if he couldn't make a word, he's allowed to punch out any letter he wants.

I think you may have dropped one letter too many, TEd.

‘oragney’ to ‘gnarly’ drops two letters, the ‘o’ and the ‘e’ (adding the ‘l’ of course).

But the instructions don’t explicitly say that no more than one letter can be dropped.

Judges?

(Just in case the judges accept ‘gnarly’, here is the next word: grandly)