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From: eklhad@ihnet.UUCP (K. A. Dahlke)
Newsgroups: net.puzzle
Subject: Word Islands
Message-ID: <258@ihnet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 17-Jul-85 11:50:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihnet.258
Posted: Wed Jul 17 11:50:25 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Jul-85 08:32:23 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 23

since word/letter puzzles seem popular, here  is one.
Allow me to impose a distance metric on the words in the english language.
Two words differing by N letters are N units apart.
Examples:  D(dog, dog) = 0,  D(horse, house) = 1,
	D(drugs, irate) = 4.
Words are left justified, blank filled, so D(horse, horsefly) = 3.
My question concerns islands, that is, words that
are not close to any other words.  What is the shortest word
that has no neighbors (words one unit distance away).
Most nouns and verbs are disqualified quickly, since appending an 's' makes
valid plurals and conjugations.
Words like "quiz" look promising, but then there is "quit" and "quip".
After some thought, there are startlingly few islands,
and I haven't found a reasonably short one yet.
What about 2-islands, words that have no neighboring words 1 or 2 units away.
Generalize as far as you wish.
Any thoughts welcome.
-- 
	I never know what to put in these damn .signature files.
	Everybody expects me to be clever, or profound, or cute, or funny.
	I just can't take the pressure any more.  They're out to get ...
	Doctor? ... Hey, where are you going?  My session isn't over yet!!!
		Karl Dahlke    ihnp4!ihnet!eklhad