Four letter words

[Ghost Post]

Choose a four letter word (your choice is important).
Starting from that word, change any letter to any other letter without anagramming to form a new four letter word.
Once a letter has been used, including the four in the first word, it can not be used again. Also, no letter in the same position can be changed more than twice in a row.
I have managed to use all the letters in the alphabet but I have one worded that is listed as obsolete at dictionary.com.
1. Is it possible to do this using only common words?
2. Is it possible to do the same thing with five letter words?

[Lepton]

Do you mean like this?

code:

---

snog


snzg


snzf


anzf


...

---

?

[Ghost Post]

Yes

Except that snzg, snzf and anzf are not words. Either that or I've got a baaad dictionary

[Ghost Post]

My list goes
QUIZ
QUIT
SUIT
SKIT
SPIT
SPIN
SHIN

and then I get stuck because I have to use SAIN to be able to use the rest of the letters.

[Ghost Post]

I'm still interested to know what the longest string of 5 letter words is.

[Snail]

Me too! Also interested. My list also started out like yours, quidnunc, but I got stuck with BUMP.

[chlorella]

How about:

pigs
pies
pied
tied
toed
told
bold
bord
bard
bark
hark
hack
sack
sick

Now I'm stuck. Must be my miniscule vocabulary.

[fetus]

here's my best list of 5 letter words:
MIXER
miNer
Winer
wineD
wAned
waVed
Paved
paCed
Faced
faceS
Laces
laKes
Takes
Jakes
jUkes
jOkes
Yokes
Hokes (this one is iffy, but its listed as slang at dictionary.com)

i'm stuck here with B, G, Q and Z unused (and H if you don't count hokes).
further bulletins as events warrant.

[cubestudent]

here's my best list of four letter.

hoax
coax
coat
moat
molt
volt
vole
dole
done
dons
dins
wins
wigs
jigs
jibs
ribs
rips
yips
yups

[One Skunk Todd]

Fetus, waGed could go between waned and waved

[One Skunk Todd]

And Bakes could go between lakes and takes

[cubestudent]

but you can't change the same position twice in a row

[One Skunk Todd]

Whoops, Bakes doesn't work because of the "not more than twice in a row" rule. Sorry, didn't see that at first.

[Ghost Post]

You can't change the same position more than twice in a row.
I'm impressed with the 5 letter list. I just threw mine in the bin.

[Ghost Post]

laZes can go between Laces and laKes

[cubestudent]

argh!
changing twice in a row would make this so much easier!
you'll notice my string of nineteen doesn't do that.
i've crippled myself!

[fetus]

ok, thanks to your help/additions of waGed and laZes (and i came up with miTer), here is the updated list:

MIXER
miTer (EDITED BECAUSE I'M A WORTHLESS FETUS)
miNer
Winer
wineD
wAned
waGed
waVed
Paved
paCed
Faced
faceS
Laces
laZes
laKes
Bakes
Jakes
jUkes
jOkes
Yokes
Hokes (this one is iffy, but its listed as slang at dictionary.com)

this leaves only B and Q open. i had thought of bakes, but the no MORE than 2 prohibits it as i use Takes and Jakes. Jakes, as you can see is important leading to other words. if we can stick the T somewhere else that won't hurt the rest of the list, we can put Bakes in place of Takes. Q i am convinced cannot be used. I looked up a list of 5 letter words with Q in them and couldn't make any headway from any of them. i haven't had time to look for where else to put the "t", so lets do that and we'll be as done as possible (so far as i can tell).

(edited): i used the word "miTer" towards the beginning of the list then replaced Takes with Bakes. now the only letter is Q. if you can finger out how to use it, then you get two under-developed thumbs up!



[This message has been edited by fetus (edited 04-03-2002 03:38 PM).]

[GH]

Cheater. You have to move "miter" up one slot.

[Sofis]

Making the end
Tokes
Hokes
hokeY
also works.

[fetus]

thanks for pointing out my fetal mistake. sofis is correct also, obviously.

[ralphmerridew]

GAMES magazine had a contest like that once. I don't remember how many letters the winner used, but I'm pretty sure he/she used the words "FAQIR" and "FAQIH".

[fetus]

see, i had faqir as a word, but not faqih. i'll give it a look over when i can and see if i can make a run at usin 'em all.
(note: dictionary.com doesn't have faqih as a word either)

[This message has been edited by fetus (edited 04-04-2002 02:07 PM).]

[Ghost Post]

Even if faqih was a word, where would you go from there.

My original list started with
QUINS
RUINS
RAINS

but that used too many letters I wanted later.

I'm guessing that its probably easier to use all the letters with 6 letter words than 5. At least you'd be able to get the q out of the way with
QUAVER
SUAVER
SLAVER or SHAVER

but I don't have the energy to go on from there now. Its 5.15am and I've got to get to bed before the alarm goes off.

[fetus]

finally got it (sort of):

FAQIR
faKir
fakEr
faCer
Pacer
paGer
Jager
Wager
waTer
Hater
Mater
maZer
mazeD
maNed
Laned
laYed
laVed
lOved
loBed
lUbed
lubeS
luXes

according to dictionary.com, "laned" is not a word. however, if you look up "laned" in a yahoo search and look at the web page matches, it is used in countless city/state statutes, bills, descriptions, etc. considering this (and that its the only way i've been able to finish the list off completely thus far) i vote it counts. i'll keep trying to find one with all the words in the dictionary though...



[This message has been edited by fetus (edited 04-05-2002 10:04 AM).]

[mikegoo]

I think there is someting wrong in here

quote:

---

Paned
paYed
paWed
Jawed
jOyed

---

but you've done far better than me

[Lucky Wizard]

mike, "payed" is a word. Some of the meanings of the word "pay" can be inflected as "payed" (though, admittedly, said meanings aren't very common).

http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=payed

[cubestudent]

i think he was pointing out that you changed two letters between: jawed and joyed.

[fetus]

yes, he was most certainly pointing out the fact that i'm stupid. i'm not sure how i did that, but look now. i'll edit it so its actually right. i'm making a lot of mistakes on these posts (like you guys didn't notice...)

[Lucky Wizard]

Didn't see what mikegoo was pointing out - I was concentrating more on the first part of the quoted portion.

[fetus]

i'll try and fix mine tomorrow, as well as taking a good look at QUINS and 6 letter words.

[fetus]

hey, is this like scrabble or can we use proper nouns? since it says "common words" in the original post, i'm guessing no, but fingered i'd ask...

[This message has been edited by fetus (edited 04-05-2002 09:38 AM).]