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From: albert@harvard.ARPA (David Albert)
Newsgroups: net.puzzle
Subject: Re: abcde
Message-ID: <69@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 22-Apr-85 17:36:35 EST
Article-I.D.: harvard.69
Posted: Mon Apr 22 17:36:35 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Apr-85 03:28:05 EST
References: <432@utai.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard
Lines: 23

> >What is the fewest number of regular English
> >words are needed to contain all the letters of the
> >alphabet in order?
> >Example:
> >aback deafening hijack lime nope quark stun vow foxy zed.
> >^^ ^  ^  ^    ^ ^^^  ^ ^ ^  ^^^  ^  ^  ^^^  ^ ^   ^^ ^
> >does it in 10.
> 
> 	Here's one in 4.
> 
> acknowledgements quadrophonic reflexivity jezebel
> ^^^^^^^^^^ ^  ^^ ^^  ^ ^^  ^    ^  ^ ^  ^ ^ ^ ^

But the letters have to appear IN ORDER!  Here's a slight improvement
on the first:
   ambuscade fighting jackal menopause quarks turvy waxy zebra
   ^ ^  ^ ^^ ^ ^^ ^   ^  ^ ^ ^ ^^^     ^  ^ ^ ^^ ^  ^ ^^ ^
which does it in 8.  I got this one using egrep on /usr/dict/words,
and believe it is optimal.
-- 

David Albert
ihnp4!seismo!harvard!albert (albert@harvard.ARPA)