theworldofdreams.com

I've been pondering this little puzzle for a few days now, so I thought I'd make it a contest to see who can come up with the best answer. The winner will recieve a Benson Potion:

What I want is 5 letters that can be rearranged to form words - as many words as possible, and the longer the word as better. The words must be at least 3 letters long (and no more than 5, since you only have 5 letters anyway.) In order to reward longer words, 5 letter words are worth 4 points, 4 letter words are worth 2 points, and 3 letter words 1 point.

Example:

tomes
motes
smote

tome
mote
some
most
toes

set
toe

Score: 3*4 + 5*2 + 2*1 = 24 points

All words must be English, and for the purposes of deciding what a valid word is, I'm going to use dictionary.com as the referee. Names and abbreviations are not permitted, nor are words that dictionary.com lables as 'archaic' (for instance, in the above example, 'moste' is an archaic word meaning 'may')

Send your entries to me at drocket@drocket.net with the subject "WoD word puzzle". Include your list of words (preferably set up similar to the above example.) The person with the highest score wins (If 2 people chose the same letters, the one who has the most valid words wins. In case of a time, the entry I recieve first will be the winner.) Entries must be recieved by Midnight, Saturday night.

Edit: oh, also, please include your WoD accountname (so I can find you online to give you your reward, if you win) and the name that you want me to post your entry as on the boards (again, if you win.)

I love this idea. My Scrabble dictionary is kept on the dinner table at all times. I can't wait to try my favorite word

I am guessing that prefixes and suffixes are not allowable also? Dictionary.com does list some of those, but labels them as such. These have to be complete words, right?

Yes, they need to be complete words.

I re-sent my entry after receiving this:

The original message was received at Sat, 14 Feb 2004 15:31:28 -0500
from bay7-dav32.bay7.hotmail.com [64.4.10.89]

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<drocket@drocket.net>
(expanded from: <drocket@drocket.net>)

----- Transcript of session follows -----
mail.local: unknown name: drocket
550 <drocket@drocket.net>... User unknown

FYI

Sorry about that. My spam filters decided that all of Hotmail was nothing but spam (and actually, its pretty much right there ) Anyway, your resubmission got through.

And its time to announce the winner: And the winner is... Augur Wildwood.

This really wasn't even a close one. Augur's word was WAY out in the lead. The list is:

paste
pates
peats
spate
septa
tapes
tepas

apes
apse
eats
east
pase
past
pate
pats
peas
peat
pest
pets
sate
seat
sept
seta
spat
spet
step
tape
taps
teas
tepa

ape
apt
asp
ate
eat
pat
pea
pet
sap
sat
sea
spa
tap
tea

I'm not entirely certain if tepa/tepas should be permitted (its a chemical name), but even excluding it, he was the clear winner with 88 points with, 82 points without.

For the record, the second place finisher was Vincent Tel'Imoen, who submitted STONE for 62 points. Third place was Dell Leafsong with TABLE for 48 points.

Congrats to the top 3!

Congrats you three, I didnt even try

Will have to remember paste for next time

Then I'd just have to beat it! This darn puzzle kept me up way too late! Do you want to be responsible for more sleepless nights?!?

And I thought I was doing good with 47