# Are there any \>2 letter sets that always create a word when jumbled?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 28, 2013, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611 "2013-01-28T14:49:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@petew83](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/petew83)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/1 "2013-01-28T14:49:52Z")
Coming up empty on the search for a name for this concept, I assume there are none (at least in English).
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/2 "2013-01-28T14:54:24Z")
O, N, E can be “one,” “eon,” or “neo.”
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### Author:  [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/3 "2013-01-28T15:00:44Z")
tea
tae - scottish form of “to”
eat
eta - greek letter
ate
aet - “at the age of”
There may be better ones out there. One or two of those are a little dodgy.
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### Author:  [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/4 "2013-01-28T15:10:24Z")
Ooooooo = the sound a ghost makes
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/5 "2013-01-28T15:15:34Z")
I’ve played word games for ages, and thought about this one. I haven’t found any that work in all combinations\*, but observed that you get
tar
art
rat
tra (song syllable)
but you have to call on initials and abbreviations for rta and atr.
You can get a lot of permutations out of
shear
share
hears
hares
rheas
which makes it useful if you’re playing “Giotto” ( [Jotto - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jotto) )
\*I hadn’t thought of **aspidistra** ’s, but would’ve balked at “tae”, being unfamiliar with the Scottish
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/6 "2013-01-28T15:17:27Z")
Do words with repeated letters count? It seems like those ought to be easier. With a three-letter word with a pair of repeated letters, you’d only need to worry about three permutations, not six.
That said, I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head.
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### Author:  [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/7 "2013-01-28T15:18:41Z")
When I was in Chicago in the early 80s, there was a club called Neo with a DJ that went by the name Noe. They had a night of Brian Eno music that was dubbed:
One eon of Eno at Neo with Noe
Got 5 of the 6 possible combinations of those three letters.
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### Author:  [@petew83](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/petew83)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/8 "2013-01-28T15:58:42Z")
Aspidistra - I never would have found that, because “aet” (pronounced “eat”, meaning “at the age of”) is not in the Scrabble dictionary. It’s probably not in there because it’s an abbreviation of “aetat”. Thank you.
Chronos - repeated letters are fine. I checked all possibilities with three letters, and none work on the Scrabble dictionary (nor does any other three letter word).
CalMeacham - your {s,h,e,a,r,} set is very cool. Thanks.
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### Author:  [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/9 "2013-01-28T16:00:47Z")
ese, do you see a word with ees?
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### Author:  [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/10 "2013-01-28T16:14:12Z")
With a little bit of cheating (:)) you can use a,e,r and get:
aer – the prefix in aerosol, aerated
are
ear
era
Rae (OK, that’s a [name](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rae_%28given_name%29), not a word…)
rea – Latin, but (sort of) used in English as part of the phrase “[Mens Rea](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea)” (guilty mind)
Probably not going to pass dictionary muster, but at least all 6 combinations sort of mean _something_
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### Author:  [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/11 "2013-01-28T16:36:30Z")
Here’s a group of 7, 6 of which are all ordinary words, and the last dogy. Unfortunately it’s four letters so it’s only 6 or 7 of 24.
STOP
SPOT
POST
POTS
TOPS
OPTS
SOPT which is listed as slang in the Urban Dictionay (and could also be the past tense of sop in some dialects).
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/12 "2013-01-28T16:42:20Z")
It doesn’t have meaning in all permutations, but if one opts to stop and spot the anagrams in this post, one becomes dizzy as spinning tops, or perhaps someone who has smoked two or more pots.
(Yeah, I know…)
ETA: :::opts to thrpw pots of boiling oil on the spot occup0ied by **OldGuy** :::
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/13 "2013-01-28T16:47:42Z")
**CalMeacham** posted some good combinations for 3- and 5-letter words.
For 4-letters good combos include
ares arse ears eras rase sear sera
east eats etas sate seat seta teas
(His lot is only 0.03 hectares, i.e. 3 ares. Sera is the plural of serum.)
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> … which makes it useful if you’re playing “Giotto” ( [Jotto - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jotto) )
I played a lot of Jotto decades ago. Our rules differed somewhat from those shown at Wikipedia:
- duplicate letters are permitted
- score of 5 wins – you need not guess the exact anagram
- four 4’s in a row wins – you needn’t worry about a sadist picking a word from the
acres arses asker avers bares cares fares gears mares rears years etc. set
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### Author:  [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/14 "2013-01-28T16:51:56Z")
Surely there is a program that can match all of the permutations of a three letter set to a given dictionary. That is, of course, the first thing that comes to mind. The second is a desire to actually code it in the language that I am currently using.
And yes, I am a geek.
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### Author:  [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/15 "2013-01-28T16:59:00Z")
I wrote a brief Mathematica program that looked through its dictionary of uncapitalized three-letter words and found the letter combinations that occurred most often. Then I adapted it to longer words out of curiosity.[ul]
[li]For three letters, there are two combinations corresponding to four words: AET (ate, eat, eta, tea) and APS (spa, asp, pas, sap).[/li][li]For four letters, there are seven words using AEST: ates, eats, east, etas, sate, seat, teas. I’m not sure how “ates” is a word, though; if you disallow that one, the best is OPST with six words (opts, post, pots, spot, stop, tops.)[/li][li]For five letters, there are seven words using AEPRS: pares, parse, pears, rapes, reaps, spare, spear.[/li][li]For six letters, there are seven words using the combinations ACEPRS (capers, crapes, pacers, parsec, recaps, scrape, spacer) and ACERST (carets, caster, caters, crates, reacts, recast, traces).[/li][/ul]This is where my computer started to choke and die due to my kludgy coding, so I didn’t go to seven letters or beyond.
