Word Roots and Branches

Authors

A. Ross Eckler

Abstract

Take a word, remove a letter, and rearrange the remaining letters to form another word; the shorter word is known as a transdeletion of the longer one. Conversely, the longer word is called a transaddition of the shorter. This process can be continued, and a chain of successive transdeletions or transadditions formed; let us define the roots of a word to be all those words that can be reached by successive transdeletions, and the branches of a word to be all those words that can be reached by successive transadditions. Naturally, the roots and branches depend upon the dictionary specified; the larger the dictionary, the more flourishing the word tree consisting of roots and branches combined.

Recommended Citation

Eckler, A. Ross (1979) "Word Roots and Branches," Word Ways: Vol. 12 : Iss. 3 , Article 5.
Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol12/iss3/5