WHAT Examples (25-Jun-15)

WHAT, Wolfberg's Helpful Anagramming Tool, is really a toolbox of powerful tools, with many facilities. You can make effective use of WHAT right away by using just a few of its features, and the document entitled "WHAT's First" introduces these features. Many users will find these basic features are all they need to employ to benefit by its use, but WHAT provides a wealth of other facilities you ought to explore when you have a chance. One way you can do this is by studying the examples in this document.

These examples were updated in June, 2015 to be based on the OWL3 lexicon.

Contents

  1. User Guide Examples
    1. Is there at least one 7-letter word with AEILNOS?
    2. What are the highest-scoring opening plays with AEFKNOT?
    3. Seeking a Triple-Triple Bingo
    4. OVER/UNDER Words
    5. Front-Hooking an S
    6. 5-Vowel 8's
    7. 7-Letter Palindromes
    8. Spell Words Backwards
    9. Most-Likely 7-Letter Words
    10. Most-Likely 7-Letter Racks
    11. What Words End in Either LED or LLED?
    12. What Words Require a Final S?
    13. Bingos With a Blank
    14. Random Racks
    15. Parallel Plays
  2. Simple Questions with Simple Answers
    1. Words With a Q not Immediately Followed by a U
    2. Word is Contained In
    3. Four I's
    4. SATINE plus a Blank
    5. All about ACDEINT
    6. 5-Letter Q Words with Anagrams
    7. AEIOU 8-Letter Words
    8. 7's and 8's That Extend with TY
    9. What words end in either ED or T
    10. Musical Words
    11. COLLINS 2's
    12. Random Rack Subwords
    13. ...EABLE Words
  3. Simple Questions with Tougher Answers
    1. What words have both a J and a Q?
    2. 7-Letter X Words with Anagrams
    3. Z.....S Words Requiring that S
    4. No S Back Hook Words
    5. G or Q
    6. Words Like POMPOM
    7. 6's Made from Two 3's
    8. 8's Made from Two 4's
    9. Find all the 4's in OATEN
  4. Questions for Word Study
    1. High Fives
    2. GAYWINGS
    3. Highest-Scoring Triple-Triple 8's
    4. Highest-Scoring 21-Letter Words
    5. The Blank Must Be an X
    6. 5's Not Contained in 8's
    7. Convert to Alphagrams
  5. Curiosity Questions with Simple Answers
    1. 7's Which Match Their Alphagrams
    2. 7's Which Match Their Reversed Alphagrams
    3. ZINGARA-like Words
    4. 11's With 3-Anagram Groups
    5. 4's Requiring a Blank
  6. Curiosity Questions with Tougher Answers
    1. Words With Five Vowels in Alphabetical Order
    2. Getting Hints for a Bingo Rack
    3. C-G-P Words
    4. 8's With No 7-Letter Subwords
    5. Minimal Longest Subwords of 8's
  7. Esoteric Questions with Simple Answers
    1. Rare Pair of Letters
    2. Longest Words With No Repeated Letters
    3. Longest Words With No 1-Point Consonants
    4. Making 9's With Only DW and UW
    5. Words of the form ABBCCC
    6. 6+2 Unistem Words
  8. Esoteric Questions with Tougher Answers
    1. 7's With No Anahooks
    2. 8's Which are not Extensions of 7's
    3. Symmetrically-Distributed Letters
    4. Longest Words with Imbedded 2's, etc.
    5. 9's With No Imbedded 2's
    6. The Most Imbedded Words
    7. 8's From Two Concatenated Words
    8. 8's With Four State Abbreviations
  9. Beyond the Power of WHAT

1.  User Guide Examples

1.1  Is there at least one 7-letter word with AEILNOS?

If you ask WHAT to perform this command:

   aeilnos~
it answers with:
 There is at least one word.
and perhaps you are thinking it is SEALION. If so, you would be wrong, since there is a space in the two-word spelling of that seallike animal. In case you were wondering, SEALLIKE is acceptable in the OWL3 lexicon. You can ask to see the answer by requesting to WHAT that it present the words on the slate with the one character command of an apostrophe.

1.2  What are the highest-scoring opening plays with AEFKNOT?

You can ask WHAT to report the 10-highest opening horizontal opening plays with one query with a few subcommands. Here is the query and its resulting presentation:

WHAT?: aefknot /|2 /@*~ /<$ $ 10'
       (first 10 items only)
KENAF__34p@8D FAKE___22p@8E KEF____20p@8F TAKEN__20p@8D OFTEN__18p@8D
KOFTA+_34p@8D KAF____20p@8F OAKEN__20p@8D TOKEN__20p@8D KANE___16p@8E
If you type the above command, before you press the Enter key, look at the Scoring tab in the upper right corner of the WHAT window and both the Query and Presentation tabs at the left. You will see the meaning of the command by the yellow-colored areas. Recall that you need not have had to construct the command from your knowledge; the WHAT GUI can be used to construct the command for you.

These are the individual subcommands in the above command:

/|2 - filter based on word lengths - they are at least 2
/@*~ - score for a play which include the center square
/<$ - sort the presentation by decreasing scores
$ - include scores in the slate presentation
10' - present the first 10 words only

1.3  Seeking a Triple-Triple Bingo

With the rack ACILMT?, what are the possible triple-triple bingos through an R in the 4th character position? There is indeed one such word, which you can see in the following query and resulting presentation. The query is a pattern match kind. It begins with a pattern followed by a comma, which is the separator character you use to then present your rack. The rack contents are used in filling in the missing letters in the pattern. Here is the pattern match query with a rack:
WHAT?: 3.r4.,acilmt?
 
METRICAL

1.4  OVER/UNDER Words

What words have both a prefix of OVER and UNDER?

   under.*\
   over[6-|] #
There are 330 such words, and here are the first 16:
OVERACHIEVE        OVERACHIEVER       OVERACT            OVERACTIVITIES     
OVERACHIEVED       OVERACHIEVERS      OVERACTED          OVERACTIVITY       
OVERACHIEVEMENT    OVERACHIEVES       OVERACTING         OVERACTS           
OVERACHIEVEMENTS   OVERACHIEVING      OVERACTIVE         OVERAGE

What words which start with OVER do not also start with UNDER?

   under* \
   over[6-|] /1w\
   over* \
   /y0=0-1
There are 1440 such words, and here are the first 15:
OVERABLE                 OVERACCENTUATE           OVERACTIONS
OVERABSTRACT             OVERACCENTUATED          OVERACUTE
OVERABUNDANCE            OVERACCENTUATES          OVERADJUSTMENT
OVERABUNDANCES           OVERACCENTUATING         OVERADJUSTMENTS
OVERABUNDANT             OVERACTION               OVERADVERTISE

1.5  Front-Hooking an S

What 8-letter words can be formed by adding an S to the front of a 7-letter word, such as SCATTIER?

   7.\    // get all the 7's
   s[]#   // for each one, front hook an S
There are 428 such words.

Now, you should try this for 8-letter words which start with a G:

   g7.\    // get all the 8's starting with G
   s[]#    // for each one, front hook an S
There are 2 such words.

1.6  5-Vowel 8's

What are the 5-voweled 8-letter words that start with Z, such as ZOOMANIA?

   z7.,5(V)2(C)
There are 5 such words:
ZABAIONE ZOOECIUM ZOOGLEAE ZOOGLOEA ZOOMANIA

1.7  7-Letter Palindromes

What are the 7-letter palindromes, such as REVIVER?

   ....(R-2)(R-4)(R-6)
This results in these 8 words:
DEIFIED HALALAH REIFIER REPAPER REVIVER ROTATOR SEMEMES SLAHALS+

1.8  Spell Words Backwards

What 7-letter words can be spelled backwards, including palindromes and non-palindrome words, such as GATEMAN?

   7.\    // get all 7-letter words
   [~]    // reverse each one and retain those which are words
There are the resulting words:
DEIFIED  DESSERT  NAMETAG  REKNITS  REVILED  SALLETS  STELLAS  TRESSED
DEIFIER  GATEMAN  REIFIED  REKNOTS  REVIVER  SEMEMES  STINKER
DELIVER  HALALAH  REIFIER  REPAPER  ROTATOR  SLAHALS+ STONKER+

1.9  Most-Likely 7-Letter Words

What are the 35 most-likely 7-letter words?

   7. /<% 35'
Here is the answer:
ARENITE  ANEROID  ANESTRI  INERTIA  RELIANT  RUINATE  TRENAIL
RETINAE  ATONIES  ANTIRED  LATRINE  RETAINS  STAINER  URANITE
TRAINEE  ELATION  ANTSIER  NASTIER  RETINAL  STEARIN  URINATE
AILERON  ERASION  DETRAIN  RATINES  RETINAS  TAURINE  AERIEST
ALIENOR  TOENAIL  GOATIER+ RATLINE  RETSINA  TRAINED  ALIENER
You could ask for the same words with the probabilities showing by suffixing a percent sign to the above query, and this is the resulting presentation:
ARENITE__1154736w TOENAIL__1119744w RATINES___839808w STEARIN___839808w
RETINAE__1154736w ANESTRI___839808w RATLINE___839808w TAURINE___839808w
TRAINEE__1154736w ANTIRED___839808w RELIANT___839808w TRAINED___839808w
AILERON__1119744w ANTSIER___839808w RETAINS___839808w TRENAIL___839808w
ALIENOR__1119744w DETRAIN___839808w RETINAL___839808w URANITE___839808w
ANEROID__1119744w GOATIER+__839808w RETINAS___839808w URINATE___839808w
ATONIES__1119744w INERTIA___839808w RETSINA___839808w AERIEST___769824w
ELATION__1119744w LATRINE___839808w RUINATE___839808w ALIENER___769824w
ERASION__1119744w NASTIER___839808w STAINER___839808w

1.10  Most-Likely 7-Letter Racks

What are the 35 most-likely 7-letter racks that have 7-letter words?

