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Word Ways

Authors

A. Ross Eckler

Abstract

Suppose that one wishes to replace words in a list by abbreviations in order to save space. If one allows abbreviations of variable length, a very simple rule is: use as many letters as needed to ensure that a word is not confused with any other word. For example, the states Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware... can be replaced by ALAB, ALAS, ARI , ARK, CA, COL, CON, D...

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