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Thank goodness that the internecine spelling wars of yore are largely over.
By now, the way (or, at worst, the couple of ways, in rare instances) in which each particular entry in our proverbial dictionary is customarily spelled out is indisputable. The notable exceptions, of course, being the annoying British variants you see now and then (like frightful, nocturnal cockroaches). Such as analogue versus analog, and razzamatazz versus razzmatazz. Praise be to Noah Webster (1758-1843) the great American lexicographer & author known especially for his American Spelling Book and American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). ... An anagram, of course, is an arbitrary transposition of an authoritative spelling (of a word) for the purpose of ambiguation. From here on out, by "word" I shall mean a "correct" spelling of a word. By "anagram" I shall mean a permuted spelling. ... The interest in anagrams is definitely, largely due to Scrabble. Playing the entire first rack of seven tiles earns a fifty-point bonus. Precisely-seven-letter anagrams are a big business in the publishing world. Playing subsequent racks of seven tiles is convoluted inasmuch as it involves tacking onto other letters already on the Scrabble board. Playing an entire subsequent rack of seven tiles ought to earn at least an hundred-point bonus. ... By "palette" I shall mean a spelling shorn of duplicate instances of letters. Brevity is a virtue. The twenty-six letters of the alphabet are the ultimate palette, but I know of no such word employing at least one instance of each. The longest palettes I could find are fourteen letters in length:
abcehlmorstuxy abceilmnorstuy For example, "bcehilmnoprsty" is the palette of this threesome of words:
comprehensibility Palettes are as far removed from anagrams as anagrams are distanced from words. ... Permit me to bastardize a bit of the jargon of relational database. A First Normal Form of a word is the word itself. Such as "caterer." A Second Normal Form of a word is the alphabetized anagrammatization of the word. Such as "ceerrt." A Third Normal Form of a word is the alphabetized permutation of the word (and thus of its anagrams) shorn of duplicate instances of letters. Such as "acert." ... Each First is subordinate to one and only one Second and to one and only one Third. Each Second is subordinate to one and only one Third. On the other hand, each Third subsumes one or more Seconds. Such as, "acert" subsumes these anagrams: aacertt, aacerttt, acceert, aceeerrt, aceeertt, aceerrt, aceert, acerrt, acerrtt and acert itself. Each Second subsumes one or more Firsts. Such as, "aceerrt" subsumes these words: caterer, retrace and terrace. ... It would positively shake up the Scrabble world by treating the respective racks of letters as palettes rather than as anagrams. ... I culled 74,582 mid-length, crisscross-eligible words (from five to twelve letters in length) from a batch of 85,086 words (from two to twenty-five letters long). The 10,504 words dropped are too short or too long for my purposes. I prefer the Goldilocks Zone of words. I am left with 42,356 palettes (Thirds), 69,563 anagrams (Seconds) and 74,582 words (Firsts). The entire hierarchy of the pertinent Normal Forms is enumerated in BEYOND ANAGRAMS: words, anagrams, "palettes," and the alphabet. ... Furthermore, hereupon this page are links to 199 interactive Palette© games. You are given respective numerical templates for each of the numerous words subordinate to a single unspecified palette. Your challenge is to spell out the pallete in the process of spelling out the putative words. Try it. |