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### Author:  [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/16 "2013-01-28T21:12:32Z")
> [@MikeS](#):
>
> I wrote a brief Mathematica program that looked through its dictionary of uncapitalized three-letter words and found the letter combinations that occurred most often. Then I adapted it to longer words out of curiosity.[ul]
> [li]For three letters, there are two combinations corresponding to four words: AET (ate, eat, eta, tea) and APS (spa, asp, pas, sap).[/li][li]For four letters, there are seven words using AEST: ates, eats, east, etas, sate, seat, teas. I’m not sure how “ates” is a word, though; if you disallow that one, the best is OPST with six words (opts, post, pots, spot, stop, tops.)[/li][li]For five letters, there are seven words using AEPRS: pares, parse, pears, rapes, reaps, spare, spear.[/li][li]For six letters, there are seven words using the combinations ACEPRS (capers, crapes, pacers, parsec, recaps, scrape, spacer) and ACERST (carets, caster, caters, crates, reacts, recast, traces).[/li][/ul]This is where my computer started to choke and die due to my kludgy coding, so I didn’t go to seven letters or beyond.
Thank you, MikeS. I was seriously thinking of cranking out a Q&D in PHP to do this very same thing. Mathematica, eh? I have heard that it is a remarkably capable language. Never would have thought about using it because I only know of it by reputation.
And thanks for making me feel less like a geek. heh heh heh
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### Author:  [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/17 "2013-01-28T21:54:51Z")
The grand daddy -and superset- of most of these replies is “earth”, assuming you don’t have to use all letters each time. In my head I came up with 21 combinations, if I recall, but I am not doing it again right now.
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### Author:  [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/18 "2013-01-28T21:56:29Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#):
>
> Thank you, MikeS. I was seriously thinking of cranking out a Q&D in PHP to do this very same thing. Mathematica, eh? I have heard that it is a remarkably capable language. Never would have thought about using it because I only know of it by reputation.
>
> And thanks for making me feel less like a geek. heh heh heh
Using Mathematica for a problem like this is like using a blowtorch to open a walnut: it’s possible to do it with this tool, but the tool’s really much better-adapted to other tasks. I just had it on hand because I work at a college.
This said, I did manage to revamp my code to work around the memory limitations I was running into earlier today. (Hooray for sparse arrays!) The results for longer words are kind of interesting, mainly because the “maximal anagram sets” seem to decrease in size:
[ul][li]For seven letters, AIENRST makes six words: antsier, nastier, retains, retinas, retsina, stainer.[_]For eight letters, there are four sets of letters that make five words: AEGILNRT (alerting, altering, integral, relating, triangle); AEGILNRS (aligners, realigns, resignal, signaler, slangier); AEGINRST (angriest, gantries, granites, ingrates, rangiest); and AEINRRST (restrain, retrains, strainer, terrains, trainers).[/li][_] For nine letters, there are twenty-two (!) sets of nine letters that have three anagrams, but apparently none that have four. In the interests of space, I won’t include them all here. My favourite, though, is “auctioned”, “cautioned”, and “education”.[\*]For ten letters, there are three letter sets that have three anagrams: ADEGIILMNS (misaligned, misdealing, misleading); CDEINORSTU (discounter, introduces, reductions); and EEINPSSTT (persistent, pinsetters, prettiness).[/ul]I looked at eleven-, twelve-, thirteen- and fourteen-letter words as well, but Mathematica only found pairs of acronyms—no sets of three or more.
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/19 "2013-01-28T23:16:06Z")
I have _The Dictionary of Anagrams_ by Samuel Hunter which may be useful here. It doesn’t have 3- and 4-letter words; it’s starts at 5 letters. It doesn’t say where he found these words, but I assume they’re all in some dictionary or another.
For 5-letter words, the largest sets I could find are 12 words (out of 120 possible):
AEPRS - apers asper pares parse pears prase presa rapes reaps spaer spare spear
AERST - arets aster earst rates reast resat stare strae tares tarse tears teras
There’s also a couple 11 word sets:
AELST - astel least leats slate stale steal stela taels tales teals tesla
AELPS - elaps lapse leaps pales peals pleas salep sepal slape spale speal
For 6-letters, I couldn’t find any set larger than 11 words:
AEERST - aretes asteer easter eaters reseat saeter seater staree steare teaser teresa
also a 10 word set
AELRST - alerts alters artels laster ratels resalt salter slater staler tarsel
7-letters only produces a 9 word set:
AEGINRS - angries earings erasing gainers regains regians reginas swearing seringa
also 8 words:
AEINRST - nastier resiant restain retains retinas retsina stainer stearin
8-letters: an 8 word set:
AEEGNRST - estrange grantees greatens negaters reagents segreant sergeant sternage
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-2-letter-sets-that-always-create-a-word-when-jumbled/648611/20 "2013-01-28T23:29:12Z")
Nitpick: Anagrams, not acronyms.
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