Friday 26 April 2013

W is for ... WORD LADDER


So today is the 26th of April, which must mean that it's the twenty-third day of the A to Z challenge.  I've decided to share my love of writing through this challenge, and hopefully introduce people to the world of Oulipo.  I first heard about Oulipo when I was at university, and I was fascinated by their approach to writing that I decided to delve deeper into the world of experimental writing.

In a nutshell, this group of writers likes to assign constraints to their work in order to push creative boundaries.  Not only is this fun to do (the process of writing something with a constraint really does open the mind), the results are brilliant.  If nothing else, it gets your brain box working, and that's a good thing, surely!



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W is for WORD LADDER
"Called doublets by Lewis Carroll (one of its independent inventors), a game in which a word is transformed into another by changing one of its letters at a time from a series of intermediary words.  The first and last words are usually opposites, like dawn and dusk." 
Oulipo Compendium ed. Harry Matthews & Alastiar Brotchie (London: Atlas Press, 2005) page 245.
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So, I gave this a go.  It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, and I did consider cheating and looking for some on the internet (tut tut me).  But I didn't.  I did these all from my little brain box.  If there are any mistakes, let me know.  Or if you can do them in fewer moves, let me know.

White/Black
white
while
whale
shale
stale
stalk
stack
slack
black

Old/New
old
odd
add
aid
mid
mod
nod
now
new

Dog/Cat
dog
dot
cot
cat

Hand/Foot
hand
land
lane
line
lint
mint
mind
mild
wild
wile
wife
rife
rift
riot
root
foot

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I guess you could take this one step further and use these words in a half-rhyme poem.

6 comments:

  1. Looks like fun! I loved word puzzle games as a kid, particularly during long car rides. I'll have to try this sometime and see how I get on. :)

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    1. Me too. Word puzzles were my favourite (and still are)!

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  2. Love this idea - love word puzzles!
    Keep up the good work Rebeccah x

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    1. Thank you. I often do a bit of sudoku, but I have to say that I'd rather be playing a word game!

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  3. I couldn't do the first one in fewer moves, but came up with an alternative:

    white
    whine
    shine
    spine
    spice
    slice
    slick
    slack
    black

    Also: nice/post (I know those aren't opposites, but that is my statement :) )

    nice
    nick
    pick
    pack
    pact
    past
    post

    :)

    #atozchallenge, Kristen's blog: kristenhead.blogspot.com

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    1. Although there are rules, it's great to break them, and nice/post is an awesome word ladder!! :D

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