Word Puzzle

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Ben Wilson
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Word Puzzle

Post by Ben Wilson »

Spot the common rule/pattern.

EBB
CAGE
DICED
LACKED
CARNAGE
COMEDIAN
COWARDICE
DISCIPLINE
ANTIBIOTICS

No clues. :)
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Joseph Bolas
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Joseph Bolas »

I assume you want answers via PM?

I will PM you mine, of which I am very confident is correct :D
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Ben Wilson
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Ben Wilson »

Mr. Bolas has got the answer but if anyone else wants to have a crack at it they're more than welcome. :)
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Joseph Bolas
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Joseph Bolas »

Ben Wilson wrote:Mr. Bolas has got the answer but if anyone else wants to have a crack at it they're more than welcome. :)
Thank you for the puzzle Ben :D

It is quite a fun puzzle to solve :D
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Kai Laddiman
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Kai Laddiman »

Ben Wilson wrote:Mr. Bolas has got the answer but if anyone else wants to have a crack at it they're more than welcome. :)
To what, pester him until he gives us the answer? OK, I'll give it a go.
16/10/2007 - Episode 4460
Dinos Sfyris 76 - 78 Dorian Lidell
Proof that even idiots can get well and truly mainwheeled.
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Joseph Bolas
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Joseph Bolas »

Kai Laddiman wrote:
Ben Wilson wrote:Mr. Bolas has got the answer but if anyone else wants to have a crack at it they're more than welcome. :)
To what, pester him until he gives us the answer? OK, I'll give it a go.
I'm sure a champ, like yourself Kai, can solve this without hints :)
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Kai Laddiman
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Kai Laddiman »

I noticed that each word has 1 more letter than the one above it. :D
16/10/2007 - Episode 4460
Dinos Sfyris 76 - 78 Dorian Lidell
Proof that even idiots can get well and truly mainwheeled.
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Ben Wilson
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Ben Wilson »

Kai Laddiman wrote:I noticed that each word has 1 more letter than the one above it. :D
That's not an entirely useless piece of information... ;)
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Frank Rodolf
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Frank Rodolf »

Hmm... I thought I saw a common rule... And then I realized COMEDIAN would be an exception to that rule...

Back to the drawing board. :)
Frank
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Howard Somerset
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Howard Somerset »

Ben Wilson wrote:
Kai Laddiman wrote:I noticed that each word has 1 more letter than the one above it. :D
That's not an entirely useless piece of information... ;)
I certainly guessed that number of letters was significant. I'm now going to take those words with me for a couple of nights in the Lake District, and ponder over them. :)
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Dinos Sfyris
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Dinos Sfyris »

Sussed it :P
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Howard Somerset
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Howard Somerset »

Howard Somerset wrote:I certainly guessed that number of letters was significant. I'm now going to take those words with me for a couple of nights in the Lake District, and ponder over them. :)
Got it during a short break on the drive up to the Lakes on Monday. :P So not having that to do during the following couple of nights, instead I tried in vain to find a word which might follow ANTIBIOTICS.

PMming my solution to Ben.
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Ben Wilson
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Ben Wilson »

I think I can reveal the answer now, which Joseph, Dinos and Howard all got- converting the letters into numbers e.g. A=1, B=2... Z=26, the sum of the letters in each word is the square of the letters in the word. e.g. E+B+B=5+2+2=9=3^2.

I don't know if there are any 12-letter examples of this but there are certainly 3 more with 11 letters in. Open-ended puzzle time, anyone? :)
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Kirk Bevins
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Kirk Bevins »

Ben Wilson wrote:I think I can reveal the answer now, which Joseph, Dinos and Howard all got- converting the letters into numbers e.g. A=1, B=2... Z=26, the sum of the letters in each word is the square of the letters in the word. e.g. E+B+B=5+2+2=9=3^2.

I don't know if there are any 12-letter examples of this but there are certainly 3 more with 11 letters in. Open-ended puzzle time, anyone? :)
Awesome. Love it.
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Howard Somerset
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Howard Somerset »

Very good puzzle. The thing that helped me solve it was noticing that there was a preponderance of letters from the early part of the alphabet, and then trying to work whether or not that was significant.

