[Pickett]

So, when I was in school, I got bored in class a lot...so I had to occupy my time somehow, and brain teasers/puzzles were a great way to do so...So here's a word game that I came up with (hopefully I can describe it well):

Take a word of any length, and see how many anagrams you can make out of it that are also words. Then, to score that word, you take the number of valid anagrams and divide it by the number of letters in the word

EXAMPLE (2 letter):

WORD: on ANAGRAMS: on, no SCORE: 2 anagrams / 2 letters = 1.0

EXAMPLE (3 letter):

WORD: tin ANAGRAMS: tin, nit SCORE: 2 anagrams / 3 letters = 0.67

EXAMPLE (4 letter):

WORD: nuts ANAGRAMS: nuts, stun, tuns SCORE: 3 anagrams / 4 letters = 0.75

EXAMPLE (5 letter):

WORD: alter ANAGRAMS: alter, later, alert SCORE: 3 anagrams / 5 letters = 0.6

I know a word that has a score of 1.5 (not claiming it to be the highest, but the highest I found so far, and without the help of any anagram finders...this was just me sitting in class...so there probably are better scores)...what's the highest you can find? Obviously you can use as many letters as you want, but the more letters you use, the more VALID anagrams you must come up with to get a higher score.

Edited February 17, 2009 by Pickett

[Guest]

I can do lot of 1.0:

meat, mate, team, tame

item, emit, mite, time

spas, saps, pass, asps

here's a 1.25:

reap, rape, pear, pare, aper

here's a 1.33:

sap, asp, spa, pas

[Guest]

I found one 1.5

Spot

Pots

Stop

Opts

Post

Tops

6 / 4 = 1.5

[Pickett]

I found one 1.5

Spot

Pots

Stop

Opts

Post

Tops

6 / 4 = 1.5

That was my 1.5 as well...I'm just wondering if anyone can come up with any better ones. Nice job woon

[Guest]

sera, rase, ears, sear, eras, arse

seat, sate, teas, eats, east, seta (I admit I had to verify "seta" with a dictionary)

Edited February 17, 2009 by Hdizzy

[Guest]

Pools

Spool

Polos

Loops

Pools

5/5 = 1

Sate

Teas

East

Eats

Seat

5/4 = 1.25

Traps

Sprat

Strap

Parts

Tarps

5/5 = 1

Tames

Teams

Meats

Mates

Steam

5/5 = 1

Tars

Arts

Rats

Star

Tsar

5/4 = 1.25

Arm

Ram

Mar

3/3 = 1

Pleas

Leaps

Peals

Sepal

Lapse

Pales

6/5 = 1.2

Nope can't beat 1.5.

[Guest]

sera, rase, ears, sear, eras, arse

seat, sate, teas, eats, east, seta (I admit I had to verify "seta" with a dictionary)

The plural of the greek letter Eta would be Etas, no?

That gives:

seat, sate, teas, eats, east, seta, etas = 7/4 = 1.75

[Guest]

The plural of the greek letter Eta would be Etas, no?

That gives:

seat, sate, teas, eats, east, seta, etas = 7/4 = 1.75

I would agree with that.

[Pickett]

The plural of the greek letter Eta would be Etas, no?

That gives:

seat, sate, teas, eats, east, seta, etas = 7/4 = 1.75

Yeah, that's a good one. I had looked at that one, but

I'll be honest, I didn't think about seta or etas, but after looking them up, I guess they work...etas is still on the fence for me, but, I won't argue with it :c)

[Guest]

I didn't come up with these, just stumble upon it.

anestri, asterin, eranist, nastier, ratines, resiant, restain, retains, retinas, retsina, sainter, stainer, starnie, stearin.

7 letters, 14 words

So that would 2.0

[Pickett]

I didn't come up with these, just stumble upon it.

anestri, asterin, eranist, nastier, ratines, resiant, restain, retains, retinas, retsina, sainter, stainer, starnie, stearin.

7 letters, 14 words

So that would 2.0

Using dictionary.com as my guide, I don't see these words (and I sure don't know them...but maybe they're just not on dictionary.com):

sainter

anestri

asterin

eranist

starnie

So, without those, that word is only 9 words, 7 letters for a score of 1.29

[Guest]

Alliteration

ail

tail

rail

nail

trail

ten

tent

tear

all

ration

rate

lit

lite

rat

ion

in

on

ton

tilt

era

nit

ate

tera

lion

lane

train

rain

ill

not

29 anagrams/12 letters=2.42

[Guest]

The plural of the greek letter Eta would be Etas, no?

That gives:

seat, sate, teas, eats, east, seta, etas = 7/4 = 1.75

someone told me there are 24 anagrams of that word...?

[Guest]

Alliteration

ail

tail

rail

nail

trail

ten

tent

tear

all

ration

rate

lit

lite

rat

ion

in

on

ton

tilt

era

nit

ate

tera

lion

lane

train

rain

ill

not

29 anagrams/12 letters=2.42

i guess the catch is that its an anagram only if you are using "ALL" the letters of that word.

Amzingly simple and quite refreshing puzzle, got lots of 1's myself but will post if i get any other 1.5s.

kudos!!

[Guest]

someone told me there are 24 anagrams of that word...?

there are 24 different combinations of those four letters, but clearly not all of them are words: tsea, for example.

[Pickett]

I'm glad you are enjoying this little puzzle. Like I said, it is really simple, but a good way to use up some time when you are bored (either in class or at work ).

