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The following thirteen words have a special property common to all of them (though they're not the only words with this property):

SADIST, THOROUGHFARE, HYMN, POISED, YURT, THIRTY-SEVEN, STREWN, VERTICALITY, INERTIA, BALDERDASH, HIGHFLYING, REWARDING, OPINIONATED

Firstly, what is this property? Secondly, which two words in the list have the property more than the other eleven?

Hint:

the idea behind this puzzle also appears in another puzzle posted in the last few days, although that one is less enigmatic.

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2 Answers 2

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Each of them

contains a string of at least 3 that's consecutive in the word and forms a connected block on a QWERTY keyboard: SADIST => SAD, THOROUGHFARE => UGHF, HYMN => HYMN, POISED => POI/SED, YURT => YURT, THIRTY-SEVEN => RTY, STREWN => REW, VERTICALITY => ERT, INERTIA => ERT, BALDERDASH => DERDAS, HIGHFLYING => GHF, REWARDING => REWA, OPINIONATED => OPI.

Two of them have

two such strings that don't overlap: POISED has POI and SED, and BALDERDASH has DER and DAS (the latter two are contiguous but don't overlap).

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    $\begingroup$ Well done! I was thinking of, more specifically, a connected horizontal block (the trick with HYMN being that the comma is included!), so that the two which have the property more than others are YURT and STREWN. But you get my +1 and accept anyway :-) $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Apr 2, 2015 at 22:19
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So here is my "better answer", rescued from a close idea...

all the words have a consecutive letters that are horizontally adjacent on the QWERTY keyboard:
SADIST
THOROUGHFARE
HYMN
POISED
YU RT
THIRTY-SEVEN
STREWN
VERTICALITY
INERTIA
BALDERDASH
HIGHFLYING
REWARDING
OPINIONATED

and the winning two then are

STREWN and VERTICALITY

And here, for reference, is the acknowledged "weak answer" I tried first:

The words all use at least two letters from the word "THIRTEEN".

And finding words that are more so than the others...

Clearly THIRTY-SEVEN is the winner, using all 8 letters, but VERTICALITY and INERTIA can each source 5 of their letters from THIRTEEN (not counting letters more times that they appear there), so I actually end up with three words "better" than the others.

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  • $\begingroup$ That's not a very special property - almost all the words in English have that property! Out of interest, what was your "something better"? It could be that a variant of that is the answer. $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Apr 2, 2015 at 21:54
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    $\begingroup$ @randal'thor Having adjacent letters that are also adjacent in the alphabet. $\endgroup$
    – Joffan
    Apr 2, 2015 at 21:56
  • $\begingroup$ That's not too far off actually... $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Apr 2, 2015 at 22:00
  • $\begingroup$ "HYMN," was very sneaky - I would have gone for the three-block if not for that. $\endgroup$
    – Joffan
    Apr 2, 2015 at 22:29
  • $\begingroup$ Hang on - you edited in the second answer before histocrat answered? How come I didn't notice?? I'm not sure which to accept now - you got the right idea first, but histocrat got a version of the right idea which was closer to the intended solution! $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Apr 2, 2015 at 22:32

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