Word Play Challenge

I was never a good reader as a child, but I’ve always loved words: their sounds and the way their letter combinations can jump around to make different words. I always had trouble with transposing those common primary devils saw-was and help-play. As a new teacher, I learned I was mildly dyslexic. I also learned that confusion included numbers as well. If you ask me to read a long string of numbers I might start anywhere telling you the numbers (of course they’d be out of order) and then writing them down in correct sequence. Strange huh? I’d have never lasted as an early Costco checker who had to read off their product numbers in correct order. (Hooray for bar codes!)

My  problem with letter confusion and letter order may have helped me entertain myself over the many years of waiting for ferries, etc when I didn’t have a book handy. I found that if I took a long word with at least 3-4 vowels, I could play around with it, rearranging letters to create words within the selected word. Just last week I felt boredom/tiredness/idea-less-ness creep into my day so I took a break from working on Letters to Follow, book three in my ballet trilogy. I grabbed a hot tea then drove to a neighborhood park to change my vista and let my mind wander. That wandering mind usually means I need to play with letters/words so I chose c-o-s-m-o-p-o-l-i-t-a-n and got busy. Even with no “e”, I found more words that you might imagine: over 200. Yep, over 200 without using proper nouns. My words vary in length from 1 letter to eight with tons of four-letter and five-letter words.

So here’s my challenge to you. How many words can you find using only the letters in cosmopolitan? (CLUE: that “s” really helps!) Keep me posted. I’ll probably be on to using transportation or commencement for inspiration and celebration of words. Ah…four more good possibilities!!