So, I found something fun called Kilordle.
It's like Wordle, but with 1000 words and some liberties: You get a word as long as you get the position of each of the five letters correct at any time.
If you're good and you keep track of letter positions on a spreadsheet, you can get your guess work down to about 40-50 guesses before you've found every word.
This got me thinking about a linguistic possibility.
Is it possible, given all 26 letters of the English alphabet and all five possible positions in a 5 letter word, to create 26 words where every single letter is used five times and each instance is either first, second, third, fourth, or fifth position in a word? And if perfection isn't possible, how many words are needed to complete the list? The lowest I've seen is apparently 31.
Let's say, for example, we have three letters: A, E and T. Is it possible to find three three-letter words where each letter can be used in each position? Yes, we can.
>EAT
>TEA
>ATE
But now, add a fourth letter, such as S. Can we find four three-letter words where each letter can be used in each position? It's hard with conventional words, but...
>SEA
>ATE
>TAS
>EST
If you use the Scrabble dictionary, yes. Both "tas" and "est" are valid in Scrabble. However, with normal words in everyday use, no it isn't. I mention Scrabble because Kilordle seems to allow words that are found in Scrabble, so shit like "waqfs" and "crwth" are valid.
So, with 26 letters, how many five-letter words would we need? Surely it can be brute forced.
It's like Wordle, but with 1000 words and some liberties: You get a word as long as you get the position of each of the five letters correct at any time.
If you're good and you keep track of letter positions on a spreadsheet, you can get your guess work down to about 40-50 guesses before you've found every word.
This got me thinking about a linguistic possibility.
Is it possible, given all 26 letters of the English alphabet and all five possible positions in a 5 letter word, to create 26 words where every single letter is used five times and each instance is either first, second, third, fourth, or fifth position in a word? And if perfection isn't possible, how many words are needed to complete the list? The lowest I've seen is apparently 31.
Let's say, for example, we have three letters: A, E and T. Is it possible to find three three-letter words where each letter can be used in each position? Yes, we can.
>EAT
>TEA
>ATE
But now, add a fourth letter, such as S. Can we find four three-letter words where each letter can be used in each position? It's hard with conventional words, but...
>SEA
>ATE
>TAS
>EST
If you use the Scrabble dictionary, yes. Both "tas" and "est" are valid in Scrabble. However, with normal words in everyday use, no it isn't. I mention Scrabble because Kilordle seems to allow words that are found in Scrabble, so shit like "waqfs" and "crwth" are valid.
So, with 26 letters, how many five-letter words would we need? Surely it can be brute forced.