   7. /Q;W /<% 35'
Here is the answer:
AEEINRT  AEINOST  AEINRST  AEEILRT  ADEILOR  AEILOST  EINORTU
ADEINOR  ADEINRT  AEINRTU  AEEINST  ADEINOS  AENORST  AEINNOT
AEILNOR  AEGIORT  AAEEINT  AEEIRST  ADEIORS  AENORTU  AEENORS
AEILNOT  AEIINRT  AEEILNR  AADEIOR  ADEIOST  EILNORT  AEEORST
AEINORS  AEILNRT  AEEILNT  AAEILNO  AEILNOS  EINORST  EEILNOR
You could ask for the same "words" with their anagrams showing by suffixing a right parenthesis to the above query, and this is the resulting presentation:
AEEINRT (ARENITE,RETINAE,TRAINEE)
ADEINOR (ANEROID)
AEILNOR (AILERON,ALIENOR)
AEILNOT (ELATION,TOENAIL)
AEINORS (ERASION)
AEINOST (ATONIES)
ADEINRT (ANTIRED,DETRAIN,TRAINED)
AEGIORT (GOATIER+)
AEIINRT (INERTIA)
AEILNRT (LATRINE,RATLINE,RELIANT,RETINAL,TRENAIL)
AEINRST (ANESTRI,ANTSIER,NASTIER,RATINES,RETAINS,RETINAS,RETSINA,STAINER,STEARIN)
AEINRTU (RUINATE,TAURINE,URANITE,URINATE)
AAEEINT (TAENIAE)
AEEILNR (ALIENER)
AEEILNT (LINEATE)
AEEILRT (ATELIER)
AEEINST (ETESIAN)
AEEIRST (AERIEST,SERIATE)
AADEIOR (AERADIO+)
AAEILNO (AEOLIAN)
ADEILOR (DARIOLE)
ADEINOS (ANODISE+)
ADEIORS (RADIOES+,ROADIES)
ADEIOST (IODATES,TOADIES)
AEILNOS (ANISOLE)
AEILOST (ISOLATE)
AENORST (ATONERS,SANTERO,SENATOR,TREASON)
AENORTU (OUTEARN)
EILNORT (RETINOL)
EINORST (NORITES,OESTRIN,ORIENTS,STONIER)
EINORTU (ROUTINE)
AEINNOT (ENATION)
AEENORS (ARENOSE)
AEEORST (ROSEATE)
EEILNOR (ELOINER)

1.11  What Words End in Either LED or LLED?

   *led \
   [1-4|]lled \
   [1-4|]

1.12  What Words Require a Final S?

What words that end in INGS are not also words without the S, such as ABLINGS?:

   *ings\/1w    // put ...ings words into wordlist 1
   *ing\        // get all ...ing words
   []s\         // get all ...ings words based on ...ing words
   /y0=1-0      // take the difference to produce the answer
There are the 9 resulting words:
ABLINGS      BEESTINGS    CHITTERLINGS EYESTRINGS   HUSTINGS
BEASTINGS    BIESTINGS    EMPTINGS     GAYWINGS

1.13  Bingos With a Blank

How many bingos are there with LRAIOU and a blank, and if any, what letters can the blank be, and then what is the first letter of each of the words, and then what are the words?

WHAT?: lraiou?#
 Number of words = 1
 
WHAT?: =
 The one blank can be only this letter: X
 
WHAT?: 1/1
 
 Letter 1 of word 1 is: U
 
WHAT?: '
 
UXORIAL

1.14  Random Racks

Generate a random rack with a 50% chance of having a bingo, such as AEIORST. This particular rack has no bingos, but it is a likely one. First perform these commands:

   /.50P    // set likelihood to 50%
   \!       // set slate presentation to show nothing
   /."ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ?"  // use alphagram order for random racks
Then, request a random rack by performing the command consisting of merely one period, and you may be shown:
WHAT?: AEIORST
You can then ask to see the answer by performing the command consisting of merely one apostrophe, and WHAT will report:
 (nothing)
colored red.

1.15  Parallel Plays

What 7-letter words can be played above and parallel to RETAINS, also forming 7 two-letter words?

   (.r) (.e) (.t) (.a) (.i) (.n) (.s) /p
The answer is:
AMENTIA  ANALGIA  EPINAOI  OPUNTIA  OTALGIA
Going one step further, if OPUNTIA is placed above, what can then be placed below?
   (or.) (pe.) (ut.) (na.) (ti.) (in.) (as.) /p
The answer is:
ARABESK  CRAVENS  GRABENS  STAMENS  SWEVENS

2.  Simple Questions with Simple Answers

2.1  Words With a Q not Immediately Followed by a U

Newbies want to know about this subject, and here is how you can find out using WHAT:

   *q(!u)* \    // get all Q words where the next letter is not a U
   *q /+s       // augment the slate with words ending in Q
WHAT presents these words as a result:
BUQSHA    KAMOTIQS+ QABALAHS  QAMUTIKS+ QIBLAS+   QIVIUT    SHEQEL
BUQSHAS   MBAQANGA  QABALAS   QANAT     QIGONG+   QIVIUTS   SHEQELS
BURQA     MBAQANGAS QADI      QANATS    QIGONGS+  QOPH      SUQ
BURQAS    NIQAAB+   QADIS     QAT       QINDAR    QOPHS     SUQS
CINQ+     NIQAABS+  QAID      QATS      QINDARKA  QULLIQ+   TRANQ
CINQS+    NIQAB+    QAIDS     QAWWALI+  QINDARS   QULLIQS+  TRANQS
FAQIR     NIQABS+   QAJAQ+    QAWWALIS+ QINTAR    QWERTY    UMIAQ
FAQIRS    QABALA    QAJAQS+   QI        QINTARS   QWERTYS   UMIAQS
KAMOTIQ+  QABALAH   QAMUTIK+  QIBLA+    QIS       SHEQALIM

2.2  Word is Contained In

You might want to know those longer words, such as 7's or longer which contain a certain string inside (not starting or ending the longer word. Let's say the word is LWEI and we are looking for 6's or longer:

   *?LWEI?*
The answer is:
EDELWEISS  EDELWEISSES

Try the same kind of query for the base word of POLICE. If you have not yet seen this before, you may be surprised at the result.

2.3  Four I's

Someone at the Lexington Scrabble Club picked up a rack with four I's, and we considered what are the possible bingos. WHAT can do this in several ways, the simplest of which is:

   4I/S
which means what are the shortest steals where rearrangement is not required. If rearrangement is required (using the command 4I/~S), there are no answers, since they all have four I's, with other letters inserted.

A second way to do this is to try various numbers of blanks until there is an answer. You might try 4I4?'s and see if anything comes out, and then press the F1 function key to watch more blanks get added, one for each press. If you want to see all words with four blanks, you can do it this way:

   4I!*/A
The exclamation point forces the four I's to be in the answer. The asterisk means any number of blanks, and since the asterisk implies pattern matching, you then include /A to make the query kind anagramming. It turns out there are more than 1000 such words in WHAT's OWL3 lexicon.

2.4  SATINE plus a Blank

SATINE plus a blank produces many words; and how many is that? With the query:

   SATINE?#
The answer is:
 Number of words = 73
But how many different letters can the blank be? The easiest way you can ask this is with this query:
   SATINE?#=
and WHAT reports:
 The one blank can be any of 24 different letters.
Another way would be to bring back the previous command by pressing the up-arrow key and then suffix the subcommand /Q;W to yield words in canonical order. This query results in:

  Number of canonically-ordered words = 24

Although you can type the = command to see what letters the blank can be and by observation find the 2 missing letters, here is how you can explicit list those letters:

/1U=(A)         // define set 1 to be one each of all letters
/2U=(=)         // define set 2 to be those letters the blank matched
/3U=(1)-(2)     // define set 3 as the difference between these sets
(3)             // show set 3
You will see that the letters are Q and Y.

2.5  All about ACDEINT

Steve Hartsman posted a message to CGP about the rack ACDEINT. Steve listed various data relating to that rack. The following WHAT output shows how you get the same info using the program:

WHAT?: acdeint

 (nothing)

WHAT?: acdeint?<>:
 
C:  ACCIDENTs 
I:  ACTINIDEs    CTENIDIA    vINDICATEds
K:  ANTICKED  
M:  MEDICANTs
N:  INCANTED  
O:  ACTIONED+   CATENOIDs 
P:  PEDANTIC  
R:  DICENTRAs 
S:  DANCIEST+   DISTANCEds
T:  NICTATED  
U:  INCUDATE  
 
WHAT?: =
 The one blank can be any of these letters: CIKMNOPRSTU

WHAT?: acedintu"
 
INCUDATE - INCUDATE adj incudal
 
WHAT?:

WHAT is command language oriented, and there is a graphical interface which can optionally be used to construct commands. In the above excerpt from the WHAT workspace, you see the prompt by the program on several lines, which is "WHAT?: ", and the remainder of the command line is the command you typed.

In the first command, as a result of your typing the 7 letters and pressing the Enter key, WHAT came back with the response of " (nothing)" colored red, which means there are no 7-letter words with those 7 letters.

To form the second command, you could have pressed the up-arrow key to get back the previous command and then suffix these four characters:

? - meaning a blank
< - meaning "show front hooks (in lowercase)"
> - meaning "show back hooks (in lowercase)"
: - meaning "present the output using colons"
As a result of your then pressing the Enter key, WHAT presented the multi-line answer, where each letter matched by the blank is shown in a distinctive color (green); for example, on the final line the U in INCUDATE is green.

In the third command, you typed the equal sign followed by pressing the Enter key, which caused WHAT to report on what the blank in the previous query can be.

