The following was originally a list of five-letter words, but in each case two consecutive letters (though never the first two) have been removed. The 26 missing letters are all different. What was the original list?

A N T
A S S
B A Y
C O Y
D I M
E E L
F A R
M A R
P I E
S E E
T I E
T O P
W I N

From Charlie:
angst abyss bawdy comfy denim expel fakir major pique serve title topaz winch
gs    by    wd    mf    en    xp    ki    jo    qu    rv    tl    az    ch

angst abyss bawty comfy denim expel fakir major pique serve tilde topaz winch
gs    by    wt    mf    en    xp    ki    jo    qu    rv    ld    az    ch

I assumed that Charlie would "find a way" but this was the beginning of my means using MS Excel as a "scratchpad".

My source of 5 letter words was a "scrabble" type dictionary. From it I found the following as potential candidates for the solution.  Unfortunately it didn't offer me ANGST, BAWDY (even 'baudy'), BAWTY and COMFY which I had considered.  My listing below does show that I missed picking up TITLE and TILDE.

Prior to making this compilation I had decided upon MAJOR and PIQUE since J and Q seemed to have no other place.  TOPAZ seemed to be the best place to rest the Z.  ABYSS, SERVE and  EXPEL were in my considerations.

So, to my list, while reasonably comprehensive did have some shortfalls:
ANT: agent, ahunt, ament,  anent, annet, antic, antre
ASS: abyss, amass, amiss, ashes, asses, asset, assot
BAY: baccy, badly, balky, balmy, bandy, banty, barky, barmy, bayed, bayou, bayze, belay, byway
COY: cocky, coney, cooky, cooly, copsy, corky, corny, cosey, covey, cowry, coyly
DIM: denim, dimly
EEL: easel, eisel, excel, expel
FAR: facer, faker, farad, fared, farce, farcy, farle, farse, friar
MAR: major, maker, malar, manor, marah, march, mardy, marge, marta, marko, marsh, marsi, marut, mayor, mazur, minar, molar, mudar
PIE: piece, piety, pixie, pyxie
SEE: seedy, seege, seepy, seine, seize, sense, serge, reve, setae, spree, sycee
TIE: Tiers
TOP: topaz, topee, topeer, topia, topic, troop
WIN: wince, winch, winds, windy, wingy, winze, wizen

Posted by brianjn on 2013-05-01 02:57:03