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From: warack@aero.ARPA (Chris Warack )
Newsgroups: net.puzzle
Subject: Re: Word Islands
Message-ID: <300@aero.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 24-Jul-85 11:35:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: aero.300
Posted: Wed Jul 24 11:35:51 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jul-85 07:18:56 EDT
References: <258@ihnet.UUCP>
Reply-To: warack@aero.UUCP (Chris Warack (5734))
Distribution: net
Organization: The Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA
Lines: 32

In article <258@ihnet.UUCP> eklhad@ihnet.UUCP (K. A. Dahlke) writes:
>since word/letter puzzles seem popular, here  is one.
>Allow me to impose a distance metric on the words in the english language.
>Two words differing by N letters are N units apart.
>Examples:  D(dog, dog) = 0,  D(horse, house) = 1,
>	D(drugs, irate) = 4.
>Words are left justified, blank filled, so D(horse, horsefly) = 3.
>My question concerns islands, that is, words that
>are not close to any other words.  What is the shortest word
>that has no neighbors (words one unit distance away).
>		Karl Dahlke    ihnp4!ihnet!eklhad

How about "ivy."  The plural is also ivy.  Replacing the first letter
[vowel] yields 'avy, evy, ovy, uvy and yvy,' none of which I recognize as
words.  The second letter --> 'iay,iby,icy,idy,iey,ify,igy,ihy,iiy,ijy,iky,
ily,imy,iny,ioy,ipy,iqy,iry,isy,ity,iuy,iwy,ixy,iyy,izy.'  And, the last
letter [vowel] --> 'iva,ive,ivi,ivo,ivu.'  I can't thing of a single letter
to add to the end.  Thus, this seems to be an island by the above definition.

If I'm wrong, please respond by mail.  If you noticed it, so did a 1000
others.  I promise to notify the net myself.


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