To form the fourth command, you pressed the up-arrow key thrice to bring back the original command, and then you suffixed a U and quotation mark. When you pressed the Enter key, WHAT presented the definition for INCUDATE. You can then use the mouse to double-click "incudal" to see its definition in the Definitions area above.

2.6  5-Letter Q Words with Anagrams

The following query causes WHAT to present words with a Q which have anagrams:

   Q4?/&>1

2.5  AEIOU 8-Letter Words

To get the 8-letter words with words which have the vowels A, E, I, O, U and 3 consonants, give this query to WHAT:

   (@V)3(C)
The answer is:
AEQUORIN  CAESIOUS+ EQUATION  EUPHORIA  JALOUSIE  SEQUOIAS
AEROBIUM  DIALOGUE  EUDAIMON  EUSOCIAL  OUTRAISE  THIOUREA
AGOUTIES  EDACIOUS  EULOGIAS  EXONUMIA  SAUTOIRE

2.6  7's and 8's That Extend with TY

From John Van Pelt's Verbalobe web site, there was a list of those 7- and 8-letter words which can be extended with TY There are seven 7-letter words and five 8-letter words which have this characteristic. Here is how to ask WHAT to present the 7's:

   7.\     // first get all the 7's to the slate
   []ty    // when TY is suffixed, what are words?
The 8's can be done in the same way.

2.7  What words end in either ED or T

From John Van Pelt's Verbalobe web site, there are 64 words ending in either ED or T:

   *ed#
says there are 14652 words, and
   *t#
says there are 9448 words. So begin with the smaller second group, and then ask WHAT to perform:
   [1-2|]ed
which yields 366 words.

2.8  Musical Words

To find out what words with at least 5 letters which can be played on a musical instrument, namely made from letters in the range A - G, use this query:
   10(A-G)/|5

2.9  Collins 2's

Collins is the lexicon which includes the words from North America and Great Britain. This lexicon is used in most countries throughout the world and for world competitions, but it has not yet been accepted for all competitive games in North America.

Perhaps you want to look at 2-letter words from the Collins 2012 Lexicon. You probably would like to be shown which of these are from the British list only, such as with a suffix of a number sign. You must use the WHAT graphical interface to alter the lexicons - there are no commands to change the lexicons for you to present in the workspace.

Select the Lexicons tab in the upper right corner of the WHAT window. Click on the Change Lexicon(s) button. A dialog appears a the lower right corner of the WHAT window. Select "Collins Words 2012 ..." as the primary lexicon and "OWL3 ..." as the secondary lexicon at the bottom of the dialog. In the upper part of the dialog, select the middle option which says to identify words NOT also in the secondary lexicon with some suffix character. Then go the right area of the dialog and select a number sign as the suffix character. Click the OK button and you are now going to see answers to queries coming from Collins, and words not in OWL3 will be suffixed with a number sign. For example, take a look at the 2-letter words with a command such as two periods; you are then shown:
AA       BA       EM       HO       MA       OH       QI       US
AB       BE       EN       ID       ME       OI       RE       UT
AD       BI       ER       IF       MI       OM       SH       WE
AE       BO       ES       IN       MM       ON       SI       WO
AG       BY       ET       IO#      MO       OO#      SO       XI
AH       CH#      EX       IS       MU       OP       ST#      XU
AI       DA       FA       IT       MY       OR       TA       YA
AL       DE       FE       JA#      NA       OS       TE       YE
AM       DI#      FY#      JO       NE       OU#      TI       YO
AN       DO       GI       KA       NO       OW       TO       YU#
AR       EA#      GO       KI       NU       OX       UG#      ZA
AS       ED       GU#      KO#      NY#      OY       UH       ZO#
AT       EE#      HA       KY#      OB#      PA       UM
AW       EF       HE       LA       OD       PE       UN
AX       EH       HI       LI       OE       PI       UP
AY       EL       HM       LO       OF       PO       UR#

You can see those 19 2-letter words acceptable only from Collins 2012. If you want to make a list of just these words, save the slate to a wordlist. Change the lexicon settings to produce answers from OWL3, get the OWL3 twos and remove these from the wordlist you saved.

2.10  Random Rack Subwords

As suggested by Joe Edley, let's say you have produced a random rack, and it has been input as a query. What can you now do to find out its subwords?

For the random rack of UMDNEEO, you are shown the answer of EUDEMON. Now, press the up-arrow key and then hold down the Ctrl key and press the digit 3. You will be shown all those words of at least length using the seven letters in UMDNEEO.

When you hold the Ctrl key and press 3, these command characters are suffixed to the query: " /|3".

2.11  ...EABLE Words

Wendy Wolfberg asked how to spell "upgradable", and I first typed that in to find it is a word. Then I pressed the up-arrow key, typed an E, and pressed the Enter key to see if it could be UPGRADEABLE, and indeed it is also a word. I did the same for GRADABLE and found the E there is not allowed. So, I wonder what other words of this form can have the optional E. Here is some WHAT input and output:

   *eable#      // get all EABLE words onto the slate; see how many
The answer is 139 words.
   [1-6|]able   // for each word on the slate get all but its final
                // 5 letters, add ABLE, and which of these are words?
The answer is these 57 words:
ATONABLE     FRAMABLE     MOVABLE      SHAPABLE     TYPABLE
BITABLE      GRAZABLE     NAMABLE      SHARABLE     UNLIKABLE
BLAMABLE     HATABLE      PLACABLE     SIZABLE      UNNAMABLE
CITABLE      HIRABLE      POSABLE      SMOKABLE     UNSHAKABLE
CLOSABLE     LIKABLE      RAISABLE     SPARABLE     UPGRADABLE
DATABLE      LINABLE      RATABLE      STATABLE     USABLE
DIAGNOSABLE  LIVABLE      REMOVABLE    TAKABLE      VOTABLE
DISLIKABLE   LOVABLE      RIDABLE      TAMABLE      WADABLE
DRAPABLE     MACHINABLE   SALABLE      TASTABLE     WRITABLE
DRIVABLE     MAKABLE      SAVABLE      TOTABLE
DYABLE       MICROWAVABLE SHAKABLE     TRADABLE
FINABLE      MINABLE      SHAMABLE     TUNABLE
Then, just for a little more investigation, I did this:
   []/&2 )  // for each word with at least 2 anagrams, show them
Here is the answer:
DATABLE  (ABLATED)
DYABLE   (BELADY)
FRAMABLE (FARMABLE)
RIDABLE  (BEDRAIL,BRAILED,RAILBED+)
SMOKABLE (ABELMOSK)
SPARABLE (PARABLES,PARSABLE,PREBASAL)
STATABLE (ABETTALS,TASTABLE)
TASTABLE (ABETTALS,STATABLE)
TUNABLE  (ABLUENT)
USABLE   (SUABLE)

3.  Simple Questions with Tougher Answers

3.1  What words have both a J and a Q?

What words have both a J and a Q? The easy command to ask for this is:

   j!q!*/a
The suffix exclamation points indicate that J and Q are required to be in the answer. The asterisk represents any number of blanks, but since it also implies the query is a pattern match kind, you must also change it to be an anagram kind of query, and that is what the /a does.

The answer is:

JACQUARD    JACQUERIE   JEQUIRITIES JONQUIL     QAJAQ+      QUILLAJA
JACQUARDS   JACQUERIES  JEQUIRITY   JONQUILS    QAJAQS+     QUILLAJAS
Another query (of the same length) to accomplish the same thing is:
   *,j!q!*
This is a indeed a pattern match query for all words, and the rack includes the two required letters of J and Q plus any number of other letters.

3.2  7-Letter X Words with Anagrams

Issue this query:

   x6?/&>1             // get the 46 7-letter words with anagrams
Now ask WHAT to present these in pairs. One way you can do this is to ask it to present output in rows with two columns and sort by canonical order:
   /ORC9W /OC2C />;    // produce the desired answer

3.3  Z.....S Words Requiring that S

What 7-letter words starting with a Z and ending in S cannot drop the S to form a 6-letter word?

John Chew listed these answers for the TWL98 Lexicon:

zealous zilches zincous zipless zloties zygosis zymoses zymosis
and ZAIDIES is new in OWL3.

To do this in WHAT:

   z5.s\      // get the 7's with start with Z and end with S
   /1w        // save to wordlist 1
   [1-6]\     // get the 6's which are acceptable when dropping the S
   []S\       // put the S back on these 6's
   /y0=1-0    // produce the answer by taking the difference
   '          // present the answer of 9 words

3.4  No S Back Hook Words

Michael Eldeiry announced he was seeking a list of all words of length 2 through 8 which do not take an S as a back hook. There are several ways to do this in WHAT, and here are two of them. Beware that the answer is rather large, so you may want to do this work in pieces. For example, let us begin with just the 3-letter words.

