Word Transformation 3 1

[ESquared]

Frank was confused. His father had told him that he was only nine steps from his puppy—that he was, in fact, always nine steps away. But that couldn't be right! Sometimes he was closer than that, and sometimes he was farther. What could his father have meant?

How many steps does it take you to go from FRANK to his PUPPY?

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A sacrifice is harder when no one knows you've made it.

 

[ESquared]

Did I make this puzzle too hard? I'm still learning the vagaries of creating word puzzles.

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A sacrifice is harder when no one knows you've made it.

 

[DoubleD]

I understand the puzzle, but I'm struggling to get to PUPPY. Not a lot of actual english words you can go to from PUPPY.

Pain is stress leaving the body.

DoubleD

 

[lbass]

I can't seem to get it below 18 steps so far.

-LB

 

[ESquared]

Well, however this puzzle turns out, I appreciate comments to help me make better puzzles in the future. For what it's worth, I have been using programming to find some of my latest puzzles.

Let me know if/when you want a hint on this puzzle!

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A sacrifice is harder when no one knows you've made it.

 

[strongm]

Can't help feeling that there are going to be one or two really obscure words in the 9 step version. I sure as heck haven't managed a reasonable attempt yet.

 

[ESquared]

I did my best to make sure that the words were all fairly standard and that most people should know them. This basically selected the puzzle for me as there were a lot of combinations that used obscure words. I have a big vocabulary and I'd never heard of some of them.

My recommendation is to start with PUPPY, of course...

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A sacrifice is harder when no one knows you've made it.

 

[lbass]

Here are two solutions, one with 11, and one with 10 steps, although in the latter case, one word may not be an acceptable plural--the plural seems to be used (I can see it used when I Google it), but I couldn't find the plural in a dictionary.

11 steps:

[white]
 1 - frank
 2 - flank
 3 - clank
 4 - clans
 5 - claps
 6 - slaps
 7 - soaps
 8 - soapy
 9 - soppy
10 - poppy
11 - puppy [/white]

10 steps:

[white]
 1 - frank
 2 - flank
 3 - flans (this is the questionable plural)
 4 - flaps
 5 - slaps
 6 - soaps
 7 - soapy
 8 - soppy
 9 - poppy
10 - puppy
[/white]

-LB

 

[strongm]

That's 10 steps and 9 steps, you know...

 

[lbass]

Oops--you're right, of course!

-LB

 

[ESquared]

lbass,

You are a winner, again! Those are the nine steps between FRANK and his PUPPY. How did you solve it?

The word you were concerned about is perfectly valid because when entered into online dictionaries such as m-w.com, the singular of the word is displayed. This abides by the wordplay forum guidelines.

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A sacrifice is harder when no one knows you've made it.