I am inspired by the story of the boy who came upon an assortment of holiday cookies beautifully arranged on a platter. The boy quietly helped himself to a cookie and artistically rearranged the remaining cookies to make it appear as if none were missing. Then, he helped himself to another and rearranged again. And another. And another. Until all the cookies were gone. (And that's when his mother noticed...)
It's very simple:
- I will give you a starting word.
- You will remove a letter of your choosing, and then rearrange the remaining letters to form a new word.
- Then, remove another letter and rearrange the remaining letters to form a new word.
- Then, remove another letter and rearrange the remaining letters to form a new word.
- ...
- And so on until all the letters are gone.
For example:
Starting word is ALTERCATIONS
-------------------------------------------
Solution:
ALTERCATIONS
(remove "T" and rearrange)
LACERATIONS
(remove "C" and rearrange)
SENATORIAL
(remove "A" and rearrange)
RELATIONS
(remove "O" and rearrange)
ENTRAILS
(remove "N" and rearrange)
REALIST
(remove "L" and rearrange)
SATIRE
(remove "T" and rearrange)
RAISE
(remove "I" and rearrange)
EARS
(remove "R" and rearrange)
SEA
(remove "E" and rearrange)
AS
(remove "S" and rearrange)
A
(remove "A" and you're done)
You can do as much or as little rearrangement as you like. E.g., you are permitted to remove the "R" from BRAKE and leave BAKE, or even just snap the "-S" off the end of a word and leave all the remaining letters as they are.
As always, I construct my puzzles in such a way that they can be solved using only well-known words, so if you find yourself going down a path of increasingly obscure words, you may be overthinking it.
Multiple solution paths may exist, so don't worry if your path varies slightly from your neighbor's path, especially at the tail ends.
Below are 12 starting words. See if you can reduce each one to nothing through attrition.
1. DISSEMINATORS
2. ENCRUSTATIONS
3. DECENTRALIZED
4. IMPERSONATING
5. SHAREHOLDINGS
6. INVESTIGATORS
7. INDOCTRINATED
8. REGISTRATIONS
9. DETERIORATING
10. INDETERMINATE
11. REINSTALLATION
12. RESUSCITATIONS
Nice work, @hexomino and @Randal'Thor !
I'm giving @hexomino the answer for solving three of them, and an upvote to @Randal'Thor for solving two of them.
FYI, this puzzle may have been a little too tough to do manually, so I've opened up the remaining unsolved words to computers. See here.
Alternative solution for #4:
If you're not happy with ORATING, you might prefer this solution:
IMPERSONATING
IMPREGNATION
GERMINATION
EMIGRATION
ORIGINATE
RIGATONI
RIOTING
ORIGIN
GROIN
IRON
ION
IN
I
Alternative solution for #7:
If you're not comfortable with CITRATE, you might prefer the solution:
INDOCTRINATED
INDOCTRINATE
INTERACTION
RECITATION
INTRICATE
INTERACT
CERTAIN
RETAIN
INERT
TINE
TIE
IT
I