Get words onto the slate for which you want to ask this question. If you first just want a list of the threes, issue the command:

   3.\
Then make the query using these words as input such that the retained words are those set of back hooks is a subset of the set with all letters but S:
   []/><=(!S)
These are the 249 such threes:
AAS      CRY      FOH      IFS      NOH      POX      SOX      WHA
ABS      CUZ+     FOR      INS      NOO      PRY      SPY      WHO
ADS      DAS+     FOU      ITS      NOR      PST      STY      WIZ
ADZ      DEF      FOX      IVY      NOS      PYX      SYN      WOS
AFF      DEX      FRO      JEU      NOT      QIS      TAE      WRY
AFT      DID      FRY      JUN      NTH      QUA      TAJ      WUD
AGO      DUH      GAN      JUS      NUS      RAH      TAX      WUZ+
AGS      DUI      GAS      KAS      OCH+     RAJ      TES+     XED+
AHA      DUM+     GEY      KEX      ODS      RAN      THE      XIS
AHS      EAU      GIS+     LAX      OES      RAS      THO      YAH
AIS      EDS      GOR      LED      OFT      RAX      THY      YAR
ALS      EEK      GOS      LEU      OHO      RES      TIS      YAS+
ANY      EEW+     GOT      LEX      OHS      REX      TIX+     YEH
APT      EFS      GOX      LEZ      OMS      REZ+     TIZ+     YER+
ARS      ELF      GRR+     LIS      ONS      SAD      TOO      YES
ASH      ELS      HAD      LOR+     OOF+     SAE      TRY      YET
ASS      EMS      HAJ      LOX      OPS      SAT      TUX      YEZ+
ATT      ENS      HAO      LUX      ORA      SAU      UMM      YOM
AVA      ERE      HAS      MAX      ORS      SAX      UMS+     YON
AWA      ERS      HES      MEH+     OVA      SEN      UNS      YUM
AYS      ESS      HEX      MEN      OXO      SEX      UPO      ZAS
AZO      FAR      HEY      MET      OXY      SEZ+     UPS      ZAX
BAH      FAS      HIC      MIM      PAH      SHA      UTS      ZOA
BES      FAX      HID      MIX      PAX      SHH      VAS      ZUZ
BIS      FER      HMM      MMM+     PER      SHO+     VEG      ZZZ
BIZ      FEW      HOO+     MOI+     PES      SHY      VEX
BOX      FEY      HOS      MUX+     PHT      SIS      VIA
BRR      FEZ      HUH      NAH      PIU      SIX      VIS
BYS      FIE      HUP      NAM      PIX      SKY      VOX
CIS      FIX      ICY      NAW      PLY      SLY      VUM
COX      FIZ      IDS      NEE      POH      SOC+     WAS
COZ      FLY      IFF      NIX      POS+     SOS      WAX
Here is a completely different way to get the same answer:
   3.\      // Start with the candidate words, such as the threes:
   /1w      // save these to wordlist 1
   []s\     // create the fours which are S extensions of these threes
   [1-1|]\  // remove the S, so these are the threes with take S
   /y0=1-0  // take the set difference (all minus those which take S)
If you want to make the full list Michael asked for, start with the following command to have all words of length 2 through 8:
   */|2-8\
This is 88099 words. Once again the second query to yield the final answer is:
   []/><=(!S)
The result has 55031 words, and here are the first 24 of them:
AAHED     AALS      AARRGHH   ABACK     ABAKAS    ABAPICAL
AAHING    AARDWOLF  AAS       ABACUS    ABALONES  ABAS
AAHS      AARGH     ABACAS    ABACUSES  ABAMPS    ABASED
AALIIS    AARRGH    ABACI     ABAFT     ABANDONS  ABASEDLY

3.5  G or Q

Steve Root notices BUQSHA and BUGSHA are both words. What other word pairs are there with a G or a Q?

Solve this for words up to length 8:

   Q!7?/|3-8#    // get all words with a Q of length 3-8
Using OWL3, the answer is 1069 words.
   /m"abcdefghijklmnopgrstuvwxyz"   // define the mapping to convert Q to G
   [m]                              // map each slate word
The answer consists of these 27 words:
BUGSHA    GAT       GUESTED   GUIDS     GUILTS    PIROGUES  ROGUES
BUGSHAS   GATS      GUESTING  GUILT     GURSH     PLAGUE    TOGUE
GADI      GIS+      GUESTS    GUILTED+  GURSHES   PLAGUES   TOGUES
GADIS     GUEST     GUID      GUILTING+ PIROGUE   ROGUE

3.6  Words Like POMPOM

Let's look for 6-letter words which are repetitious in that they are the same 3-letter word duplicated, such as POMPOM:

   3.\    // get all 3-letter words onto the slate
   2[]    // get words which consist of 2 of the same slate word
The answer is:
BEEBEE   CANCAN   COOCOO   FURFUR   PALPAL   POMPOM   TESTES   WEEWEE
BOOBOO   CHICHI   DUMDUM   MOTMOT   PAWPAW   TARTAR   TSKTSK
These above two commands yield those 6-letter words which consist of a repeated 3-letter word. But notice a word like ATLATL is missing, since ATL is not a 3-letter word. There are at least two methods to get such words: This is the answer:
ATLATL   BOUBOU   CUSCUS   GRIGRI   MUUMUU   SIKSIK+  TZETZE
BEEBEE   BULBUL   DIKDIK   GRUGRU   PALPAL   TARTAR   VALVAL
BERBER+  CANCAN   DOODOO   KUMKUM+  PAWPAW   TESTES   WEEWEE
BONBON   CHICHI   DUMDUM   MOTMOT   POMPOM   TSETSE
BOOBOO   COOCOO   FURFUR   MURMUR   SARSAR   TSKTSK
Assume the answer of the above 33 words, including ATLATL, is on the slate. Now, let's find which of these have a consonant as the second letter. Here are two different methods of doing this: This is the answer:
ATLATL   CHICHI   GRIGRI   GRUGRU   TSETSE   TSKTSK   TZETZE

3.7  6's Made from Two 3's

What 6-letter words consist of two consecutive 3-letter words, such as STYRAX?

There are many ways to approach this, and this is just one of them:

   3.\         // get all the 3's
   []3./1w\    // for each, suffix 3 letters to form a word; save it
   3.\         // get all the 3's again
   3.[]\       // for each, prefix 3 letters to form a word
   /y0=0&1     // intersect the two lists
   28'         // present just the first 28 of these
There are 3626 such words. Here are the first 28:
ABAKAS   ABATIS   ABSORB   ACETUM   ADDEND   ADOBES   ADSORB
ABASER   ABATOR   ABSURD   ACTINS   ADDERS   ADOBOS   AFFAIR
ABATED   ABAYAS   ACETIC   ACTION   ADDLED   ADORED   AFFLUX
ABATES   ABOMAS   ACETIN   ACTORS   ADDLES   ADORES   AFFRAY

3.8  8's Made from Two 4's

What 8-letter words can be formed by concatenating two 4-letter words?

WHAT does not have a way to iterate over two lists, but it can be used to produce the answer. Here are two completely different ways:

These are the answers for these 8's starting with a Z:
ZESTLESS  ZINCATES  ZIZZLING  ZONETIME  ZOONOSES  ZOOSPERM
ZILLIONS  ZINCKING  ZONELESS  ZOOMABLE+ ZOONOTIC  ZOOSPORE

3.9  Find all the 4's in OATEN

You are presented with a quiz to find all the 4-letter words in OATEN. You think you have the answer, and you want to check it to see if you found all the words. Make this probe to find out how many words are in the answer:

   OATEN/|=4#
In the above command, the subcommand following the letters is a filter that the word length must be equal to four. But if you are unsure of the query you made, and you want to reassure yourself the words just counted are indeed of length four, show the slate with the words hidden and with word lengths using this command:
   ]|
You could have had the WHAT GUI make up this command by going to the Presentation tab on the left side of the WHAT window, and clicking the radio button labeled "Hidden, using [] brackets" and the option button labeled "Lengths". The presented result is:
[].4c    []_4c    []_4c    []_4c    []_4c    []_4c    []_4c    []_4c
which should be reassuring that there are indeed 8 4-letter words on the slate. If you want to check whether a word you have in mind is indeed a word, type a command such as:
   eton/-?
are you will be told whether ETON is an acceptable word. You could at this point, ask whether a word is on the slate, such as:
   nota/?
You will be told just whether NOTA is on the slate. If you instead ask:
   nota/0?
when the word is on the slate, you are also told at what that item number the word is; to make that datum have no meaning you could first shuffle the order of the slate using the command:
   /0S
where that second character is the digit zero. But when you then ask for whether a word is on the slate, you should turn off alphabetical sorting, so you could issue the command:
   nota/0?/='
The final subcommand in the above command could be created for you if you go to the Sorts area of the Order By box at the bottom of the Presentation tab and select "not by alphabetical order". In other words, you do not have to remember the command syntax - the command can be created for you.

4.  Questions for Word Study

4.1  High Fives

In "The Complete Wordbook for Game Players", author Mike Baron suggests there are so many 5-letter words that one should approach these in groups. After studying those with high-scoring letters, it then makes sense to study those with a first or fifth letter of score 4 or 5. Mike calls these "The High Fives". This list of high fives, which can be made by WHAT, is rather large, and you may want to break it up into smaller groups, such as those high fives which begin with A. Here is the command to get these words:

   A3.($4-5)
There are 48 such words. If you would like to present them with related info, such as anagrams, WHAT can do this for you, and here is how this looks for those high fives starting with the letter O:
OBEAH__(BOHEA)  OLOGY__(GOOLY+) OOMPH           OUTBY
OCHRY           ONERY           ORACH__(ROACH)  OVARY
ODDLY           ONLAY           ORACY+          OXBOW

4.2  GAYWINGS

Joey Mallick mentioned that GAYWINGS a perennial herb) must have the final S. We wondered whether there are other wuch words ending in "WINGS". This is an example of when to use the "unhooks" feature of WHAT. Ask WHAT to show unhooks, and you can see that indeed that is the only such word. With this query:

   *wings`
where that final character is the back quote or accent grave, the result is:
 BACKSWINGS-       FOREWINGS-        MICROBREWINGS-   -SWINGS-
 BEESWINGS-        GAYWINGS          MOWINGS-          TELEVIEWINGS+-
 BELLOWINGS+-      GLASSBLOWINGS-    OUTSWINGS-        THAWINGS+-
 BITEWINGS-        GNAWINGS-         OVERBLOWINGS+-    UNDERDRAWINGS+-
 BORROWINGS-       GREENWINGS-       OVERSWINGS-       UNDERWINGS-
 BOWINGS-          HAIRWINGS+-       PARAWINGS-        UNKNOWINGS-
 BREWINGS-         HINDWINGS+-       PIGEONWINGS-      UPSWINGS-
 CLEARWINGS-       INFLOWINGS+-      REDWINGS-         VIEWINGS-
 DOWNSWINGS-       KNOWINGS-         ROWINGS-          WAPPENSCHAWINGS-
 DRAWINGS-         LACEWINGS-        SEWINGS-          WAXWINGS-
 ELBOWINGS+-       LAPWINGS-         SHOWINGS-         WHITEWINGS-
 FLEXWINGS+-       LAWINGS-          SOWINGS+-         WINDOWINGS+-
 FOLLOWINGS-       LOWINGS-          SWEPTWINGS-       WINGS-
All of these words other than GAYWINGS have a suffix of "-", which in an indicator you can unhook the final letter.

