Regarding the List of Words Puzzler, I don't remember the whole list but I think they are all English words whose letters cannot be rearranged to form another English word.
That occurred to me, too, but it seemed too simple (boring). Which means it could well be the right answer. :) I wonder if there's a fancy term for this, like "antianagramism" (I made that up)?
Other possibilities that occur to me are some kind of numeric tie-in, or parts of common expressions (e.g., seventh + heaven) that have some common property.
As often happens, the simple answer is the right one. I figured this one out by the time they got to the end of the list. Another such word is "puzzler".
With help from my technical writing class at Clemson University, we figured out the puzzler. Each of the words on the list contains the number of letters that corresponds to some essential aspect of the word. For example, carbon, the sixth element on the periodic table contains six letters; September, the ninth month, contains nine letters; the word fifth contains five letters and so on.
Chris Benson
and the Clemson University students
in English 314 Technical Writing, Section 031.
I still think my answer was right, but their answer is righter, and is the clear choice between the two. Unfortunately it also rings a vague bell; I wonder if this is another recycled Puzzler.
10/29/2009 12:13:26 PM
