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(4): More solutions in that number by Charlie)

Sorry, fwaff's first solution had eight steps, which I had hurriedly looked at. So, yes, the other offered solutions do have seven steps.

All the dictionaries I have consulted, including two version of Webster's and the American Heritage, either list 'fuze' only under 'fuse,' or as a variant thereof, without its own defintion. In any case, you will recall that dictionary entries were found for 'wold,' 'gond,' 'wole,' 'rolf,' 'gole,' etc, none of which were much liked. To me, 'fuze' is an archaic variant that falls under the same category.

Admittedly, however, while I did not explicitly exclude slang terms, 'futz' and 'putz' (which are in my solution) could perhaps be deemed questionable as well. I was merely trying to find combinations that would require using words that maybe are not used daily, but are common enough that everyone should know and recognize.

I'll put up both my intended solution and the shorter one(s). In the future, I'll have to be more careful.

Posted by DJ on 2003-07-07 16:49:22