If the list of ...WINGS words were longer, you might prefer to answer this kind of question in a different manner. Here is another way to accomplish this:

   *wings\/1w  // collect all the words and copy them to wordlist 1.
   [1-2|]\     // for each of these words, keep those which can drop S
   []s\        // for each of these, put the S back on
   /y0=1-0     // take the set difference, and output to the slate
The output from the last command indicates the slate has one item. To see it, issue the one-character command of an apostrophe.

4.3  Highest-Scoring Triple-Triple 8's

Here is a way to find the highest-scoring triple-triples of length 8:

   /@1A.!         // scoring will be based on starting at square 1A
   8./$350/>'/<$$/OC18X  // filter based on scores at least 350,
                  // sort by decreasing scores & alphabetical
The answer is:
MEZQUITE__392p    QUIZZING__374p    SOVKHOZY__365p    MAHZORIM__356p
MEZQUITS__392p    WHIZBANG__374p    BENZYLIC__356p    OXAZINES__356p
OXAZEPAM__392p    HUTZPAHS__365p    CHAZANIM__356p    OXAZOLES+_356p
JACQUARD__383p    MITZVAHS__365p    EXEQUIAL__356p    QUIXOTIC__356p
JAZZLIKE__383p    MITZVOTH__365p    EXEQUIES__356p    RHIZOMIC__356p
KHAZENIM__374p    QUIXOTRY__365p    ISOZYMIC__356p    ZYZZYVAS__356p
QUEZALES__374p    QUIZZERS__365p    JONQUILS__356p
But that is not enough, since those starting at 1H also deserve to be considered, and these are the results:
QUINZHEE+_401p    PIROZHOK__374p    JACUZZIS__365p    MACHZORS__356p
BEZIQUES__392p    QUEAZIER__374p    LYSOZYME__365p    POLYZOIC__356p
CAZIQUES__392p    QUETZALS__374p    PUMPJACK+_365p    RIBOZYME__356p
CHUTZPAH__383p    QUINZIES+_374p    QUIZZERS__365p    SOVKHOZY__356p
JANIZARY__383p    QUIZZING__374p    CHUTZPAS__356p    WHEEZING__356p
FROWZILY__374p    WHEEZILY__374p    COENZYME__356p    YOKOZUNA__356p
HIGHJACK__374p    BLOWZILY__365p    DENAZIFY__356p    ZABAJONE__356p
PIROZHKI__374p    HYLOZOIC__365p    FLAPJACK__356p

4.4  Highest-Scoring 21-Letter Words

Find the top-scoring 21-letter words when the horizontal placement of the word starts at position 1A on a board for the 21 x 21 board game:

   /21B                    // set the board size to 21 x 21
   /@1A.!                  // score horizontal words which start at the upper left square
   21./$>8400/>'/<$ $ /o1  // find all 21-letter words which score more than 8400, sort
                           // by decreasing scores and show with scores
The answers from the WJ2 Lexicon are:
CARBOBENZOXYDIPEPTIDE_9266p
HYDROXYFORMOBENZOYLIC_9122p
CARBOXYMETHYLPACHYMAN_8978p
CHLORHYDROXYQUINOLINE_8978p
ACETYLPHENYLHYDRAZINE_8834p
IODOCHLORHYDROXYQUINS_8546p
BENZYLISOTHIOCYANATES_8402p
BISDEMETHOXYCURCUMINS_8402p
PHTHALYLSULFATHIAZOLE_8402p

4.5  The Blank Must Be an X

Knowing that UXORIAL is the only 7-letter word which can be made from U?ORIAL, what other 7's have this characteristic? There are 76 such 7's. Do any of them have anagrams? The answer is "no".

   x6?/Q;W            // get the 535 7-letter canonically-ordered words with X
   []-X+?/:=(X)/Q;W#  // get the 78 canoncially-ordered words that take only an X
   []/A               // show these words
   /<%                // show these sorted by decreasing probabilities,
                      // seeing UXORIAL is first; perhaps some of these are
                      // unexpected, such as PTYAEI+X
   []/&>1             // look for those with more than 1 in the anagram set,
                      // and there are none - perhaps not surprising

4.6  5's Not Contained in 8's

Joev Dubach asked for a list of the 5's which are not contained in any 8's. Here is how you use WHAT to produce the answer:

   5.\/1w         // get all the 5's and put then into wordlist 1
   8.\            // get all the 8's.
   []/a/|=5\/2w   // for each 8 find all 5's and put them into wordlist 2
                  // (this takes 2-3 minutes to complete)
   /y0=1-2        // take the difference, and this is the answer
This yields these 127 words:
ADDAX    DYKEY    GAWKY    JIBED    KEXES    NAKFA    QUOTH    WOOZY
BAFFY    FAWNY    GIZMO    JIBER    KHAPH    NIQAB+   SKYEY    WUSHU
BEEFY    FEAZE    GRRRL+   JIFFS    KICKY    NUBBY    THUJA    XYLYL
BEVVY+   FEMME    GUPPY    JIFFY    KOMBU    OUZOS    TIZZY    YECHY
BIFFY    FEYLY    GYVED    JIGGY    KOPEK    PAPAW    TOFFY    YEUKY
BUFFY    FEZZY    HAFIZ    JIMPY    KOPJE    PHIZZ+   TWIXT    YOLKY
BUPPY    FJELD    HAJJI    JIVED    KUDZU    PHPHT    UPBOW    YUCKY
BUZZY+   FLAXY    HAYEY    JIVEY    KYLIX    PONZU+   VAMPY    YUKKY
BYWAY    FLYBY    HOKKU    JOTTY    LEZZY    POOJA+   VROUW    YUMMY
CUPPY    FUDDY    HUFFY    JOUKS    LUVVY+   PUFFY    VUGGY    YUZUS+
DADDY    FUDGY+   JAGRA    JOWLY    MAMMY    PUJAH    VUGHS    ZAPPY
DOOZY    FUGGY    JAMMY    JUGUM    MAUZY+   PUKKA    WAZOO    ZIPPO+
DUCHY    FUJIS    JAWAN    JUICY    MIFFY    QAJAQ+   WICCA    ZIPPY
DUCKY    FURZY    JAZZY    JUMBO    MOMMY    QIBLA+   WIMPY    ZONKS
DUDDY    FUZZY    JEFES    JUMPY    MUJIK    QOPHS    WOMBY    ZUPPA+
DUSKY    GAUZY    JERKY    KEMPY+   MUZZY    QUIPU    WONKY
Here is a better way to do the above:
   5.\            // get all the 5's
   []3?/#=0       // produce the answer
The final step takes about 30 seconds.

4.7  Convert to Alphagrams

Steve Hartsman asked for a way to take a given list of words and convert each of these into alphagrams. What was unclear is if the order of the list should be retained, and if not should duplicates be removed.

If the order of the list is to be retained and duplicates kept, then import the given list to the slate, clear the workspace via the GUI or by using the /CW command, and then present the slate with canonically-ordered words and requesting one word per line with no sorting (alphabetically), namely:

   /o1/=';
Then output the workspace to a file; you will have to remove the first two lines (the command and a blank line) and the final line (a blank line) outside of WHAT. This is then the result.

On the other hand, if the order of the list is not to be retained and you are removing duplicates, then after importing the input list to the slate, execute the command:

   []/q;w
Then you can export the slate to a result file; there are no extra lines which must be removed with this method.

5.  Curiosity Questions with Simple Answers

5.1  7's Which Match Their Alphagrams

An alternate way to express the notion of words which match their alphagrams is: "What words are spelled in alphabetical order?". This assumes the current canonical ordering is the default of alphagrams. Here are the commands to do this:

   7./Q;W\ // get canonically-ordered 7-letter words; don't show them
   []      // for each, yield only words (pattern matching is implied)
The answer is merely BEEFILY and BILLOWY.

5.2  7's Which Match Their Reversed Alphagrams

In a message posted to CGP, Steve Hartsman asked what alphagrams of words of at least 7 letters spell that word reversed. His example was TRIGGED. This is similar to the previous example. All you need do is define the canonical order to be the alphabet in reverse.

   /;"ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA"    // define this canonical order
   7./Q;W\    // get the canonically-ordered 7-letter words, but don't show them
   []         // for each one, yield only words (pattern matching is implied)
The answer is:
SNIFFED  SPONGED  SPOOKED  SPOONED  TROLLED  WOOLLED
SPIFFED  SPOOFED  SPOOLED  TRIGGED  VROOMED  WRONGED
Do this for 8's, and TROLLIED is the only answer, and that is the longest. There are 54 such words of length 6.

5.3  ZINGARA-like Words

We have noticed the word ZINGARA can end in any of A, E, I, or O. We wonder what other 7-letter words have this characteristic, where the only final letters are those four vowels. Here are the commands to find out:

   6.a\             // get all 7-letter words ending in A
   [1-6]./:=(AEIO)  // get those 7-letter words ending in A whose last
                    // letter can be A,E,I,O only
This yields only STRETTA and ZINGARA, which answers the question. Even if we change the = to >= the same answer is produced, which is not surprising.

