavalava Hmm. I'll try that. (I knew it would be something Oceanic)
P.S. how did you find it so quick?

Meanwhile, it's got to be in this list. I need someone to parse it. There's only 17,550 to look through. Anytime in the next 10 minutes will be fine.

(Maybe if I spellcheck it, I'll get 17,449 misspelled words, and one legit...)
 

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DaveC426913 said:
lavalava Hmm. I'll try that. (I knew it would be something Oceanic)
If you know it is "oceanic" and lavalava doesn't work, try kava-kava.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kava
 
From a quick google for words with four repeating letters:
hotshots, kavakava, lavalava, caracara, couscous, chowchow, froufrou, greegree, guitguit.
The bolded three are the only ones which match abcbabcb. Others are a form of abcdabcd.
 
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kavakava (more often just kava) and caracara were the ones of which I was thinking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracara is probably the most legit.

Likely such a word is derived from foreign words, e.g., couscous or guitguit. It may be either oceanic or tropical.
 
Um...BoraBora, anyone :oldbiggrin: ?

Btw, I was married at Lavalava :oldlove:
 
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Cocacola
 
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  • #11
zoobyshoe said:
If you know it is "oceanic" and lavalava doesn't work, try kava-kava.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kava
I was going to suggest Kava-kava but got to looking at the medical research since the '70s when I was experimenting with it among other barks and roots. :olduhh:
 
  • #12
Sorry, neither BoraBora nor CocaCola match the pattern. The others aren't exactly common, but we'll see.
Wikiwiki is out because I and N are disqualified due to another condition which I did not feel the need to include.
 
  • #13
zoobyshoe said:
If you know it is "oceanic"
Nono. I'm simply guessing that it's likely to be a word from Hawaii or other Oceanic languge, simply based on the pattern. An eight letter word, using only three letters, one of the four times - probably a vowel.
 
  • #14
Another candidate: Kawakawa. I'll cook up a code to see what can be done when I have the time.
 
  • #15
At least I found out where "Wakawaka" came from.
My friend uses it profusely.

The line Fozzie the bear says after a very cheezy joke.

"Tell me, why do elephants have trunks?" asks Fozzie.
"Why?"
"Because they don't have glove compartments. WAKA WAKA."​
 
  • #16
Maybe KiWikiWi?
 
  • #17
  1. barabara
  2. caracara
  3. colocolo
  4. galagala
  5. kavakava
  6. kawakawa
  7. kivikivi
  8. kiwikiwi
  9. kolokolo
  10. lavalava
  11. matamata
  12. mocomoco
  13. murumuru
  14. palapala
  15. piripiri
  16. poroporo
  17. ramarama
  18. tikitiki
  19. torotoro
  20. tucutucu
  21. tukutuku
  22. wikiwiki
  23. wiliwili

Is there some context behind the word hunt?
Ed. - Struck out the ones with 'i'. 17 words left and none of them very common.
 
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  • #18
Me too. I'd like to learn what he would want to do with this string extraction.

(C1+V+C2+V)+(C1+V+C2+V)
 
  • #19
DaveC426913 said:
lavalava Hmm. I'll try that. (I knew it would be something Oceanic)
P.S. how did you find it so quick?

Meanwhile, it's got to be in this list. I need someone to parse it. There's only 17,550 to look through. Anytime in the next 10 minutes will be fine.

(Maybe if I spellcheck it, I'll get 17,449 misspelled words, and one legit...)
That list seems to be going at it backwards since it is not a list of words. The way to do it would be to get a list of 8-letter words and scan it for the pattern.
 
  • #20
phinds said:
That list seems to be going at it backwards since it is not a list of words. The way to do it would be to get a list of 8-letter words and scan it for the pattern.
Or you could fine tune 'grep' in BASH to find eight letter words with first four letters repeated and match it against the list of permutations like I did.
 
  • #21
phinds said:
That list seems to be going at it backwards since it is not a list of words. The way to do it would be to get a list of 8-letter words and scan it for the pattern.
Sure, presuming you can guarantee that this apparently odd word is on that list. How wide a net would you have to cast to get a large enough list of words to include this one?
 
  • #22
Silicon Waffle said:
(C1+V+C2+V)+(C1+V+C2+V)
BTW, we don't actually know which are consonants are which are vowels.

The pattern is more generally ABCBABCB or 2(ABCB).
 
  • #23
Enigman said:
  1. barabara
  2. caracara
  3. colocolo
  4. galagala
  5. kavakava
  6. kawakawa
  7. kivikivi
  8. kiwikiwi
  9. kolokolo
  10. lavalava
  11. matamata
  12. mocomoco
  13. murumuru
  14. palapala
  15. piripiri
  16. poroporo
  17. ramarama
  18. tikitiki
  19. torotoro
  20. tucutucu
  21. tukutuku
  22. wikiwiki
  23. wiliwili

Is there some context behind the word hunt?
Ed. - Struck out the ones with 'i'. 17 words left and none of them very common.

Hm. It appears strikeout tags are not compatible with spoiler tags. I do not see the strikeouts in your original post. (check it yourself in post 17)

I was in the process of quoiting your post and crossing them out myself, when I noticed that my quote contains the strikeout formatting.
 
  • #24
  • #25
Enigman said:
And strikeouts in spoilers are working for me (chrome).
Strange. Now they're working for me too. o_O
 
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  • #26
Hey, I just discovered something. This letter pattern is defined by a moebius strip!

moebius.png
 
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  • #27
Thanks all. The word was indeed lavalava.

This was for a particularly ornery codeword puzzle. It's essentially a crossword with no clues, but a number substitution algorithm. i.e.:

Code: 
            [16]            [24]
    [23]    [14]            [15]
[19][ 4][ 8][ 4][19][ 4][ 8][ 4]
    [22]    [ 1]
            [ 6]
 

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