Yes, to clarify, you must use ALL of the letters in the word in your anagrams, and the anagrams MUST be valid words (I would probably just use dictionary.com or something to check for valid words). That's what makes it more challenging...the longer the word you use, the more VALID anagrams you must find to give it a higher score.

EXAMPLE:

if your word is TIN, you can obviously find TIN, TNI, NTI, NIT, INT, and ITN as anagrams, but only TIN and NIT are also words (unless you're a computer programmer, then INT would probably count ). No acronyms allowed. So therefore, there are only 2 VALID anagrams of TIN...and that means the score would be 2/3 or 0.67...hope that makes sense

Besides the 1.75 score that I saw (which I still don't know about ), I have only gotten a score of 1.5 (woon also posted this answer).

Another thing you can do is figure out the highest score for each length of word.

IE. we know that for 2 letters, the highest score can ONLY be 1.0...

what's the highest score you can find for 3, 4 5, 6, etc letters?

In case you haven't already seen, my 1.5 score and the 1.75 score were done with 4 letter words...

[Guest]

Another thing you can do is figure out the highest score for each length of word.

IE. we know that for 2 letters, the highest score can ONLY be 1.0...

what's the highest score you can find for 3, 4 5, 6, etc letters?

For a word of length n, there are at maximum n! possible anagrams. Since our score is (number of anagrams)/(number of letters) then the maximum score is:

n!/n = (n-1)!

[Pickett]

For a word of length n, there are at maximum n! possible anagrams. Since our score is (number of anagrams)/(number of letters) then the maximum score is:

n!/n = (n-1)!

that is true...in theory...but I don't think you'll find a 4 letter word with a score of 6, or a 5 letter word with a score of 24. So, I was just saying you could try to find the highest score that you can per word length.

For example, the answer already posted for 7-letter words would be tough to beat (score of 1.29).

And you can just keep coming up with new challenges with this game...like what's the longest word you can come up with with a score over 1 (I think that 7-letter is the highest I've seen so far)...etc..etc...

[Guest]

that is true...in theory...but I don't think you'll find a 4 letter word with a score of 6, or a 5 letter word with a score of 24. So, I was just saying you could try to find the highest score that you can per word length.

For example, the answer already posted for 7-letter words would be tough to beat (score of 1.29).

And you can just keep coming up with new challenges with this game...like what's the longest word you can come up with with a score over 1 (I think that 7-letter is the highest I've seen so far)...etc..etc...

Ahhh you didn't say you wanted the highest REAL score!

w00t 100th post?

[Guest]

So, when I was in school, I got bored in class a lot...so I had to occupy my time somehow, and brain teasers/puzzles were a great way to do so...So here's a word game that I came up with (hopefully I can describe it well):

Take a word of any length, and see how many anagrams you can make out of it that are also words. Then, to score that word, you take the number of valid anagrams and divide it by the number of letters in the word

EXAMPLE (2 letter):

WORD: on ANAGRAMS: on, no SCORE: 2 anagrams / 2 letters = 1.0

EXAMPLE (3 letter):

WORD: tin ANAGRAMS: tin, nit SCORE: 2 anagrams / 3 letters = 0.67

EXAMPLE (4 letter):

WORD: nuts ANAGRAMS: nuts, stun, tuns SCORE: 3 anagrams / 4 letters = 0.75

EXAMPLE (5 letter):

WORD: alter ANAGRAMS: alter, later, alert SCORE: 3 anagrams / 5 letters = 0.6

I know a word that has a score of 1.5 (not claiming it to be the highest, but the highest I found so far, and without the help of any anagram finders...this was just me sitting in class...so there probably are better scores)...what's the highest you can find? Obviously you can use as many letters as you want, but the more letters you use, the more VALID anagrams you must come up with to get a higher score.

I've got 2.28 at least, maybe more:

BLADDER 16 answers/7 letters= 2.28

1) ALE

2) RED

3) LADDER

4) LAD

5) ADD

6) READ

7) LARD

8) BLED

9) BAD

10) DAB

11) DEAD

12) DAD

13) BALD

14) BED

15) LAB

16) BLADE

[Pickett]

I've got 2.28 at least, maybe more:

BLADDER 16 answers/7 letters= 2.28

1) ALE

2) RED

3) LADDER

4) LAD

5) ADD

6) READ

7) LARD

8) BLED

9) BAD

10) DAB

11) DEAD

12) DAD

13) BALD

14) BED

15) LAB

16) BLADE

Well, the rules state that you must use ALL of the letters in the word in your anagrams...so, that example doesn't work.

[Guest]

I believe I have a 2.0 words.

only 1.83 if you have to use one word as a starting word and not count it as an anagram. If it is just the number of words over the number of letters then it is a score of 2.0

alerts

alters

artels (I didn't find this in the dictionary I used but it did have a article in wikipedia)

estral

laster

ratels

salter

slater

staler

stelar

talers

tarsel

Edited February 21, 2009 by Cyberspace17

[Guest]

I believe I have a 2.0 words.

only 1.83 if you have to use one word as a starting word and not count it as an anagram. If it is just the number of words over the number of letters then it is a score of 2.0

alerts

alters

artels (I didn't find this in the dictionary I used but it did have a article in wikipedia)

estral

laster

ratels

salter

slater

staler

stelar

talers

tarsel

Nice! I did not recognize every single word on their, but they are mostly common words. And, to answer your question, assuming that all of those words are right, it would be a 2.0.

[Guest]

1.8!

spear

spare

pears

pares

parse

rapes

reaps

apers (not on dictionary.com but as a singular noun in crossword puzzles often)

asper

9/5=1.8

Great game!