List 13 words such that the first contains an anagram of the word ONE, the second contains an anagram of the word TWO, etc. The anagrammed words cannot be directly in the containing word, so that while "ounce", "sonnet" and "enough" are good for "one"; "gone" and "toner" are not.

Each letter of the alphabet is to be used once as either a first or last letter in one of the thirteen words

Try to use common short words. There's at least one solution with a total of 93 letters.

It's good enough to find thirteen words that meet the requirements of this problem, without worrying if they are as short as Charlie's, so I wouldn't bother counting letter sums. To solve this problem, I propose using two techniques simultaneously:

• Make lists of words for the numbers hardest to anagram (thirteen, twelve, eleven, six, etc.) and
• Make lists of words containing anagrams of numbers that begin or end with the least-used letters (J, Q, Z, etc.)

There are tons of words that contain the anagrams of simple numbers like "one," "ten," and a few others, so the lists of words with uncommon letters becomes a big help for filling these.

I have started some lists; feel free to add them to your own:

thirteen
tethering, (un)threatening

twelve
wavelet

eleven
leavened, development, enveloped

six
sphinx, x-section

seven
evens, nerves, veneers, vestment

eight
etching, highest

Z
zenith (10), zonked (1)

Q
question (1, 10), quatrefoil (4), quarantine (9, 10)

J
jointed (1), joinder (1), Jeffersonian (1, 9), justificative (5), justificatory (4)

The best words to use first are the ones with uncommon letters at the beginning and end of the word.

Good luck :P

Posted by Bryan on 2003-03-20 09:34:20