Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 January 25

= January 25 =

Telescopic ladder
The Daily Star Sunday of 31 December featured the usual word ladder - a four letter word has to be transformed to another four-letter word in six steps, each involving the change of one letter. There is a twist, however - the new word is the opposite of the old one. That week's puzzle was DAWN>DARN>TARN>TURN>TURK>TUSK>DUSK. What's the minimum number of steps in which a four-letter word (e.g. FAST) can be transformed to its opposite (in this case SLOW)? 2A00:23C7:9C86:4301:DDA8:3416:7CEB:4CEA (talk) 11:53, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Three? DAD>DAM>DOM>MOM? Oops, you specified four-letter words. I'm reasonably sure, with all the four-letter words out there, there must be a four-step example. Clarityfiend (talk) 12:27, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Voila: KIND>MIND>MEND>MEAD>MEAN. Clarityfiend (talk) 12:37, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * There will always be multiple four-step paths for such transformations, but it is quite possible that for a given pair of words, all of the paths will contain at least one 4-letter sequence that is not a word in the English language.
 * Someone IT-savvy (so not me) could probably write a computer procedure utilising a digital dictionary to investigate this. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195}

176.24.47.60 (talk) 16:36, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * MALE>MALL>GALL>GILL>GIRL. Okay, so "girl" and "male" are not entirely opposite ("male" is not age limited), but it's still a pretty good example. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:15, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * WELL>HELL. For example, as in "it went well" vs "it was hell". Modocc (talk) 20:03, 25 January 2024 (UTC)