What a shame that, with A being valid as a one letter word, there is no 2 letter word that fits.

Loved it, Ben.
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Jon Corby
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Jon Corby »

Rats, I came so close to working out the letter values like that, and then got distracted by something shiny and never went back to it. Arse. Nice puzzle, Ben.
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Joseph Bolas
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Joseph Bolas »

Ben Wilson wrote:I don't know if there are any 12-letter examples of this but there are certainly 3 more with 11 letters in. Open-ended puzzle time, anyone? :)
It's taken me a while, but if you were to use the English CSW list, that is included in Zyzzyva, there are a total of 376 words that are 12 letters in length and total 144 :D

The first alphabetically is ACCULTURATES and the last is WORKABLENESS :D
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Ben Wilson
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Ben Wilson »

Joseph Bolas wrote:
Ben Wilson wrote:I don't know if there are any 12-letter examples of this but there are certainly 3 more with 11 letters in. Open-ended puzzle time, anyone? :)
It's taken me a while, but if you were to use the English CSW list, that is included in Zyzzyva, there are a total of 376 words that are 12 letters in length and total 144 :D

The first alphabetically is ACCULTURATES and the last is WORKABLENESS :D
In some ways I don't want to know how you worked that out, and yet in others, I do... care to work on the 13s now? ;-)
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Joseph Bolas
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Joseph Bolas »

Ben Wilson wrote:
Joseph Bolas wrote:It's taken me a while, but if you were to use the English CSW list alone, that is included in Zyzzyva, there are a total of 376 words that are 12 letters in length and total 144 :D

The first alphabetically is ACCULTURATES and the last is WORKABLENESS :D
In some ways I don't want to know how you worked that out, and yet in others, I do... care to work on the 13s now? ;-)
Going by the same English CSW word list in Zyzzyva alone, there are a total of 249 words that are 13 letters in length and total 169 :D. The first alphabetically is ACOTYLEDONOUS and the last is YELLOWHAMMERS :D

Just to also add to this, using the same list alone, there are a total of 77 words that are 14 letters in length and total 196 :D, starting with ADVENTITIOUSLY and ending with WORDLESSNESSES.

There are also a total of 10 words that are 15 letters in length and total 225 :D and they are as follows:

FRUCTUOUSNESSES
NONPRODUCTIVITY
NORTHWESTWARDLY
PHOTOTYPOGRAPHY
PHOTOXYLOGRAPHY
PROPYLITIZATION
SUPERSYMMETRIES
TREMULOUSNESSES
ULTRASTRUCTURAL
UNPROGRESSIVELY
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Ben Wilson
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Re: Word Puzzle

Post by Ben Wilson »

Joseph Bolas wrote:
Ben Wilson wrote:
Joseph Bolas wrote:It's taken me a while, but if you were to use the English CSW list alone, that is included in Zyzzyva, there are a total of 376 words that are 12 letters in length and total 144 :D

The first alphabetically is ACCULTURATES and the last is WORKABLENESS :D
In some ways I don't want to know how you worked that out, and yet in others, I do... care to work on the 13s now? ;-)
Going by the same English CSW word list in Zyzzyva alone, there are a total of 249 words that are 13 letters in length and total 169 :D. The first alphabetically is ACOTYLEDONOUS and the last is YELLOWHAMMERS :D

Just to also add to this, using the same list alone, there are a total of 77 words that are 14 letters in length and total 196 :D, starting with ADVENTITIOUSLY and ending with WORDLESSNESSES.

There are also a total of 10 words that are 15 letters in length and total 225 :D and they are as follows:

FRUCTUOUSNESSES
NONPRODUCTIVITY
NORTHWESTWARDLY
PHOTOTYPOGRAPHY
PHOTOXYLOGRAPHY
PROPYLITIZATION
SUPERSYMMETRIES
TREMULOUSNESSES
ULTRASTRUCTURAL
UNPROGRESSIVELY
Next time you're on msn I'll send you my list of 'extended' csw words (16s and over) :p
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