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What sequence of words in the OED linked pairwise by spelling or pronunciation has the highest number of unique links?

The spelling 'read' can be pronounced at least two ways, as in "Yesterday I read a paragraph.", and "Today I will read a paragraph." The pronunciation in the former also can be spelled 'red', as in "Some roses are red.". The pronunciation in the later sentence can also be spelled 'reed', as in "Clarinets contain one reed.". Accordingly, one chain of words linked pairwise by spelling or pronunciation is "red, read, read, reed". Another chain is "reed, read, reed, read, read, red".

In this puzzle, the length of a sequence is defined to be the number of unique links. Thus "red, read, read, reed" and "reed, read, reed, read, read, red" have the same length.

What sequence of words in the OED has the highest number of unique links?

Jeremy Argent
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  • Recommend adding the tag [tag:open-ended] if, as seems likely, there is no provably longest answer. Ps. My favorite example of a word like those in question has always been number. – humn Jun 02 '16 at 17:04
  • You're using "reed" twice in the same chain with the same pronunciation - is that a mistake? – Deusovi Jun 02 '16 at 17:06
  • Not necessarily. However, the second chain contains non-unique links, which do not contribute to the count. – Jeremy Argent Jun 02 '16 at 17:12
  • So to be clear, every word has to either be spelled the same or pronounced the same as the word before it? – Business Cat Jun 02 '16 at 18:00
  • Are proper nouns allowed? – dpwilson Jun 02 '16 at 18:11
  • If there's a database of words + pronunciations you could solve this with a computer. The problem is essentially given a graph (node=word, edge=link), find the largest (sorted by |E|) disconnected subgraph, and the answer is the number of edges of that subgraph. – Ben Frankel Jun 02 '16 at 20:44
  • agree with your idea – Jeremy Argent Jun 02 '16 at 21:45
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    Interestingly, there was a pop music combo that wanted to name themselves after a metal dirigible too heavy to fly. They intentionally misspelled it as "Led Zeppelin" because of the two different pronunciations of "lead". They had a few hits in the seventies. You can find them if you google the name. – Hugh Meyers Jun 03 '16 at 15:47

3 Answers3

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10 words, 6 spellings, 5 pronunciations.

  • soughs [sʌfs] n. drains or sewers
  • soughs [sauz] v. sighs, as the wind does
  • sows [sauz] n. female pigs
  • sows [souz] v. scatters on the ground
  • sews [souz] v. joins using needle and thread
  • sols [souz] n. notes that are a 5th above the tonic, in tonic sol-fa
  • sols [sɒulz] n. colloidal suspensions in liquids
  • souls [sɒulz] n. spirits
  • soles [sɒulz] n. flatfish
  • soles [solez] pl. of sol n. the monetary unit of Peru

Relies on a variant spelling for the tonic-solfa degree, also spelt "so", and an accent with the poll/pole merger.

Rosie F
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Just 6 here, but there are 4 spellings, 3 pronunciations and no proper names.

  • does: 3rd-person sing. of "do" v.
  • does: female deer
  • doughs
  • doze
  • dos: pl. do, the tonic in tonic sol-fa
  • dos: pl. do, party/event; also as in "dos and don'ts"
Rosie F
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The longest one I've been able to think of so far has 8 words (7 links). It feels kind of like cheating because I just ran with a long line of heterographs and expanded from there. (Technically a string of only heterographs would satisfy the criterion of being "linked pairwise by spelling or pronunciation".)

air, err, ere, heir, Aire, are, are, ar

Here's the breakdown:

air: the stuff you breathe
err: make a mistake
ere: before
heir: successor
Aire: a river in England
are: unit of area equaling 100 square meters
are: 2nd person singular present form of "be"
ar: the letter "r"

dpwilson
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