The words in the table all have some marine association.

Each may be slid up or down within the grid at will.

Your task is to create a row of marine coherent text, however is your discovery truly a marine object?

B

E

C

M

S

S

S

A

R

O

C

Q

P

S

E

H

C

A

B

O

U

D

M

R

U

R

A

T

E

H

B

Y

R

I

O

A

A

R

A

L

E

L

A

D

R

S

T

F

F

R

M

L

Y

T

T

N

Note: go here if you wish to make a Screen Capture of this.

DATA helm,beach,crab,moby,coral,squid,dory,mast,sprat,surf,raft,seal,tern
DIM w$(13)
FOR i = 1 TO 13: READ w$(i): NEXT
CLS
RANDOMIZE TIMER
DO
 PRINT
 r0 = CSRLIN
 IF r0 > 40 THEN CLS : r0 = 1
 FOR i = 1 TO 13
   wd$ = w$(i): ln = LEN(wd$)
   rg = 8 - ln
   r = INT(RND(1) * rg + 1)
   FOR j = 1 TO ln
    LOCATE r0 + j + r, i
    PRINT MID$(wd$, j, 1);
   NEXT
 NEXT
 LOCATE r0 + 8
 DO: LOOP UNTIL INKEY$ > ""
LOOP

produces random tableaux in keeping with the constraints of the grid:

h      m  rs
eb m s assae
le ocqdspufat
macbouotrrtle
 cryrir af  r
 ha ady t   n
  b l

 b
 ecm sd ssr
harocqompuast
ecabourarrfee
lhbyriysaftar
m   ad tt  ln
    l

    c d s r
 b mosomp ast
hecorqrarsfee
earbauysautar
lcayli ttr ln
mhb  d   f

    cs
 b  oqd ssr
 ec ruompuas
harmairarrfet
ecaoldysaftae
lhbb   tt  lr
m  y        n

In the second tableau above, there is a "har" and a "bour", leading to the nautical (and chiefly British) "harbour". Further search shows that "master" can be created from the remainder.

So the answer is "harbourmaster".

Is "harbourmaster" an object? In the grammatical sense as in "I saw the harbourmaster." But maybe the harbourmaster doesn't want to be objectified, as he or she is a person.

Posted by Charlie on 2009-12-09 13:32:13