Syzygies

No. of Players:	1+
Type of Game:	written
What you need:	pen and paper

Goal

To change one word into another word in stages.

How to play

The syzygies word game was invented by Lewis Carroll in 1879, as noted in his diary. Like many of Carroll's word game inventions, it came with an elaborate set of rules and scoring system. But nothing prevents players from crafting a simpler version for their own amusement.

Here is one suggestion. Players challenge themselves or others to change a given word into another given word by moving through intervening words which have a sequence of letters common to both. At each step, some of the letters in one word occur in the exact order in the following word. Players should agree beforehand on the minimum number of letters needed for a valid linking sequence. The winner is the player who accomplishes this task in the fewest number of steps.

In the event of a tie, players count all the letters in the words they use. The player with the smallest total wins.

This game is similar to Word Ladder.

Example

Arleen challenges herself to change HAPPINESS into CHOCOLATE. She accomplishes this tasty task in the following way:

syzygy to change HAPPINESS into CHOCOLATE

Lewis Carroll's Syzygies Puzzles

Below are ten syzygy puzzles Carroll himself created. They were published in the Lady in 1891 and 1892.
Note that the published solutions follow Carroll's rules, which include treating I and Y as if identical.

How would you link these capitalized words?