I recently found a word game that I have become addicted to! The idea is to create words, scrabble style out of 7 random letters. But, you get more points by simply adding one letter to a previous word than by making a new word. This started me thinking about all the possibilities....

Starting with the word art:

art
tart
tarts
starts

what is the longest string you can come up with, with either adding one letter to either the beginning or the end of the word?

I obviously can't claim originality for this, but

art
tart
tarte
tarter
starter
starters

quote:

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Originally posted by shufitz:
I obviously can't claim originality for this, but

art
tart
tarte
tarter
starter
starters

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You can begin that with
a
ar

but...
I couldn't find tarte in the OED, the AHD or the M-WCD. Are you sure it's a word?

Tinman

[This message was edited by tinman on Sun Dec 15th, 2002 at 1:15.]

a
ha
has
hast
haste
hasten
chasten
chastens 8

a
la
lap
laps
lapse
elapse
relapse
relapsed 8

a
at
ate
late
elate
elates
relates
prelates 8

a
ha
had
shad
shade
shades 6

a
pa
par
pars
parse
sparse
sparser 7


I
in
ink
rink
drink
drinks 6

Richard English pointed out that my original post contained some words "illeagally" formed, so I removed them. If I missed any, let me know.

Tinman

Tinman

[This message was edited by tinman on Sun Dec 15th, 2002 at 21:15.]

Can I up you one on your:

I
ti
tip
trip
tripe
stripe
striper
stripers 8

strippers 9

I thought the rules only allowed for the addition of a letter at the begining or end of the word - which invalidates these last entries!

Richard English

i
in
tin
ting
sting
esting
testing
testings

I make that 8 without breaking the addition rules!

(esting, by the way, is the practise of a group technique for raising self-awareness, using the theries of the American behaviourist W. Ehard [b. 1935])

Richard English

Yes, you're right, Richard. I thought I had removed of those formed by adding internal letters, but I obviously didn't. So I'll do it now. That gets rid of my nine-letter word. Oh, well...

Thanks for keeping me honest.

Tinman

quote:

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I couldn't find tarte in the OED, the AHD or the M-WCD. Are you sure it's a word?

Tinman

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Oops.

Ooooooooo...you guys are good! Amazing how quickly my score went up in the game! Now I think like you guys! Thanks!

quote:

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Originally posted by Morgan:
Now I think like you guys! Thanks!

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Welcome to the Third Group, Morgan!

Tinman