In a word meld, you are given one word to try to change into another, one step at a time. Each step consists of changing one letter of the word into another while still having a common* English word. For example, one step would be to change the word "PIE" to "PIT." Another step could change "PIT" to "POT," and so on.

What is the fewest number of steps in which you can change "BUZZ" into "WORD"?

B U Z Z
. . . .
. . . .
W O R D

* "Common" words are to be determined at the discretion of the author

(In reply to re: More solutions in that number by Trevor Leitch)

Once again I think this is a difference in English English and US English. My understanding is that 'fuze' is a common US variant of 'fuse'.

I think that this problem is impossible if you use common proper English English words. The problem comes in getting from a word of the form **zz to one either of the form **z* or ***z. However, since the problem states 'common', but does not explicitly state 'proper' then the transition could be made using common slang.

Posted by fwaff on 2003-07-06 21:48:01