# Three-letter words
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-letter-words/69781
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 22, 2001, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-letter-words/69781 "2001-06-22T14:34:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2001, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-letter-words/69781/1 "2001-06-22T14:34:57Z")
This isn’t a quiz. I really want to know.
What three letters can be arranged in varying order to produce the most words? For example:
PAT APT TAP, or EAT ATE TEA.
I’ve tried many different sets of letters, but I can’t seem to get past three recognizable words. (For example, TEA can also become TAE, as in TAE KWAN DO, but I don’t count that.) Abbreviations such as ETA or PTA don’t count, either.
Can anyone do better than three?
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### Author:  [@Tir\_Tinuviel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tir_Tinuviel)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2001, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-letter-words/69781/2 "2001-06-22T14:49:23Z")
Why doesn’t “eta” count?
I thought it was a letter in the greek alphabet
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### Author:  [@Mystery\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mystery_Dog)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2001, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-letter-words/69781/3 "2001-06-22T15:21:54Z")
According to Ross Eckler’s 1996 book _Making the Alphabet Dance_, every permutation of the letters AER is a word in Merriam Webster’s unabridged dictionary.
Not that you asked, but according to the same book, the most transposable sets of letters of lengths 4 through 9 are:
AERS, AELS, ABEL - each with 11 transposals in the M-W unabridged.
AELST - 16 transposals
AELRST - 16 transposals
AEINRST - 14
AEINRSTU - 11
ACEINORST - 12
I highly recommend Eckler’s book, if you can find it. It’s full of wordplay facts like this.
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### Author:  [@Synergist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Synergist)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2001, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-letter-words/69781/4 "2001-06-23T03:15:11Z")
Presumably, Mr. Eckler meant they were all “entries” in the dictionary. That would include abreviations, acronyms, prefixes, and suffixes.
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2001, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-letter-words/69781/5 "2001-06-23T05:20:07Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Setec \*
> According to Ross Eckler’s 1996 book _Making the Alphabet Dance_, every permutation of the letters AER is a word in Merriam Webster’s unabridged dictionary.
If I remember correctly, Eckler was using both Webster’s Second and Third unabridged dictionaries as a combined reference. In fact, there’s no word spelled RAE in Web3, although all 6 permutations are in Web2 (a couple below the line, though).
> [@](#):
>
> _Originally posted by Synergist_
> Presumably, Mr. Eckler meant they were all “entries” in the dictionary. That would include abreviations, acronyms, prefixes, and suffixes.
Nope. Those kinds of entries are explicitly excluded from the kind of wordplay Ross does. Besides which, there’s no entry of any kind for RAE in Web3.
For those unfamiliar with Eckler, he’s the editor of [Word Ways](http://www.wordways.com/). The stuff in his book is almost all from Word Ways articles, including one of mine.