Discuss 26 Words here

[MatthewV]

link to puzzle

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Just to check: Is the C word unique? Initial progress gives me a set of letters for C that can form multiple words.

[Fuldu]

I have the same problem, but I think we're probably right.
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"... through a combination of anagrams, wordplay, and trafficking in the occult."

[MatthewV]

Anagrams in that situation are accepted as correct. If the only combination that worked was CATS obviously CAST would also work.

[Fuldu]

I think this is the list:
ACORN; BRAWN; CRATE; DRIVE; EARTH; FIRST; GLYPH; HEART; IRONS; JOKED; KLUTZ; LUMPY; MACHE; NACHO; OLIVE; PIQUE; QUIDS; REACT; SQUID; TRACE; UMBRA; VIXEN; WHITE; XYLEM; YACHT; ZILCH

I haven't checked every pairing against the numbers, but I'm pretty sure that works out.
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"... through a combination of anagrams, wordplay, and trafficking in the occult."

[raekuul]

Fuldu:Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but the A word needs to have exactly one letter that is the same as the words for D, F, J, O, V, and Z, etc usw... am I correct?

[Fuldu]

[Thok*]

Maybe rakeuul misintrpreted the rules? The letter the A and D words have in common doesn't have to be the same as the letter the A and F words have in common (which I think is the source of rakeuul's confusion).

[3iff]

Reckon so far I have 8 words which seem to fit together well...just having trouble finding time to discover more...and I'm getting myself increasingly confused.

Doesn't help that I just looked at the list by Fuldu

[MatthewV]

Of course, I think it is reasonable to believe Fuldu made a simple program to solve this puzzle. I would be much more interested in some of the logical steps (helped every now and then by an computerized anagram)

[Fuldu]

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I haven't completely solved it since I haven't had the time, but this is my process so far:


1) The C, R, and T words are all anagrams of each other. So are the E and H words. Both sets of letters overlap by 4 letters. The only possibility is:
CRATE, REACT, TRACE, EARTH, HEART

2) The S and Q words are also anagrams of each other. They don't share any letters with any of the words above. A little thought reveals that the S word must start with SQU, and thus the words must be SQUID and QUIDS.

3) The G word shares no letters with the C word, but it shares one letter with the E word. Thus it must contain H. It also shares no letters with SQUID, so the only possible vowels are O and Y. Inspection shows that there aren't any words using G,H,O that will fit the numbers, so it can only contain Y. Then the word is GLYPH.

4) The Y word shares 2 letters with GLYPH and 3 letters with CRATE. Trial and error reveals the only possibility to be YACHT.

5) The P word shares 3 letters with SQUID. It shares none with YACHT, but 1 letter with CRATE and EARTH, so the word must contain either E or R. Trial and error gives the only possibility PIQUE.

6) The M word shares 3 with Y, and 3 with C and E. Either the word contains both C and H, or it contains neither. Some work gives two possibilities: meaty/mache. A similar process with N gives two words: nacho/notch. Since M and N share 3 letters, they must be MACHE and NACHO.

7) The A word shares 3 with C but only 2 with E, so it must contain the letter C. A also shares 4 letters with N but only 2 letters with M, so we at least have NACO. Since we need one more letter from CRATE, the word must be ACORN.

8) The L word shares 1 with M, but none with N or E, so it must contain the letter M. It also shares 3 letters with GLYPH. The word must be LUMPY.

Anyway, that's as far as I am at the moment.

[MatthewV]

I must admit that I thought people would solve this in a slightly different manner. I guess the steps were easiest to do on paper instead of on the computer for some people.

Very impressive!