Conference thebay::joyoflex

805.0. "10 10-letter words, game" by TPLAB::VANAVERMAET (Humans against TLAs (HAT)) Wed Jun 13 1990 17:49

Last Saturday, the school where my wife teaches held its annual fete.

The English teacher, Mrs Masyn, invited every visitor in her classroom to try
the following game:

<quote>

WORDS - WORDS - WORDS

TRY TO FIND THE LONGEST WORD WITH THE LETTERS GIVEN AND WIN A PRIZE !

1)  E P R I N T E T O I

2)  H E R B M E S P I M

3)  T I B X H O I N E I

4)  F O T E P O R W A R

5)  N A P E S E D I T R

6)  S E K E P I R N E N

7)  T E M D E P T A R N

8)  E S O B E L A R A N

9)  C L E M A N A C I H

10) R Y S E R B A T R W

RULES OF THE GAME:

1) NO PROPER NAMES

2) NO USE OF A DICTIONARY OR ANY OTHER ENGLISH TEXT

<endquote>

She added that those 10 groups of letters originally were 10 English 10-letter
words, so it was possible to fully use every group.

The difficulty is not in words themselves: they are all part of the "normal"
vocabulary of a 14-year old Flemish pupil who has successfully finished 2 years
of English.

If you want to reply with solutions, I suggest that you do not give away the
solution in the reply title.

    Answers to 1,3,4,5,7 (after ~10 minutes contemplation):
    <--- you DECwindows users are outa luck...
    
    1)  E P R I N T E T O I = REPETITION
    3)  T I B X H O I N E I = EXHIBITION
    4)  F O T E P O R W A R = WATERPROOF
    5)  N A P E S E D I T R = PEDESTRIAN
    7)  T E M D E P T A R N = DEPARTMENT
    
    >Mark

    I got two!
    
    
    
    6) INNKEEPERS
    
    10) STRAWBERRY

    are (respectively)
    
    REASONABLE and MECHANICAL
    
    (The route for tracking the letters of REASONABLE seems fairly
    symmetrical to me, but I'd need to think a while - if it's
    possible - to come up with the algorithm behind it. I wonder
    if there's something predictable about the algorithm for
    tracking all ten words?)
    
    b
    

    And the last one is:
    
    
    2) MEMBERSHIP