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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Rereading my favourite Lewis Carroll collection this morning, I was struck by the idea for a very decidedly "on-topic" challenge. Carroll invented the game of changing one word into another, one letter at a time. One example was "witch" into "fairy" My challenge is this: Below are three of his "Doublets", with the number of intermediate words he used. Beat him!
Turn WITCH into FAIRY (12 links) Put ROUGE on CHEEK (16 links) Make WINTER SUMMER (13 links)
The prize will be a list of six impossible things to be believed before breakfast. There will be a consolation prize of glory (Humpty's definition) for any who happen to use the same words that Carroll did. A link to the original solutions will be posted in one week, or when we have a winner, whichever comes first. Also, please remember that, under rule No. 42, all persons more than a mile high must leave the court.
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Hi Max:
You sure know how to keep a fella busy, don't you.
I can put ROUGE into CHEEK in 16 links, and I can make WINTER into SUMMER in 10 links, but I can't turn WITCH into FAIRY under 18 links. I'll keep working on that one for a day or two.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Allô Maxie dear,
Do you count the original and last word?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Non, ma chèrie. Seulement les autres mots. ( self-congratulatory emoticon for longest phrase written in French since High School) We already have a front-runner, a WINTER-SUMMER transformation in ten links, albeit with a slight divergence into language that could be decribed as "likely to be looked at slighly askance in formal circles." Keep 'em coming people!
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Joined: Aug 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Time's up, folks, put down those durian sandwiches and pay homage to our winner, maverick. He remembered two of the doublets, and came up with a significant improvement on the third, at least an improvement defined as a reduction in the number of links needed. Here is maverick's reply, verbatim: Witch into Fairy with 12 links: WITCH winch wench tench tenth tents tints tilts tills fills falls fails fairs FAIRY
Rouge onto Cheek with 16 links:
ROUGE rough sough south sooth booth boots boats brats brass crass cress chess chest cheat cheap cheep CHEEK
I think I have an 8 link version for Winter into Summer:
WINTER winker wanker wander warder harder harmer hammer hummer SUMMER Hope no-one’s upset by the vulgar word ‘hammer’! Here's another Carollian challenge. Charles Dodgson became Lewis Carroll by translating Charles Lutwedge into Latin as Carolus Ludovicus, then reversing those names, and translating them back into English as Lewis Carroll. Would anyone care to do something similar with their own names? Perhaps generate the new name, and simply post back the results, along with the language used, for others to attempt to discover what the original was. Convoluted cryptography sounds like a good name for this appropriately pointless endeavour.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Way to go, mav! MAX--I got brave and put your name into Babelfish: English to Portuguese. Here you are in Portygee: "Máximo Quordlepleen". Now--when I put Máximo Quordlepleen to be translated from Portuguese to English, you became Quordlepleen Maximum!
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<Hope no-one’s upset by the vulgar word ‘hammer’! >
My brother used to joke about an old fraternity brother who was an inveterate "wanker." His friends used to joke in his absence that he was up in his room, "hammering away."
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Pooh-Bah
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Ha! And I thought he was playfully alluding to "hummer."
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Hope no-one’s upset by the vulgar word ‘hammer’! You let’em start with a hammer and they end bringing a sickle. Mallaidh Sean
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