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(5): More solutions in that number by DJ)

I've never heard the words putz or futz before! The (common) slang route I had in mind included jizz and razz.

If 'common' is defined as 'known by everybody' then given the variety of people on the site the likelihood is that 'common word solutions' will be elementary which takes away much of the challenge (and fun) of the problem. It also takes away the educational element of learning new words from other people's solutions. I think it's better to exclude slang rather than trying to exclude uncommon words.

As a suggestion for future problems of this type how about a caveat at the end along the lines of "All words must be included in the xxxxx online dictionary, www.xxxxx.com". Provided the chosen dictionary is a modern abridged one then this should at least eliminate archaic usages. This is how word games such as Scrabble overcome the problem.

Posted by fwaff on 2003-07-07 22:23:22