What is a Close-knit Word™?

Question

_{My first contribution to the What is a Word/Phrase™ puzzle series started by JLee over a year ago.}

If a word conforms to a special rule, I call it a Close-Knit Word™.

Use the list of examples below to find out what this rule is.

$$\begin{array}{|c|c|} \hline \textbf{Close-Knit Words™}&\textbf{Not Close-Knit Words™}\\ \hline \text{EDUCATION}&\text{LEARNING}\\ \hline \text{FOGHORN}&\text{KLAXON}\\ \hline \text{ARTISTIC}&\text{IMAGINATIVE}\\ \hline \text{BOOTSTRAPS}&\text{SHOELACES}\\ \hline \text{ELIMINATE}&\text{EXTERMINATE}\\ \hline \text{PONYTAIL}&\text{PLAIT}\\ \hline \text{HIKING}&\text{WALKING}\\ \hline \text{REMUNERATION}&\text{RETURN}\\ \hline \text{FAVOURITE}&\text{BOOKMARK}\\ \hline \text{BACKDROP}&\text{SCENERY}\\ \hline \text{FENCED}&\text{PRIVATE}\\ \hline \text{JAYWALKING}&\text{BURGLARY}\\ \hline \text{INQUIRIES}&\text{INVESTIGATION}\\ \hline \text{DISGUSTING}&\text{REVOLTING}\\ \hline \end{array} $$

Text-only version for analysis:

EDUCATION     LEARNING
FOGHORN       KLAXON
ARTISTIC      IMAGINATIVE
BOOTSTRAPS    SHOELACES
ELIMINATE     EXTERMINATE
PONYTAIL      PLAIT
HIKING        WALKING
REMUNERATION  RETURN
FAVOURITE     BOOKMARK
BACKDROP      SCENERY
FENCED        PRIVATE
JAYWALKING    BURGLARY
INQUIRIES     INVESTIGATION
DISGUSTING    REVOLTING

I copied the table formatting from Puck in this puzzle. The fact that T's appear smaller than the other letters is irrelevant. — Rand al'Thor, Sep 08 '16 at 00:21
Whether they do depends on details of your computer and your web browser. E.g., right now for me they don't appear smaller, but on my computer at work they do :-). — Gareth McCaughan, Sep 08 '16 at 00:25
@Mithrandir Umm... he's not Engineer Toast, why should he have them? Anyways, I have the file for these. — EKons, Sep 08 '16 at 10:38

score 22 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 08 '16 at 00:26

22

I think "close-knit words" are

ones with three consecutive letters of the alphabet in them.

Thus:

CDE EDUCATION
FGH FOGHORN
RST ARTISTIC
RST BOOTSTRAPS
LMN ELIMINATE
NOP PONYTAIL
GHI HIKING
MNO REMUNERATION
TUV FAVOURITE
ABC BACKDROP
DEF FENCED
JKL JAYWALKING
QRS INQUIRIES
STU DISGUSTING

answered Sep 08 '16 at 00:26

Gareth McCaughan

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Jesus, that was fast. Clearly I made this one too easy :-) How did you find the solution? – Rand al'Thor Sep 08 '16 at 00:31
@randal'thor For me, I got it as soon as I got down to the word BACKDROP. – Will Sep 08 '16 at 00:34
@Will Damn, I tried to pick words which wouldn't make it too obvious, avoiding things like 'CAB' and 'STUPID' and 'DEFINITE'. Apparently I failed :-( – Rand al'Thor Sep 08 '16 at 00:36
I thought "OK, something to do with some kind of proximity". I started reading the list of Close-Knit words and noticed (I forget) either the ED or the D_C of EDUCATION and thought "hmm, maybe something to do with alphabetically adjacent letters". I read a few more words and it was kinda obvious. Sorry! – Gareth McCaughan Sep 08 '16 at 00:44
4

I suspect (but neither my introspection nor my memory is reliable enough to be sure) that ELIMINATE was helpful because the first three syllables go EL IM IN :-). – Gareth McCaughan Sep 08 '16 at 00:46
Too late to answer, but ELIMINATE helped me because it eliminated the notion that the letters had to be consecutive in the word. Then WALKING showed that more than 2 were needed. – Rosie F Sep 08 '16 at 08:53

What is a Close-knit Word™?

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