If you have an Amherst liberal arts education, you are probably a logophile. Or, like Stephanie MacConnell, wife of my cherished classmate Scott MacConnell ’60, you may even be a lexophile. In either situation, you might enjoy the challenge presented here.
Using only the seven distinct letters in the word Amherst, using no letter more than once, and not including the word Amherst itself, Stephanie and I created a list of 155 words. The list contained 52 words made up of at least five letters.
I was a mathematics major at Amherst. Wonderful professors such as Robert Breusch, Bailey Brown and Atherton Sprague spurred my interest in math. The required curriculum in those days forced me into English, history and other humanities courses. Academically, I did not fare well on the verbal side, but the rigorous exposure to words prepared me for an enjoyable and successful career as a mathematics teacher—success that would have been beyond my reach without the overall Amherst experience. To this day, I am a logophile.
Your Challenge:
Using only the seven letters A, M, H, E, R, S and T, and using no letter more than once, and not using the word Amherst, and using no online tools (we want to see what you can do yourself), create as many words as you can that contain at least five letters.
THE PRIZE: an Amherst T-shirt.
Send your list to: magazine@ amherst.edu or Amherst Magazine, Box 5000, Amherst, MA 01002.
The longest list will appear in our next issue.