Simple challenge to create a 26 word list where the starting and ending letters are the same, with one word for each letter of the alphabet. Your score is the total number of letters. If you skip a letter, your score for that letter is 7. Can you get
under 100 without consulting a dictionary? Let's use the scrabble players' word list.
L. Flynn

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On 18/10/2021 18:06, leflynn wrote:

Simple challenge to create a 26 word list where the starting and ending letters are the same, with one word for each letter of the alphabet. Your score is the total number of letters. If you skip a letter, your score for that letter is 7. Can you get

under 100 without consulting a dictionary? Let's use the scrabble players' word list.

I tried.

I failed with j, q, u (no, I don't count Ubuntu!), v, and
x, z. That's 42 penalty points right there. Under 100 is 99 max, less 42
is 57.

Use A, I, and O as one-letter words, which means there are 17 words left
to get with 54 letters. Burn 34 for firsts and lasts, leaving 20 letters
/ 17 words. So we need fourteen three-letter words:

bob did eye gig huh mum nun pip tat wow

covers b d e g h m n p t w (and in my view 'gig', 'huh', 'mum' and 'wow'
are dodgy to say the least),

leaving these seven:

c f k l o r s

We'd have to find three-letter words for four of them and four-letter
words for the remainder. I don't see it.

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

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On Monday, October 18, 2021 at 1:51:14 PM UTC-4, Richard Heathfield wrote:

I failed to find a solution. Scroll down if you want to learn why.
On 18/10/2021 18:06, leflynn wrote:

Simple challenge to create a 26 word list where the starting and ending letters are the same, with one word for each letter of the alphabet. Your score is the total number of letters. If you skip a letter, your score for that letter is 7. Can you get

under 100 without consulting a dictionary? Let's use the scrabble players' word list.

I tried.

I failed with j, q, u (no, I don't count Ubuntu!), v, and
x, z. That's 42 penalty points right there. Under 100 is 99 max, less 42
is 57.

Use A, I, and O as one-letter words, which means there are 17 words left
to get with 54 letters. Burn 34 for firsts and lasts, leaving 20 letters
/ 17 words. So we need fourteen three-letter words:

bob did eye gig huh mum nun pip tat wow

covers b d e g h m n p t w (and in my view 'gig', 'huh', 'mum' and 'wow'
are dodgy to say the least),

leaving these seven:

c f k l o r s

We'd have to find three-letter words for four of them and four-letter
words for the remainder. I don't see it.

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

Good try without resorting to looking up to see what obscure words are in the Scrabble list.
(It has three-letter words for "u" and "v" and five-letter words for "x" and "q".)
I don't see your "y" word and you are trying to get "o" twice.
Your four "dodgy" words look fine to me.
In another recent rec.puzzles thread, "mm" and "zzz" were proposed as solving words for a different challenge.
They would certainly help here.
L. Flynn

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On 18/10/2021 21:50, leflynn wrote:

you are trying to get "o" twice

Oopo!

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

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On Monday, October 18, 2021 at 1:06:19 PM UTC-4, leflynn wrote:

Simple challenge to create a 26 word list where the starting and ending letters are the same, with one word for each letter of the alphabet. Your score is the total number of letters. If you skip a letter, your score for that letter is 7. Can you get

under 100 without consulting a dictionary? Let's use the scrabble players' word list.

L. Flynn

Here are three lists. The first is made entirely of non-trivial Palindromes (Score of 99). The second improves on it by including non-palindrome words of two or more letters (Score of 90). And the third allows words of a single letter (Score of 84). One-
letter words are not in the Scrabble dictionary. Note Collins Scrabble Words has “oo” in it.
AA 2 A
BIB 5
CIVIC 10 CHIC
DAD 13
EYE 16
------- 23 FIEF
GIG 26
HAH 29
------- 36 INTI I
------- 43
KOOK 47
LEVEL 52 LULL
MM 54
NUN 57
OHO 60 O
POP 63
QAJAQ 68
RADAR 73 ROAR
SIS 76
TAT 79
ULU 82
VAV 85
WOW 88
XEROX 93
YAY 96
ZZZ 99 90 84

Ob. Puzzle. Similar list to the first but the goal is to find the longest palindrome words for each letter.

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