Subject: Regarding STOLICHNAYA puzzle
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 06:45:14 -0500
From: Bill Ricker N1VUX <wdr@world.std.com>
Organization: Skywarn - MoP
To: WESUN@npr.org

[Resending to WESUN per auto-responder advice (puzzle@npr.org) ]

Will and Leanne,

Running last week's puzzle through the computer, I found some other answers
besides satanic-holy, one of which almost fits.

Interestingly the Unix '/usr/dict/words' file on one computer didn't have
'holy' (it has satanic and melancholy, but not holy!), so it didn't find the
"right" answer. Instead, it found

lay (aly) Atchison ( achinost)
litany (ailnty) chaos ( achos)
slay (alsy) Antioch ( achinot)
yacht (achty) Alison ( ailnos)

Litany and Chaos are also if not opposites at least well separated.

The basic dictionary on this laptop, which was based I thought on the same
source and is called by the same name, has only
hasty (ahsty) alnico ( acilno)
  -- it has holy (and helancholy) but not satanic.

Where as a larger dictionary from National Puzzle League (enable1) finds a
slew, including all the above and the desired

satanic (aacinst) holy ( hloy)

plus

nachos (achnos) laity ( ailty)
oilcan (acilno) hasty ( ahsty)
saintly (ailnsty) chao ( acho)

The Perl script that solves this puzzle can't run on my laptop against Moby
Single lexicon, as it overflows memory, alas -- there are too many words in
it
that are formed from the letters of SOLICHNAYA.

Cheers,

Bill