Four Letter Words
There’s one other similar conundrum that has always intrigued me:
What 3-letter suffix can be added to the most letters of the alphabet to make valid 4-letter words?
True word nerds just use their brains and knowledge of language. Guys like me use VBA.
Warning: This code takes forever to run. Run it at your own risk.
Sub FourLetterWords()
Dim i As Long, j As Long, k As Long
Dim lStart As Long
Dim sWord As String
For i = 97 To 97 + 25
For j = 97 To 97 + 25
For k = 97 To 97 + 25
For lStart = 97 To 97 + 25
sWord = Chr$(lStart) & Chr$(i) & Chr$(j) & Chr$(k)
If Application.CheckSpelling(sWord) Then
Sheet1.Cells(Sheet1.Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Offset(1, 0).Value = sWord
End If
Next lStart
Next k
Next j
Next i
End Sub
Dim i As Long, j As Long, k As Long
Dim lStart As Long
Dim sWord As String
For i = 97 To 97 + 25
For j = 97 To 97 + 25
For k = 97 To 97 + 25
For lStart = 97 To 97 + 25
sWord = Chr$(lStart) & Chr$(i) & Chr$(j) & Chr$(k)
If Application.CheckSpelling(sWord) Then
Sheet1.Cells(Sheet1.Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Offset(1, 0).Value = sWord
End If
Next lStart
Next k
Next j
Next i
End Sub
There was only one with 13 matches.
The array formula in Column B is
{=SUM(--(RIGHT($A$2:$A$2759,3)=RIGHT(A2,3)))}
The three-letter suffixes with 12 hits: aps, ats, ear, est, ill, ock, and ops. There were 1,145 unique suffixes, 644 of which only had one match.
If you want to see the whole list, you can download FourLetterWords.xls.zip
Utterly fantastic.
I owe you some virtual beer. Or if you’re gonna be at the next UK Excel Conference, UK Tableau User Group, or US Tableau User Conference, or every in Oxford, England, I will buy you a real one, or two.
The problem now is, what word-nerd game are my wife and I going to play in car journeys next? Four-letter suffixes…? I think not!
-arn -ood -ost, -ude. -ell, -ain -hat -his -ode -uns -eal -low. -ant -ait -ery -ong.
-eff -eir.
Based on the Scrabble wordlist (which I trust more than the spell checker, which probably doesn’t try to include every obscure word), ILL is the winner
ILL 17
INS 16
ATS 16
AYS 16
APS 15
OWS 15
ITS 14
AGS 14
EES 14
AIL 13
EAR 13
ENT 13
ETS 13
INE 13
OBS 13
ORE 13
OTS 13
AWS 13
@Jeff
-uagh -ut -oud
as dermotb said - the one thing this little game taught me is that the spell checker is definitely NOT a good indicator of what is and is not a valid word.
- It includes several (common) acronyms that are definitely not words.
- It Bowdlerises the language (You can say -uck but not -unt for instance).
- It includes modern jargon-words yet excludes many not-yet-obscure older ones.
That said: It was fun playing with it
M