EVOLUTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 11, 13 January 1934, Page 3 (Supplement)

EVOLUTION.

A PARTY GAME. (Sent in by Stella Roberton, Cottage 119, Rnilway How, Ohnkune Junction.) This is an amusing and instructive game for any number of players, who endeayour to transform one word into another by clumping ono letter at a time and njaking a word at each change. For instance, to transform eat to dog in three moves you mny write as follows: Cat, cot, dot —dog. In four moves the change from cold to warm may be made—cold, cord, word, ward —warm; and from boy to man requires three moves—boy, bay, may—man. Each player requires a pencil and paper. A number of pairs of words to be transformed are then agreed upon, or each of the players nominates one or two pairs. All of the pairs are written down by each player, who then begins to make all the changes in as few moves as possible. It will be found that some words will require more moves than may be expected, and that when the same letter is in the same position in both moves, less moves than letters in each word may be sufficient to effect the change. Thus, for transforming car to rat only two moves are necessary—car, cat —rat; and boot can be transformed to shoe in three moves—boot, soot, shot —shoe. Of course, each pair must be two words containing a similar number of letters, and. each word during the evolution must be a correct word, not one just invented to assist a solution. It adds much interest to the game if the words are related, thus: Dry to wet, more to less, white to black —though this is not essential. The prize goes to the player who makes all the changes in the smallest nuinbertof moves.