We build "Word Ladders" by changing one letter at a time at each step while maintaining the exact order of letters from the previous word, naturally at each step we have to form a proper word, until all letters of the initial word are changed:

B I G
B I T
B A T
C A T
Let us change the rules.
At every step only one letter may be changed.
Once changed you have to keep that letter.
All letters from the previous word must occupy a new position, in effect we create an anagram of those letters but with one replaced.

S P A N
P A N T
T R A P
R A T E
T I E R

Now, can you change PORE into a medicinal container and DRUM into summer confections that it might also contain? No letters of the original word are to be present in the final one.

Be prepared to offer of your own making too. Maybe add the thought to your Parlor Games list.

The solutions given for PORE are well done, but since I didn't know some of the words in each solution, I set off unsuccessfully to find a solution with words I knew.

The solutions parts I found all begin with PORE/REAP, but any continuing links such as PAVE (something to connect to LAIR) aren't able to link up with another word.

Also I am stumped on the second word. The solution to ICES works, but the problem is although ICES, it isn't a noun -- the plural of ICE is ICE itself.

Posted by Gamer on 2010-06-06 20:17:35