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This is in the spirit of the What is a Word/Phrase™ series started by JLee with a special brand of Phrase™ and Word™ puzzles.

If a word conforms to a special rule, I call it a Plot Word™.
Use the following examples to find the rule.

enter image description here

In case you want it as a CSV:

Plot Words™, Not Plot Words™
fox, wolf
may, june
wall, walk
pork, ham
beef, cow
cage, coop
spoon, fork
cull, call
gun, knife
face, mind
hedge, shrub
room, house

The puzzle relies on the series' inbuilt assumption, that each word can be tested for whether it is a Plot Word™ or not on its own.

These are not the only examples of Plot Words™, many more exist.

Hint 1

The original name for this puzzle was What is a Graph Word™?

Hint 2

y=mx+b

Hint 3

1 is 01, 2 is 02, 3 is 03 and so on.

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    $\begingroup$ In the CSV version it says "face, LOL/FLIRT, mind" instead of just "face, mind" in the table, is that intentional? $\endgroup$
    – mbjb
    Apr 8, 2020 at 10:25
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    $\begingroup$ is LOL FLIRT in the CSV part of the puzzle? $\endgroup$
    – SteveV
    Apr 8, 2020 at 10:25
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    $\begingroup$ The links in the first paragraph are wrong/missing, I hope this is not a part of the puzzle... $\endgroup$
    – newbie
    Apr 8, 2020 at 12:31
  • $\begingroup$ Edited out the LOL FLIRT words. They were from a previous question I was using as a template. And no the links should work. That's probably another mistake from the template. $\endgroup$
    – Karan Atree
    Apr 8, 2020 at 16:18
  • $\begingroup$ Just fixed up your links - you had accidentally deleted the link URLs from the bottom of the template, so the one marked up as "[1]" directed to your table image, while those marked as 2-4 had nothing to point to. All fixed now though :) $\endgroup$
    – Stiv
    Apr 8, 2020 at 16:36

2 Answers 2

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A Plot Word™ is a word where

if you take for each letter its two digit position in the alphabet (A=01, Z=26), and then plot those in a 2-dimensional graph at the point ($x$ = second digit, $y$ = first digit), you can draw a straight line through them.

Examples:

fox → 06 15 24, which is a straight line ($y = 6 - x$)
may → 13 01 25, which yields $y = (x - 1) / 2$
spoon → 19 16 15 15 14, which yields $y = 1$

So either

the word consists of letters in one of these groups: A-J, K-T, U-Z;
this is the case for: pork, beef, cage, spoon, face, hedge, room

or

it contains at most one letter from each of the groups, and these are in an arithmetic progression, as found by Rand al'Thor;
(a letter may be used more than once)
this is the case for: fox, may, wall, cull, gun

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I think a Plot Word should be

one in which all the letters used in the word form an arithmetic progression through the alphabet.

For example, FOX and MAY and WALL

use letters $6,15,24$ and $1,13,25$ and $1,12,23$ respectively.

This also fits with the hints, and it seems to be a quite specific thing that fits. However,

it doesn't seem to work with all of the words: e.g. PORK is $11,15,16,18$ and FACE is $1,3,5,6$ (although CAGE does work with $1,3,5,7$). Is there a mistake in the puzzle, or is something different going on with the four-distinct-letter words?

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  • $\begingroup$ What you've discovered.... Is a property of some Plot Words™, but that's not what plot words are. $\endgroup$
    – Karan Atree
    Apr 13, 2020 at 21:51

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