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Hangman

By Peter Lloyd

For someone who thinks about creativity all the time and writes about it every day, it’s impossible to do anything, especially solve a puzzle, without noticing the problem-solving implications. Even when it comes to a puzzle as simple as hangman.

I play hangman on The Free Dictionary every day. So naturally I have dissected the process and have come up with steps to ensure that I win consistently. As you might expect, the steps might well apply to other problem-solving challenges. (See Hangman Rules, below, if you’ve never played the game.)

1. Never Start Nowhere
hangman gameIf you’re new to the game, a series of blanks may trick you into thinking you know nothing and have to make one or more wild guesses to begin. Not true.

As with any creative challenge, a little homework, simple research, reminds you that all English words have vowels. Even crwth and cwm. So it makes sense to guess vowels first.

2. Guess Smart
While your first steps involve at least a little luck, you do have chance on your side. Edgar Allan Poe’s The Gold Bug and The Adventure of the Dancing Men (below) featuring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes both solve coded messages with information about letter frequency, beginning with the fact that E occurs more often than any other letter. Just try to write a paragraph without it.

illustration


Based on this fact, Samuel Morse made E the easiest of his dit-and-dah letter codes to send. It’s one dit. The rest of the letters follow, sending ease correlating with letter frequency.

All that to conclude that E is a smart first guess.

3. Build Smart
Don’t get stuck on letter frequency and guess E, T, A, I, etc. As soon as you have evidence, build on it. When an E appears as the second-last letter, the last letter might just be an R. The letter U in the second position could mean a Q in the first, but not so fast. Q is one of the rarest letters, which is why it’s so valuable in Scrabble.

The letter I in the third-last position suggests ION, ING, ISM, IST etc. If you uncover ION, then try T, C, S, or L in front of it. And so on.

Another fact. S is not only very common, it’s the most common first letter of a word. And when it appears, think SC, SH, SP, ST. It also helps to know that X is the rarest first letter.

4. Stop Guessing
Oddly when your word nears completion, you might find guessing more difficult. I do. The found letters suggest all sorts of impossible words that I find difficult to disregard. At this point, however, don’t guess anymore. With one to four letters missing you should be able guess only those letters that can make a word. Be patient.

There is only one solution to the following incomplete words.
F U C _ S I A
A L _ A T R O _
_ I _ T I O _ A R _
Good luck avoiding the gallows!

Hangman Rules
The underscores represent the letters of a word. Your challenge is to identify the word, one letter at a time. Every correct guess fills in all occurrences of that letter. Every incorrect guess adds a part of a scaffold, then the body parts of a man. Ten incorrect guesses creates a hanging man, in which case, you lose the game.

See also:
Peter Lloyd is known around his home as The Amazing Fix-It Dad. He and his family live in a restored Queen Anne Victorian house in the historic Mansion Hill district of Newport, Kentucky.

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