5.4  11's With 3-Anagram Groups

Aaron Bader thought it was interesting to see the 11-words which are in 3-anagram groups. Here is a way to get the list of alphagrams for these words. Then you can use these as the basis for a quiz. Aaron suggests the most interesting group is ACEHOOPRRST.

   11. /Q;W /&=3
Here are the 11 racks:
RPOONMIHGCA TSRNMLIIGEA TSRONMLIIEA TSSSSNLIEEA
SPOONLIHGEE TSRNNIIEECA TSROONIEDCA VTTSONIICAA
TSONNMLIIAA TSRONMIIECA TSRRPOOHECA
At this point, you can see the answers by typing the one-character command of a right parenthesis. This lone character in a command indicates you want anagrams presented.

5.5  4's Requiring a Blank

What 4-letter words require the use of a blank?

   (B) 3(S) /1w#
   4. #
   /y 0=0-1
WHAT reports the first query results in 4185 words, and the next one results in 4214 words. This is the answer of these 29 words:
BAZZ+    FAFF+    HMMM+    KAKA     KICK     KLIK     MUMM     ZIZZ+
BIBB     FIZZ     JAZZ     KAKI     KIKE     KONK     RAZZ
BUZZ     FUZZ     JIZZ+    KECK     KINK     KOOK     SHHH+
EKKA+    HAJJ     JUJU     KEEK     KIRK     KYAK     TIZZ+
Another way to get the first set of words is with this query:
   4.,(@B) /1w#

One more technique to get the same list is to seek wotds with a probability of zero, since probabilities are calculated based on letters without any consideration to blanks. This command does the trick:

   4./%=0

6.  Curiosity Questions with Tougher Answers

6.1  Words With Five Vowels in Alphabetical Order

What words contain A, E, I, O. and U, where these letters show up in alphabetical order within the word?

First, find which ones begin with AB and may have other vowels too:

   a*e*i*o*u*
These 5 words are shown:
ABSTEMIOUS     ABSTEMIOUSNESS   ABSTENTIOUS
ABSTEMIOUSLY   ABSTEMIOUSNESSES
Then, restrict the question to words which start with A, where those five vowels are the only vowels:
   a0(C)e0(C)i0(C)o0(C)u0(C)
These words result:
ABSTEMIOUS        ABSTEMIOUSLY      ABSTENTIOUS       ARSENIOUS
If you then prefix with any number of consonants:
   0(C)a0(C)e0(C)i0(C)o0(C)u0(C)
These are the words:
ABSTEMIOUS      ABSTENTIOUS     CAESIOUS+    FACETIOUSLY
ABSTEMIOUSLY    ARSENIOUS       FACETIOUS

6.2  Getting Hints for a Bingo Rack

You are provided with a rack in which there is a bingo, and you want some hints. You can ask for specific letters of specific words, but perhaps you want to just know whether a certain letter is involved. For example, you may want to know whether the final letter of any of the words in the answer is a C, or you may want to know this for a specific word, such as the first one. You can do make such a query, but it may modify the slate, so it would be advisable to copy the slate to a wordlist before making the query, and then you can restore it when you want to. The following query asks whether the 7th letter of any of the 7-letter words on the slate is a C:

   [1-6]C~
If you want to know the same thing for the fourth letter:
[1-3]C[5-7]~
Having said all this, there is still the possibility that when alternate source is supported more than for subwords, this will make such a query easier. Let us assume a pattern match query can use source words from a given wordlist. Then:
   /1W    // save the slate to wordlist 1
   /1I!   // use wordlist 1 as the source (long-term)
   6.C~   // are there any 7-letter words in wordlist 1 which end in C?

6.3  C-G-P Words

John Morse posted to the CGP Email List some letter sets with one blank such that the blank can be exactly C or G or P. WHAT can be use to find such answers:

   6?c#            // get all 7's with a C
   []-c+g/#>0#     // from those words, keep those which produce a word
                   // when a G replaces the C
   []-c+p/#>0#     // from those words, keep those which produce a word
                   // when a P replaces the C - there are 569 words
   []-c+?/:=(CGP)  // from those words, keep those which produce words
                   // such that the blank is exactly C,G,P
Two words come out: VINCULA and WACKILY. Then, if you want to see these in canonical order:
   []/q;w            // yield these answers in canonical order
   []-c/qs           // yield strings from these answers less one C

6.4  8's With No 7-Letter Subwords

Avi Moss asked for the 8's with no 7-letter subword, i.e. a 7-letter word prefixed or suffixed with a hook letter which leads to an 8-letter word is not included. Here are WHAT to find these:

   8.\/1w     // make a list of all 8's and put into wordlist 1.
   7.\        // make a list of all 7's

   .[]\/2w    // make a list of all 8's which are formed from a 7 with
              // a front hook, and put into wordlist 2.

   7.\        // get the 7's again

   [].\/3w    // make a list of all 8's which are formed from a 7 with
              // a back hook, and put into wordlist 3.

   /y4=2|3    // combine wordlists 2 and 3 into wordlist 4

   /y0=1-4    // yield the answer onto the slate
The answer to this is rather large.

6.5  Minimal Longest Subwords of 8's

Seth Lipkin noticed from a word-of-the-day listing that PANMIXIA's longest subword (when anagramming) is of length 5. He asks are there any 8's with smaller maximum length subwords? Here is how this can be answered in WHAT:

   8.\               // get all the 8's to the slate
   []/a/|=7/#=0#     // retain only 8's which have no 7's, say how many
   []/a/|=6/#=0#     // retain only 8's which have no 6's, say how many
   []/a/|=5/#=0#/5w  // same for 5's, and save in wordlist #5
   []/a/|=4/#=0#/4w  // same for 5's, and save in wordlist #4
   []/|=3/#=0        // retain only 8's which have no 3's and show them

   ...

   /5r'                //and then go back to see wordlist 5

WHAT?: 8.\
 
WHAT?: []/a/|=7/#=0#
 Number of items = 6351
 
WHAT?: []/a/|=6/#=0#
 Number of items = 853
 
WHAT?: []/a/|=5/#=0#/5w
 Number of items = 63
 
       Wordlist 5 has 63 items.
WHAT?: []/a/|=4/#=0#/4w
 Number of words = 0
 
       Wordlist 4 has 0 items.
WHAT?: /5r'
       The slate has 63 strings.

ABEYANCE CACHUCHA EPOPOEIA HOODMOLD MAHIMAHI QUINCUNX WINDMILL
ABEYANCY CARACARA EXIGUITY HOOKWORM MILKWOOD QUIZZING WOODCOCK
AMADAVAT COMMENCE FOOFARAW JACQUARD PARALLAX SUSURRUS WOODWORK
APAGOGIC CORRIDOR FUCKFACE JIPIJAPA PELLMELL THATAWAY WOODWORM
AQUAFARM CRUCIFIX FUGITIVE KAVAKAVA PICKWICK UNUNBIUM WOOLWORK
AVADAVAT DAHABIAH GANGBANG KAZACHOK PURPURIC UXORIOUS WORKHOUR
BELLPULL DUMMKOPF GUITGUIT KEFFIYEH QUANDANG VIRILITY WORMWOOD
BUZZKILL DYSPEPSY HIGHBROW LINKWORK QUIDDITY VIVARIUM ZOOTOMIC
BUZZWORD EFFICACY HOMEOBOX LOOKDOWN QUIDNUNC WIFELIKE ZUGZWANG
So the above list are those 8's with 4's as the longest subwords.

In the presentation of the 63 strings, you are not shown which are new words in OWL3. To see this, issue the command consisting of an an open and closed square brace. You will see two of these words are new.

Then, Seth followed up by noticing in the above list that all the words have repeated letters, and there is a small number of these with only a single repeat, such as DUMMKOPF. We could first run a check to be sure we did not miss something - which words have no repeated letters (if any)? Here is one way to answer this in WHAT:

   .7(-)\/8w // put 8's with no repeated letters into wordlist 8
   /y0=5&8   // the slate gets the answer, lists 5 and 8 intersection
WHAT can be used to find the words in the above list with have exactly one repeated letter. It is a small variant of the above scenario:
   ?6(-)(+)/8w
   /y0=5&8
The set (-) represents a non-repeated letter, and the set (+) represents a repeated letter.

7.  Esoteric Questions with Simple Answers

7.1  Rare Pair of Letters

Wayne Yorra wondered what two letters combine with 5 blanks to produce the shortest list of 7-letter words. Let's look for those that produce less than 3:

   ../q;s#    // get all 351 canonically-ordered digrams onto the slate
   []5?/#<3
This yields the answer:
JQ   QQ   QX
Then you can see the words with:
   []5?
This produces:
EQUINOX  JONQUIL  QUIXOTE  QULLIQS+S

7.2  Longest Words With No Repeated Letters

This question arises on a regular basis: What are the longest words with no repeated letters? This is very easy to answer using WHAT, since there is a set which represents a first-time letter of a word. The only problem is to formulate a query in which you cover multiple word lengths. Let's say you guess the answer is at least 10. You can ask for words of length to the maximum length of 26 with this query:

   26(+) /|10 /<| |
The subcommands indicate:
   /|10    // filter to yield words of at least length 10
   /<|     // sort by decreasing length
   |       // present lengths along with words
The above query yields 1526 words, so WHAT brings up the dialog to have you indicate how many you want to see. You can click on the option to see the first 25 words, and these are they:
DERMATOGLYPHICS_15c    MOTHERFUCKING___13c
UNCOPYRIGHTABLE_15c    MULTIBRANCHED___13c
AMBIDEXTROUSLY__14c    SUBORDINATELY___13c
DERMATOGLYPHIC__14c    TROUBLEMAKING___13c
TROUBLEMAKINGS__14c    UNPREDICTABLY___13c
CONSUMPTIVELY___13c    UNPROBLEMATIC___13c
COPYRIGHTABLE___13c    AMBIDEXTROUS____12c
DOCUMENTARILY___13c    AMBLYGONITES____12c
ENDOLYMPHATIC___13c    AMYLOPECTINS____12c
FLOWCHARTINGS___13c    BANKRUPTCIES____12c
HYDROMAGNETIC___13c    BLUESTOCKING____12c
LYCANTHROPIES___13c    CABINETWORKS____12c
METALWORKINGS___13c
If you are then curious what is the last word in the list, you can type the command:
/>| /1    // sorting by increasing length, what is the first word
You will be shown it is ABDUCTIONS; so this is the alphabetically first 10-letter word with no repeated letters.

