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From: eklhad@ihnet.UUCP (K. A. Dahlke)
Newsgroups: net.puzzle
Subject: Re: abcde
Message-ID: <219@ihnet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 17-Apr-85 10:53:12 EST
Article-I.D.: ihnet.219
Posted: Wed Apr 17 10:53:12 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Apr-85 04:06:36 EST
References: <372@ho95b.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 16

<>
> What is the fewest number of regular English
> words are needed to contain all the letters of the
> alphabet in order?
	With the help of a small C program, and /usr/src/cmd/spell/list,
I have produced the following alphabet-containing word list:
ambuscade fighting jackel monopoly queerest curve waxy zoo 
Minimizing letters (as opposed to words) is also interesting.
The above is 8 words, 51 letters.
The original article said "regular" words,
so I don't know if things like queer"est" or fight"ing" are allowed.
I assume suffixes and prefixes are acceptable.
	Can anyone offer a shorter list?
-- 

Karl Dahlke    ihnp4!ihnet!eklhad