3-D Word Hunt of February 6, 2011

Will Shortz has put out another of my favorite puzzles in this week's NY Times Magazine (p. 44). The object is to find as many linked 5-letter words as you can. You can reuse letters in a single word, but you can't double a letter. For example, in the example this week (at left), you can spell DARER or DARED but not ADDER.

Shortz writes that in this puzzle, you're doing well to find 20 and very well to find 25. 30 is excellent, and he claims that there are 42 in total, of which 11 are pretty obscure*.

On my own, I found these:

ANGER, ANGLE, AMEND

BINGE, BINGO, BINIT*

CAMEL

DARED, DARER

EARED, EMEND*, ENDED, ENDER

GNATS

LEMAN*

MANGE, MANGO, MATIN*

PARED, PARER, PARLE*

RARED, RARER, REDED*, REGNA*

SCAMP, SCATS, STAMP, STAND, STANE*, STANG*, STATS, STING

TANGO, TINEA*, TINGE, TITAN

I used a word-search program to find these additional words:

ANEAR*, ANELE*, MANAT, PARAE*, RADAR

That comes to 42. I think that my 13 starred words are pretty obscure, so either he and I differ on what's 'obscure' or our lists vary from each other.

Now, in the past, Shortz and I have disagreed on the total, and I've been more right than wrong. Because he uses Merriam-Webster 11 and I'm using the list of acceptable Scrabble words (which mainly derive from MW11), we sometimes have differing lists, but he's always left off a few.