7.3  Longest Words With No 1-Point Consonants

Steve Root asked what is the longest word with no 1-point consonants. Of course, that would be these consonants only: BCDFGHJKMPQVWXZ.

Two methods are included here:

7.4  Making 9's With Only DW and UW

When Steve Root was doing a postmortem on a Clabbers game he played, he noticed with whatever word tools he had at his disposal that his rack made 9's with DW and UW only. He wondered how many other 7-letter racks have this characteristic. WHAT came to the rescue:

   dw7?#        // get nines with DW - there are 825 of them
   []-dw/q;s\   // remove DW from each; yield canonically-ordered strings
   /1w          // save 793 strings to wordlist 1
Do the same thing for UW, and save the result to wordlist 2. Then:
   /y3=1&2      // take the intersection of wordlists 1 and 2
The result is five strings:
ABLORST  DFIOORT  ELLNOPS  GHIINNS  GHINORT
Now for each of these strings, find those which produce only two words when combined with two blanks:
    /3[ []??/#=2
The result is DFIOORT, since the default canonical order is alphabetical.

7.5  Words of the form ABBCCC

What 6-letter words have one unique letter, a pair of another letter, and a trio of another letter?

An initial thought it to first ask WHAT this query:

   ?(+)(R-1)(+)(R-1)(R-1)/QS  // first get all strings which conform
However, WHAT answers:
 Queries which result in strings are limited to 4 blanks & sets
This restriction does not prevent the same list from being created; it just takes two steps to do it:
   ?(+)(R-1)/QS#        // get strings of the form ABB
   [](+)(R-1)(R-1)/QS#  // get strings of the form ABBCCC
There are 15600 of these.
   []/a                 // for each of the strings, get anagrammed words
The answer consists of these 101 words:
ACACIA   BEDDED   FALLAL   JEERER   MANNAN   PEPPED   SALSAS   TERETE
AGGADA   BONOBO   FESSES   JESSES   MASSAS   PEPPER   SEEDED   TESTEE
ALLELE   BOWWOW   GOOGOL   KABAKA   MESSES   PIPPIN   SEISES   TETTER
ANANDA+  CESSES   HALALA   KANAKA   MISSIS   POWWOW   SEMEME   TITBIT
ANNONA   COCOON   HALLAL   KEEKED   NAGANA   REARER   SENSES   TITTIE
ARREAR   DEEMED   HAMMAM   LALLAN   NANNAS+  REDDED   SEPSES   VENENE
ASANAS   DESEED+  HEEDED   LESSEE   NEEDED   REEDED   SESHES+  WEDDED
ASSAIS   DOODAD   HOLLOO   LOLLOP   NESSES   REEFER   SETTEE   WEEDED
ASSAYS   EDDIED   HORROR   MAMMAE   PALAPA   REEKER   STOTTS   YESSES
AYAYAS+  EERIER   HUBBUB   MAMMAL   PAPAYA   REELER   TATTOO   ZANANA
BANANA   EFFETE   IGGING   MAMMAS   PAZAZZ   RESEES   TEDDED
BAOBAB   EMESES   INNING   MAMMEE   PEEPED   REVERE   TEETER
BATATA+  EPOPEE   ISSEIS   MANANA   PEEPER   ROCOCO   TEETHE
You might be tempted to combine the final two steps above, using the following query:
   *,[](+)(R-1)(R-1)    // get words of the form ABBCCC anagrammed
but, at least for now, WHAT does not support query-based sets in racks.

7.6  6+2 Unistem Words

Seth Lipkin mentioned he likes the 6+2 Unistem list of John Chew. A "unistem" is a set of letters that, together with a certain number of blanks, anagrams to form only one word. For example, HOAGIE is a two-blank unistem using the OWL3 lexicon, because the only 8-letter word in AGEHIO?? is ESOPHAGI. Since HOAGIE happens to be a word itself, rather than a random collection of letters, it is a 6-letter two-blank unistem word, or a 6+2 unistem word for short. John presents these in reverse probability order on his web site, and here is how you can produce this list using WHAT.

   6.\           // get all the 6-letter words onto the slate
   []+??/#=1\    // replace the slate with only those 6's which lead
                 // to one 8-letter word
   /<% 24'       // present the first 24 words of the answer
John Chew provides the answers as 6's and in decreasing probability; WHAT's first 24 such answers are (read down columns first):
HOAGIE   TUYERE   JILTER   ZOARIA   AFTOSA   ZOSTER   VITTLE   GADOID
FRAENA   FANEGA   OGIVAL   TAXITE   GONEFS   NONWAR   EXODOI   HEJIRA
JAILER   JAILED   WITNEY   EXILER   STOGEY   RENNIN   AWEIGH   MAFTIR
John's list is in a slightly different order, since his probability computation includes taking blanks into account, but WHAT's computation does not.

8.  Esoteric Questions with Tougher Answers

8.1  7's With No Anahooks

Matthew Hodge asked for a list of the highest probability 7-letter words which have no anahooks, such as Since NOTATES. This means that Since NOTATES plus a blank yields no eights.

Begin by making such a list and then decide how many make sense:
   7. /Q;W #    // get all racks for 7-letter words
After about 4 seconds of working, WHAT announces the number of these is 21063. Now prune this down to those which have no anahooks:
   []? /#=0 #
After working about 8 seconds, WHAT announces the number of these is 4136.

Set the presentation of the slate for the long-term so that answers are sorted by decreasing probability and show nothing:

   /<%! \
It is worth noting that you do not have to make the commands from your memory and knowledge of WHAT. You can use the GUI to formulate these commands. The first two of the above three commands are constructed using choices you make from the Query tab, except for the terminating number sign, which you can get from the Presentation tab, but you just might recall that particular subcommand without using the GUI. The final command is constructed using the bottom part of the Presentation tab.

Now see what the 190th rack is, and show the words (technically, the anagrams of the answer):

   /200 )
The presented answer is:
AEINTXY (ANXIETY)
It might make sense to save this list now to a wordlist. For example,
   /1W
saves the 4136 racks to wordlist number 1. Now if you want to work with only those racks which are of the probability of ANXIETY or greater, one way to do this is start over and include the filtering subcommand of:
   /%{ANXIETY}
in your first query. Alternatively, you can direct WHAT to use a word list as the basis of words for a query which includes filtering. Let's detail both of these sub-scenarios: Either of the two sub-scenarios get you to this point.

Now, look at the first 50 of these, since that is about how many can be shown in the workspace at once (My workspace is 30 rows of 89 columns.). Show both the number of ways to make the rack (the basis of the probability) and the word(s):

   50' % )
This is the result:
       (first 50 items only)
AAEILNO_746496w_(AEOLIAN)          EFIOORS_145152w_(ROOFIES)
AAEINNO_466560w_(AEONIAN)          AEENNOV_142560w_(NOVENAE)
AABEIOR_373248w_(AEROBIA)          ADDEITU_139968w_(AUDITED)
AEIINOP_373248w_(EPINAOI)          AEIJNRS_139968w_(INJERAS+)
AENOSTT_311040w_(NOTATES)          AEIJNST_139968w_(TAJINES+)
ADEIRTY_279936w_(DIETARY)          AEINTVW_139968w_(VAWNTIE)
AEINTUV_279936w_(VAUNTIE)          AGIIRST_139968w_(ARTIGIS+)
AEHIORR_233280w_(HOARIER)          AACDIOR_124416w_(ACAROID)
EFIOORT_217728w_(FOOTIER)          AADGIOS_124416w_(ADAGIOS)
EGIOORS_217728w_(GOOSIER)          AADIRSU_124416w_(SUDARIA)
EIILORR_207360w_(ROILIER)          AAEGSTU_124416w_(GATEAUS)
AADGIOT_186624w_(AGATOID)          ABDEIIL_124416w_(ALIBIED)
AAINORV_186624w_(OVARIAN)          ADEFGOR_124416w_(FORAGED)
ADDENOT_186624w_(DONATED)          ADEIMOW_124416w_(MIAOWED)
ADENRTV_186624w_(VERDANT)          ADENTUV_124416w_(VAUNTED)
AEIKLOR_186624w_(OARLIKE)          ADERSTV_124416w_(ADVERTS,STARVED)
ABEERTU_171072w_(BEAUTER+)         AEGOTUV_124416w_(OUTGAVE)
ADIILOS_165888w_(SIALOID)          BDEGIOT_124416w_(BIGOTED)
DEFIOST_165888w_(FOISTED)          DEGHINO_124416w_(HONGIED)
DEIIORV_165888w_(IVORIED+)         DEGHIOT_124416w_(HOGTIED)
EIILORV_165888w_(RILIEVO)          DEGILTU_124416w_(GUILTED+)
AEMNOTT_155520w_(TOMENTA)          DEIJNOT_124416w_(JOINTED)
EENOSTW_152064w_(TOWNEES)          EGIMNOU_124416w_(MEOUING)
AADNOOT_145152w_(ODONATA+)         EIJLORT_124416w_(JOLTIER)
DEGIOOS_145152w_(GOODIES)          EINRSUW_124416w_(UNWISER)
You could export the wordlist of these 191 racks to a file and use it as the basis for flashcarding.

