Will Shortz is the editor of the NY Times Crosswords page (and now a millionaire thanks in part to his Sudoku books). About a year ago, he came out with his first 3-D Word Hunt, a sort of high-tech Boggle. The challenge is to find the most 5-letter-words. Because of my love of Boggle and the Scrabble skills that I've honed over the past 15 years, I've been able to find most of the words that later appear in his Answers page the following week... and then some. For each of the three puzzles he's published so far, I've found many more words than he's indicated. I'm not sure where the sloppiness comes in: Doesn't he have some experts who vet his puzzles for him? Actually, I offered that assistance last time (when I had found about 15 words he'd missed), but he didn't take me up on it. He published my extra words in an addendum a few weeks later, but he didn't thank me or the other solvers who'd found words missing from his Answers list. It turns out I'd found more than anyone who'd sent in answers. Ah well.
Here is my unofficial list for the most recent puzzle. I may still be missing a word or two, and there may be a word on my list that's not in the dictionary source that he's using, but all of these words are good in Scrabble, as they say, which means that they're most likely ok in this puzzle (Scrabble and this puzzle use almost the same word source).
KIKES in the PUZZLE
Here is a sign that his puzzle-vetters aren't up to the task when it comes to hallucinatory Boggle: They missed KIKES. I'm fairly sure that this one was NOT meant for entry in the puzzle and that, had Shortz noticed it, he would have altered the puzzle. It's not like I'm bothered by the word, but there are plenty of oversensitive types who would complain that this puzzle offended them to the quick. I look forward to a Letter to the Editor complaining about the puzzle.
Shortz divided his list among common words (50) and *uncommon words (he'd found 15, but I list 25).
AIRER *AIRTS ALACK *ALANE *ALANT ALIVE *ANELE *ANENT ATONE ATRIA *ATRIP
*CAIRD CANAL CANON CANTO
DIVOT *DREST
ENACT EVENT
*KIKES
*LAIRD *LANAI LENTO LEVEL LILAC *LITAI LITRE LIVEN LIVID
*NATAL NOOSE *NOTAL NOVEL
*OOTID
PIANO PIKER PIKES PLACK PLANE PLANT *PLATS *PLENA
RESTS *RIANT RIATA
SCALE SCALP SCANT SCATS *SERER *SERES SOOTS STACK STAIR STALE *STANE STATS STILE STONE *STOTS STOVE *STRIA STRIP
*TANTO TITAN TITRE TONAL TOOTS TOTAL *TRIAC TRIAL TRIKE
VENAL VITAL VIVID
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10 comments:
Have you checked the Merriam-Webster dictionary to see if your * words are included? As I understand the rules, words that are in other dictionaries but not that one are to be excluded.
I would put eight or nine of your * words on the common list, but PLACK seems obscure to me.
Add PLANO.
Thanks, Anon 2:04, but plano is not a main entry word at MW. It's listed as:
plano-
or
Plano.
Thanks for checking out the blog!
David
Orange, I know that some of those * words seem common, but I also knew that Shortz had found fifty common words, so I just starred the least common words after 50. None of my * words is very common, anyway, so we'll see what Shortz publishes next week!
David
ALANE, ALANT, ANELE, DREST, NOTAL, PLACK, TANTO, and TRIAC aren't in the MW11 unfortunately, but it's a solid 67 (66 if we have to toss PLENA because the plenum entry doesn't list a plural form).
I don't think that Will Shortz can be held accountable for an offensive word in the dictionary.
Thanks, Martin! I looked those words up at dictionary.com just now, and all were good except for ALANE (Scot version of alone) and ALANT (a variation of ALAN, a type of dog). So dictionary.com is much more amenable to odd groups of letters than MW, where apparently a word has to be a bit more legit in order to qualify.
Case in point: PLANO is good at d.c but not in MW.
d.c lists PLANO as a type of glasses for vision, tho it sounds like a great adjective to describe something not too special ("He solved the difficult equation using a PLANO calculator").
As for KIKES, I'm only curious to see whether the word is listed in the answers next week. My bet: no.
The words the editors decide to include in a particular abridged dictionary seems fairly random. If we use the unabridged MW Third New International, these 25 are allowed.
Martin listed my oldies but baddies:
ALANE ALANT ANELE DREST NOTAL PLACK TANTO TRIAC
Plus these add'l 'words' from MW 3rd Unabridged:
ANONA CALID CANEL CATAN CATSO ERIAN KEREK NEVEL OSCAN PLAIK SCALA STIVE STOOT TONTO TOONA TOSCA VOTAL
Wow, Martin! I can't even imagine what most of those might be. Here are some guesses:
ANONA: a plant that looks the same coming or going
TONTO: musical term
TOONA: alt form of TUNA
CALID: half dog (canine) half cat (felid)
VOTAL: pertaining to voting?
You must have tried zillions of possible words. Thanks for your notes!
hey man you forgot 3 words on the 3-d word hunt
strike
striker
strikes
:p
Josh, the word hunt only allows 5-letter words.
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