spy, babe, tree, wavy, skate, loyal, steep, ponder

I am just going to think out loud in hopes someone gets a light bulb.
Beginning with spy and changing one letter I can only think of shy, sly, and spa. Also, I think there are very few words that "skate" can be transformed into (slate is the only one I know, but some of you seem to have super dictionaries). If there are other, more obscure words I am going to disregard them because I am willing to bet that all the words we end up with will be relatively common - either that or this puzzle will simply be dismissed as bizarre.

so either we are thinking that we change the same numbered letter in each word, or change one of the letters to the same letter, or change the letters by some pattern (e.g. spy became sly because "l" is 4 letters before "p"). I would like to pursue the possibility that we change different letters to different things but end up with related meaning of the eight words transformed. (I like this one the best because it would be the most fun)

shy, sly, spa, bare, base, bake, baby, bane, bale, bate, free, thee, tyee, true, trek, wary, navy, wave, slate, royal, local, steer, sleep, sheep, steed, wonder, yonder - y's seem very powerful spy-spa, babe-baby, tree-tyee(or trey?), wavy-wave, skate-skaye??, loyal-local, steep-@#$%, ponder-yonder.

I have heard of a Royal Navy, but they aren't local, let alone free. I am sure they are slated to steer over yonder. I'll go bake in the spa?

I am also considering that Bryan might mean change one letter into a group of letters but I can't nail that down either.

I hope this helps.

Posted by Eric on 2003-09-07 20:29:14