Does anyone know of a crossword puzzle arrangement that uses all 26 letters only once?

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Yeow. Given the consonant-to-vowel ratio of 21:5, or even 20:6 if you're gonna allow a Welsh word, it seems pretty unlikely you could come up with a grid that wasn't mostly black squares. I'd love to know if anyone's ever seen one.

Vowels can be used in an intersecting words, which gives you many more possibilites.
> W > > V >
L I Q U O R
> N > > D >
> E > > K >
> > > > A >
This subject was started from one of those alphabet phonics games for my 3 year old daughter. There are 27 magnets (1 is the sounding instrument) which sit on our fridge. We've been trying to connect words along a theme, i.e. liquor, vodka, wine, jag (we've been liberal regarding truncation in the interest of a good laugh). Then we began to see if we could connect any words and use up all the letters. After a dozens tries, I've left 3 letters out a few times. I'm no genius, but I'll bet there are a few visiting these boards.

Oh yeah...after a few days we realized the letters were up on the freezer section out of reach for our little one. It seemed the adults were having more fun with it than her. We have since lowered them.

well, you could start with the shortest sentence that only uses each letter once. what is that? then create the puzzle from there. although if you're a cw purist (a prescruzzlevist?), the puzzle needs to be symmetrical, no?

interesting puzzler, this!

Okay folks I tried my hand at this. I allowed myself the same leeway that the New York Times crossword uses (proper names, abbreviations, etc). You'll have to click on the link to see the grid (which is, of course, mostly blacked-out sqaures).

26 letter crossword (jpg file)

ACROSS:
2. SCOTUS nominee
5. astound
9. men’s fashion mag
10. good day to kiss an RN?
11. woodworking tool

DOWN
1. assault victim subject of widespread inquiry
3. where sheep rustlers go to avoid prosecution?
4. hipster radio station at UNC Chapel Hill
7. Wodehouse of British comedy
8. Robert Graves biography of trouble-making supreme being from Star Trek?

I tried a couple of the "pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs" sentences but couldn't get them to connect together in an all-connected crossword.

I am thinking it might work with one of the following (cut and pasted from http://rinkworks.com/words/oddities.shtml):

Dermatoglyphics, misconjugatedly, and uncopyrightable, each fifteen letters long, are the longest English words in which no letter appears more than once. Fourteen letter words with this property are ambidextrously, benzhydroxamic, hydromagnetics, hydropneumatic, pseudomythical, schizotrypanum, sulphogermanic, troublemakings, undiscoverably, and vesiculography.

I think the most important aspect is to get good vowel separation so parallel words don't rub each other. I'll try some of the above words sometime when I get a few minutes.

Bravo Alex! I guess I was just thinking about real words intersecting and not about a "real" crossword puzzle with clues and abbr's.
I will see if I can crack the puzzle.

Nice work!

Thanks Kelly (and welcome, BTW). I just used a sort of trial and error approach, trying to take advantage of as many consonant combinations as possible to get the most out of each vowel. "Crypt" was one such word, but it ended up on the cutting room floor.

Alex, I'm impressed and I haven't even looked at it yet!!

Kelly, I think you were thinking of Scrabble®, not crosswords.

Yeah. I'm really a novice, although I did clear my rack with "TERMINAL" hitting two triple word scores once. I still just barely beat a friend who aced Greek and lists Etymology as a pastime. Thanks for going easy on me.

I doubt it is necessary really but here is the solution to the crossword puzzle above: CLICK HERE

Nice.

I used "dermatoglyphic" and left one letter three different times. I think I'm ready to put this to rest, but the question was the catalyst that made me seek out AWAD, Anu, and evidently the best kept secret on the web. An awesome forum!

An awesome forum!

True, and yet, through it all, we remain remarkably humble. Welcome aboard. Is it snowing in Denver tonight, as predicted?

Not exactly, father, we re-content that which is beyond our miscontenti0ns.

I will try to quell my enthusiasm in the future Father.

Quote:

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Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves

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Thank you for your reply. Yes. Snowing. 4 hours now and counting, depending om locale. Slow driving expected in the morning.