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#135330 11/18/04 11:26 PM
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AniamL Offline OP
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A while ago I noticed that the letters 'e', 't', and 'a' can be arranged to form four 3-letter words: tea, eta, ate, and eat (tae may count). I also noticed that the letters 's', 't', 'o', and 'p' can be arranged to form stop, pots, opts, spot, and tops. I was wondering if any of you could discover any similar three-letter or four-letter combinations.

"It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years." -Tom Lehrer

#135331 11/19/04 01:49 AM
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ear are era

pear pare reap rape

I used to play Jotto with 5-letter words; this type of word was good if you wanted to cheat a bit (not that I ever did).


#135332 11/19/04 02:35 AM
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eta

I like this one.

welcome, animal!



formerly known as etaoin...
#135333 11/19/04 02:18 PM
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seat teas east sate

sone nose eons ones

ort tor rot

"Take me to your Lieder."

k



#135334 11/19/04 06:24 PM
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Haha.. that one was just for you, eta.

I thought of "eel" and "lee" (which technically is four different words, if you want to think of it mathematically) but I think that's cheating!

"It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years." -Tom Lehrer

#135335 11/20/04 03:03 AM
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AniamL Offline OP
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In reply to:

seat teas east sate


You forgot etas and eats, and that makes 6! That's not bad.

"It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years." -Tom Lehrer


#135336 11/20/04 04:11 PM
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If we can violate the original premise lf "three- and four-letter words," I offer

least
slate
stale
steal
tales
taels
teals
Tesla

and the more questionable
setal -- pertaining to bristles (setae)
Stael -- as in "Madame de"

I recall a TV audience-participation show from the Fifties wherein the contestant had to arrange a set of letters into a word, with a 0 behind all but one of the letters and a 1 behind that all-important one, the numbers then being uncovered to reveal how much money had been won in that round...

Also

Etons
notes
onset
steno
stone
tones
which has the added virtue of allowing any of the letters to be the Big One. 'Onest !

#135337 11/20/04 05:48 PM
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That's pretty good, wofa. Perhaps the next challenge will be forbidding the use of r, s, and/or t. Now that would be tough.

"It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years." -Tom Lehrer

#135338 11/20/04 11:47 PM
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Using this service would be cheating, of course, but I wanted to remind viewers that Anu has a mighty fine Internet Anagram Server (aka I, Rearrangement Servant ) on his web site:

http://wordsmith.org/anagram/index.html



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