# English words with 10 different letters **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 12, 2008, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209 "2008-09-12T02:26:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Panurge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@Panurge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Panurge)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209/21 "2008-09-12T08:05:59Z")
> [@Ignatz](#): > > Thanks. “Its” about time I posted something instead of lurking and snarking. > > Hint #1: The one that starts with “b” is a karmahadraya. > > Signing off until Friday evening. Do you mean _karmadhārya [samāsa]_? - No idea about the word itself, though. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209/22 "2008-09-12T12:04:02Z")
My humble contribution is vanquished by later efforts. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209/23 "2008-09-12T13:46:58Z")
Back in the '70s I wrote & maintained the programming which produced the price tags for a couple dozen retail chains. In many cases the magic 10-letter words were made up words. ---
**Author:** ![Erasmus\_Darwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c57346/32.png) [@Erasmus\_Darwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erasmus_Darwin)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209/24 "2008-09-12T14:17:43Z")
I wrote a quick little perl script to list them: ```auto perl -ne 'chomp; next if ! /^[a-z]{10}$/; %a=(); for (split //) { $a{$_}++; } if (keys %a == 10) { print "$_ "; }' /usr/share/dict/words ``` Unfortunately, the output’s a little too long to list. It came up with 2513 words, and that’s less than complete since some words (such as chamberpot) weren’t in the source wordlist. Here’s the output: [http://angband.org/~erasmus/tmp/10letters.txt](http://angband.org/~erasmus/tmp/10letters.txt) ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209/25 "2008-09-12T16:13:54Z")
> [@BiblioCat](#): > > Not one word, but my SO said the words ‘CORN FLAKES’ were used for this purpose. Two words, but ten different letters. I’m thinking that it would be pretty easy to find two words that have ten different letters. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209/26 "2008-09-12T18:48:05Z")
> [@Antinor01](#): > > Regulation. You must have worked in the same store I did. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209/27 "2008-09-12T19:02:50Z")
Can someone explain the use of ten letter words in price coding? I’m very confused by this whole discussion, what exactly is the practice that is being referenced? ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209/28 "2008-09-12T19:12:39Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > Can someone explain the use of ten letter words in price coding? > I’m very confused by this whole discussion, what exactly is the practice that is being referenced? Some shops used to mark goods with both the retail and the wholesale price, with the latter intended for their own accounting purposes, but coded to hide the wholesale price from the customer. (Though since it was a simple substitution code, and the retail markup was always roughly the same, it was an extremely easy code to break.) So if retail was $1.99, wholesale was $1.40, and the code was A for 1 through to J for 0, you might have: ```auto $1.99 A.DJ ``` ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209/29 "2008-09-12T19:23:28Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > You must have worked in the same store I did. 😉 Insurance. Rules and regulations are my life. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209/30 "2008-09-12T19:27:05Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Some shops used to mark goods with both the retail and the wholesale price, with the latter intended for their own accounting purposes, but coded to hide the wholesale price from the customer. (Though since it was a simple substitution code, and the retail markup was always roughly the same, it was an extremely easy code to break.) > > So if retail was $1.99, wholesale was $1.40, and the code was A for 1 through to J for 0, you might have: > > ```auto > > $1.99 > A.DJ > > ``` Gotcha. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209/31 "2008-09-13T00:24:10Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > Could you give some background as to why you want this? Are you a blacksmith? And now a crescendo from the anvil chorus! That was the one that we used for the end-of-year inventory in the store. Whenever stock was received from a supplier, the clerks of the toy/stationery/ newspaper/mags/comic store had to use a greasepencil to mark the wholesale price code on each item (except where it would be unneeded or would damage it, like on magazines), but numbers were used for fractions - 15 1/3 cents became bk 1/3. The clerks and some kinfolk part-timers like me had to count everything in the store over New Year’s and then tabulate them with unit/extended costs, all on columnar pads by hand. \*\*Cal Meacham \*\*might remember the store, if he’s old enough and been where he is, long enough. Like I said in the OP, I knew there was another such word(!), but had forgotten what it was and have been wondering about it (off and on) for many years. It may have been “regulation” but it was a long time ago, like, long B.C. and B.W. (Before Wal-Mart). \*\*Panurge - Yes, I’m guilty of having misspelled it. My bad. \*\*- _karmadharaya_ in my Webster’s means a word made up of an adjective followed by a noun. Like “blacksmith”. What’s “_samāsa_”? **Erasmus Darwin** - “perl script” is way above my pay grade (and IQ). But 2,513 of them - that’s awesome. Thanks for all the others, guys/gals. I never thought there were so many. I guess I never really thought about it enough. Here’s the individual list: background bankruptcy blacksmith blathering blockheads chamberpot configured defoliants discourage dumbwaiter fruitcakes hyperbolic hysterical infamously nightmares overpaying presumably regulation polygamist upholstery and Erasmus Darwin’s 2,513 minus the above. Gee, I can make at least one nearly intelligible sentence out of several of the above listed words in consecutive alpha order! (Chamberpot configured defoliants discourage dumbwaiter fruitcakes.) I must get a life. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209/32 "2008-09-13T00:46:01Z")
REIMPLANTS ANGIOSPERM both user one letter from each column on a QWERTY keyboard. ---
**Author:** ![Panurge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@Panurge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Panurge)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209/33 "2008-09-13T12:31:18Z")
> [@Ignatz](#): > > … > \*\*Panurge - Yes, I’m guilty of having misspelled it. My bad. \*\*- _karmadharaya_ in my Webster’s means a word made up of an adjective followed by a noun. Like “blacksmith”. What’s “_samāsa_”? … _Samāsa_ is the Sanskrit term for “word compound”, a class of which is called _karmadhāraya_. The karmadhāraya samāsa works pretty much as you have described it. I had no idea that the term had found a use in the English language, hence my question - I thought the dope had provided me with a fellow Sanskritist.. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-with-10-different-letters/463209.md?page=1)