Wiktionary:Easter Competition 2006

Intro

This is to announce this year's Easter competition, which is open to ALL contributors.

The object is to construct a series of words, each word to be made from the letters of the previous one plus one more letter, symbol, space or punctuation - as in the following example.

• a, at, sat, seat, baste, basted

Words, which must be wikified, may be from any language and in any script. They need not all be in the same language. However, they MUST all have proper entries in this Wiktionary including at least a decent definition. The initial word may be of any length.

The prize (a feeling of smug self-satisfaction and superiority) will go to the contributor of the series with the greatest number of words. Other prizes may be awarded as I think fit. The results will be awarded after Easter (Catholic rather than Orthodox).

Small print. You must not alter or delete another person's entry, but you may copy and extend it. Each entry should finish with a note of its length, and be signed with four tildes. You are allowed to treat uppercase and lowercase letters as if they were the same, and similarly may add or remove diacritical marks at will.

Entries

• a, at, sat, seat, baste, basted - length (6) - SemperBlotto 09:50, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• a, at, sat, seat, baste, basted, boasted, broadest, adsorbate, adsorbates, goatsbeards - length (11) Widsith 12:11, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

• e, es, est, rest, aster, master, steamer, steamier, creamiest, miscreated, democratise, democratiser, democratisers - length (13) - EncycloPetey 18:53, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• e, es, est, rest, aster, master, steamer, steamier, creamiest, miscreates, medicasters, democratises, democratisers, démocratiseurs - length (14) – Widsith 12:45, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• e, me, mie, rime, merci, crimes, escrime, escrimer, escrimeur, escrimeurs - length (10) - Kipmaster 12:19, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
• colorisation, discoloration, decolorisation, decolourisation, decolourisations - length (5) --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
• consolation, colonisation, consolidation, decolonisation, decolonisations - length (5) --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
• e, et, net, cent, cenit, client, centile, election, centriole, electronic, electronica, acceleration, accelerations - length (13) --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
• a, ad, aid, aide, aider, aderim, martedi, admitter, admittere, terminated, determinate, intermediate, indeterminate - length (13) --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
• a, at, ate, aite, était, attire, attrice, interact, intricate, recitation, crepitation, petrifaction, petrification, petrifications - length (14) --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
• o, or, roe, aero, aorte, optare, operate, perorate, reportage, protegiera, protegieran, peregrinatio, peregrination, peregrinations - length (14) --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
• a, an, nag, agen, agent, argent, granite, treating, argentite, retreating, interrogate, interrogated, deteriorating, deregistration, deregistrations - length (15) --Connel MacKenzie T C 01:42, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

---

Post contest addendum: This could be limited to English words only, if needed. (agen->gnat).

• a, an, nag, gnat, agent, argent, granite, treating, argentite, retreating, interrogate, interrogated, deteriorating, deregistration, deregistrations - length (15) --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Demonstration entry --EncycloPetey 12:01, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Twenty-one routes to Easter (without repetition)

a	as	sat	star	aster	easter
	ra	tar	rate	eater	easter
	sa	esa	sera	taser	easter
	st	est	teas	artes	easter
	ta	tea	seat	tears	easter
	tr	art	tars	estar	easter
	at	ate	sate	tease	easter
	ar	ars	arts	stare	easter
	te	tee	tree	terse	easter
s	Sr	ser	eres	teres	easter
	er	are	tear	tares	easter
	ea	eta	seta	tersa	easter
	se	sea	sear	rates	easter
	ee	ese	ease	easer	easter
	es	see	tees	steer	easter
	re	ere	seer	reset	easter
	TS	šta	esta	tesar	easter
	RS	res	tres	ester	easter
	RT	rat	rats	resat	easter
	ae	eat	eats	Teras	easter
e	et	set	rest	trees	easter

Results

1. Connel MacKenzie wins the first prize with a series of 15 words. Well done - consider yourself to be smugly superior.
2. EncycloPetey also wins a prize for all the ways to get to easter - you might like to share Connel's award!

• It's quite a long time until Christmas - but someone might try to think of a good idea for the next competition.
• Well done everyone who had a go. SemperBlotto 09:29, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Talk

• Feel free to ask questions about the rules, or raise disputes here.

For those of us who are non-observant (or not Christian), can you tell us the actual end date is, please? I had no idea that Catholics had a different Easter from Protestants. — Paul G 10:03, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

They don't. They have a different Easter from Orthodox Christians (I meant Catholic rather than Roman Catholic). Anyway - probably the Tuesday after Good Friday (unless there is an intervening full moon!) SemperBlotto 10:48, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

You can find a comparative calendar in the Wikipedia article on Easter. --EncycloPetey 10:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

"longest series" in terms of words or in terms of letters? Ncik 23:44, 4 April 2006 (UTC) - words - SemperBlotto 07:08, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I note that nothing in the rules mandates a linear series, so I thought I'd try out a fun "demonstration" entry. However, I fully expect the intent was for a linear series. --EncycloPetey 12:04, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

That *is* neat. For electron-conservation purposes, I stopped at 5 letter entries. I didn't even try for 4, 3, or 2 letter combinations, as the human eye can get those ones quite easily. Working my way down from 30 character letters, I saw a lot of Russian. But I mangled the unicode, so I didn't get any Russian matches. On your "21 routes" are all four columns' entries unique? (They look unique at first glance.) --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:38, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, each and every letter permutation in the list is unique. I stopped at 21 paths because I'd exhausted all possible 2-letter permutations (not counting the possibility of using diacriticals). One could probably find additional shorter paths beginning with 3-letter words not on the list, but there comes a point where the fun aspect of the endeavor diminishes. --EncycloPetey 07:48, 11 April 2006 (UTC)