8.2  8's Which are not Extensions of 7's

Bob Gillis would like to get the top 1000 8-letter words which do not have a 7-letter word as a subword by removing the first or final letter. An example is SALMONID. Perhaps a more interesting set of words are those 8's which have no included 7-letter words when anagramming, but here is how to answer Bob:

   8.\           // get all the 8's
   []/a/|=7/#=0  // keep only those 8's with the sought characteristic
There are 6351 of these. Look at the 25 most likely ones:
   /<%           // and then click on seeing the first 25
You are shown:
AERATION OEDIPEAN NOTARIZE ANTIWEED DANEWORT IRONWARE ANAEROBE
UNEASIER LOITERER PINOTAGE GAIETIES DOWNRATE ROTATIVE
DETAINEE OUTEATEN RATOONER ABOITEAU TEARDOWN THIONATE
ETIOLATE INDAGATE AGENESIA AUDITION FETATION UINTAITE
Notice DANEWORT, DOWNRATE and TEARDOWN are anagrams. How many of these 8's have at least one other anagram? Issue this query:
   []/&>1
and WHAT reports there are 308 of these. Once again, show these in reverse likelihood:
   /<%
Then order these by decreasing number of anagrams and show those with 4 and 3 anagrams in a set:
MOORWORT  ROOTWORM  TOMORROW  WORMROOT
DANEWORT  DOWNRATE+ TEARDOWN
ILMENITE  MELINITE  TIMELINE
DEPORTER  PORTERED  REPORTED
CEMENTER  CEREMENT  RECEMENT
CONIDIUM  MUCINOID  ONCIDIUM
BEGRUDGE  BUGGERED  DEBUGGER
From this, one could present a quiz: what group of words of length 8 has the most number of anagrams and there are no 7's in the letters?

8.3  Symmetrically-Distributed Letters

There is a web site with considerable info about words. One category there was for words with symmetrically-distributed letters, such as IZAR and WIZARD. Notice I and R are symmetric in that I is the ninth letter of the alphabet, and R is the ninth last letters of the alphabet.

WHAT can help seek these words. For example, find the 6-letter words with this characteristic:
   /M"ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA"    // set WHAT's mapping to symmetrical letters
   3./qs#                            // get all trigrams
   [][m]/a                           // yield the answers
WHAT presents these 19 words:
BOLSHY   GIRTHS   HOLLOS   LOVIER+  RIGHTS   SHOVEL   WIZARD
CERVIX   GRITHS   HOVELS   RAZZIA+  SHIRAZ+  SHRIVE
EVOLVE   GRIVET   HYBRIS   REVIVE   SHIVER   VERMIN

8.4  Longest Words with Imbedded 2's, etc.

From John Van Pelt's Verbalobe web site, a question was posed: "What are the longest words with all imbedded 2's?" That was then extended to ask the same question for other lengths up to 7, and these are the answers:

2'sfrom11's-DENOMINATOR + 9 others
3'sfrom10's-CALABASHES only
4'sfrom8's-PARAKEET + 2 others
5'sfrom9's-TRAVERSES and 3 others
6'sfrom8's-BLENDERS + 12 others
7'sfrom9's-CAROUSERS + 2 others

To find such words using WHAT, you need to make individual probes for specific pairs of lengths. For example, to find the longest 9-letter words with the most imbedded 5-letter words, use these commands:

   9.\
   [1-5]/#=1\
   [2-6]/#=1\
   [3-7]/#=1\
   [4-8]/#=1\
   [5-9]/#=1\    // yields the answer with the 4 words

8.5  9's With No Imbedded 2's

From John Van Pelt's Verbalobe web site, there are many 9-letter words which have no imbedded 2-letter words, from ACROLECTS thru WILLFULLY, and there is 1 anagram pair in the list.

WHAT can find these with several steps:

   9.\           // get all 9's
   [1-2]/#=0\
   [2-3]/#=0\
   [3-4]/#=0\
   [4-5]/#=0\
   [5-6]/#=0\
   [6-7]/#=0\
   [7-8]/#=0\
   [8-9]/#=0\    // yields the answer with 71 words
   /1w           // saves the answer remains in wordlist 1
   []/&=2        // finds those words with anagrams (in the lexicon)
These three words result: HURTFULLY, SPRIGHTLY, and TRIGLYPHS. By inspection you can see that the sought answer consists of the 2nd and 3rd words. RUTHFULLY is not in the list, since it has the 2-letter word UT imbedded within.

In order to check for the number of anagrams in the answer and not in the lexicon, suffix the final command above with /1I to use wordlist 1 as the word source instead of the lexicon. In this case, only the two words are in the answer.

8.6  The Most Imbedded Words

Someone mentioned that THEREIN contains many shorter words spelled in order. WHAT can be used to check whether this word has the most imbedded words for all 7-letter words:

   therein/i#    // find out how many words are imbedded in THEREIN
The answer is 13, which includes the word itself.
   7.\           // get all the 7's onto the slate
   []/i/#13      // get those with more than 12 imbedded words
   []/i/#14      // get those with more than 13 imbedded words
   []/i/#15      // get those with more than 14 imbedded words
   []/i/#16      // get those with more than 15 imbedded words
   []/i/#17      // get those with more than 16 imbedded words
   []/i/#18      // get those with more than 17 imbedded words
   []/i/#19      // get those with more than 18 imbedded words
One word is left, and that is AMUSERS.
amusers/i#    // be sure how many imbedded words in AMUSERS
The answer is 19, which includes the word itself:
AM       AMUSE    ER       MUS      MUSERS   US       USERS
AMU      AMUSER   ERS      MUSE     SER      USE
AMUS     AMUSERS  MU       MUSER    SERS     USER
So, there are 18 imbedded words within AMUSERS.

8.7  8's From Two Concatenated Words

Get the 8-letter words which can be formed from 2 shorter words concatenated, such that the shorter words are are least of length 3. This takes a few steps using WHAT:

   8.\
   [1-3]/#=1\
   [4-8]/#=1\
   /1w           // save the 3+5 list to wordlist 1
   8.\
   [1-4]/#=1\
   [5-8]/#=1\
   /y1=1|0       // merge the 4+4 list into wordlist 1
   8.\
   [1-5]/#=1\
   [6-8]/#=1\
   /y1=1|0       // merge the 5+3 list into wordlist 1
So now the answer of 11970 words is in wordlist 1. These, of course, are not all truly compound words. Realize the answer has only 8-letter words.

Another way to go about this is to use the query kind of 2-word patterns, but with this kind of query, there is no control on the length of the subwords. Commands to do this are:

   8. \
   [] /2P #
One could take the answer of 19013 strings from WHAT and remove those lines which break the longer word other than what is desired. The lengths of each of the two-word results can be used for sorting. For example:
   />|/8~W  // sort by increasing word lengths and save to wordlist 8
At this point, the wordlist has the two-word results sorted by length. In this wordlist, the first items have 6 letters as the size of the first word, and the end of the list of 19013 items has 2 letters as the size of the first word. The stated goal is to eliminate both of these groups from the entire answer. We have to do is find where those groups start and stop. A way to probe wordlist 8 is via the dialog which comes up for wordlist item deletion - menu pick Tools→Wordlists→Delete Items... to bring up the dialog. You can examine items of wordlist 8 and home in on where the items change length. Using this information, you can use the dialog to form the appropriate item deletion command.

With these probes I found the border between the length-6 and length-5 first words. So now, those first 3157 words can be deleted from the slate using the delete wordlist items command:

   /=8:1,3157D
Then, the same item deletion dialog can be used to find the trailing items to delete. At this point, these are items starting at 12906. So issue a similar command:
   /=8:12906,5000D
The count has to be at least how many items are to be deleted, and 5000 is higher than needed. So, at this point, 12905 items are now remaining in wordlist 8. This number of items is higher than the number of 8-letter words found by the first method described above, namely 11970. The difference is that in wordlist 8, an 8-letter word may be showing up more than once, since it can be split at more than one place. We can prove this by running a modified wordlist 8 back through the anagrammer with a pattern query. Export wordlist 8, use a text editor to remove spaces, and import the result back into wordlist 8. Then, the following query should then yield 11970 words:
   []/8[#  // using wordlist 8 as the source, pattern match each word
Yes, indeed it does - there are 11970 words.

8.8  8's With Four State Abbreviations

Using the 2-letter abbreviations for the 50 states plus DC, what 8-letter words consist of four state abbreviations concatenated? Here is a way to answer this using WHAT:

WHAT?: /FR2W"C:\msw\whatexe\50states.wds"
 Wordlist 2 with 51 items has been imported from
 file C:\msw\whatexe\50states.wds

WHAT?: 8.#
 Number of words = 31475
 
WHAT?: /2I!    // use the states in wordlist 2 as the word source

WHAT?: [1-2]/#=1#
 Number of words = 6911
 
WHAT?: [3-4]/#=1#
 Number of words = 1155
 
WHAT?: [5-6]/#=1#
 Number of words = 210
 
WHAT?: [7-8]/#=1#
 Number of words = 20
 
WHAT?: /-I ! [] /OC10W

ARMORIAL  CALAMINE  GANYMEDE  MAINLAND  MANDORLA+ MEMORIAL  SCINCOID
CACONYMS  CANDIDAL  LAVALAVA  MALARIAL  MEGADEAL  MESCALIN+ UTILIDOR
CALAMARI  GAMODEME  MAHIMAHI  MANDARIN  MELAMINE  MOORLAND

9.  Beyond the Power of WHAT