Besides anagrams and palindromes , if there ’s one matter punning aficionados care to mess up around with , it ’s the numeric note value of the letters of the first rudiment . arrogate numbers to letter of the alphabet — A = 1 , B-complex vitamin = 2 , speed of light = 3 , and so on , all the way through to Z = 26 — opens the first principle up to all kinds of numerical and numerical games and trivia .
So add the note value of ARM ( 32 ) to the economic value of BEND ( 25 ) and you get the note value of ELBOW ( 57 ) . also , WHITE ( 65 ) plus HOUSE ( 68 ) equal GOVERNMENT ( 133 ) . HAIR ( 8 , 1 , 9 , 18 ) is a palindrome in this A to Z number system , as is INSULINS ( 9 , 14 , 19 , 21 , 12 , 9 , 14 , 19 ) . Add up the neighboring alphabetic character pairs in CAN ( 3 + 1 , 1 + 14 ) , and you ’ll get DO ( 4 , 15 ) . The missive in FOURTEEN DOZEN tot up up to 14 dozen ( 168 ) .
One more biz that can be encounter with the numeric economic value of the ABCs is to search for parole that summate a specific value — the holy grail of which is exactly 100 . Christian Bible that total 100 in this A to Z way are affectionately experience as “ dollar words . ” They ’re really not all that rare in English , and a full listing of them includes some fairlyfamiliar parole :
But given a set total in mind , that grow a couple of question : What are the poor and the longest dollar countersign in the lexicon ?
Because 100 is a relatively large total for a short word ( and because a lot of the high value missive at the ass end of the rudiment are hard to find domicile for , like V , X , and Z ) short dollar lyric are passably hard to come by . As a result , only a smattering of 5 - letter of the alphabet dollar sign words have ever been discover , including :
In fact , as test copy of just how many seldom - used letters lie at the end of the ABC , if you were tochangethe numbers pool around so that A = 26 , Bel = 25 , and so on through to Z = 1 , the number of five - letter dollar words increases enormously :
But brusk of all are two 4 - letter words : acca , an Australian cant word for an academic , andcaca , a childish word for poop .
Oppositely , it can be just as difficult looking for as long a dollar word as possible ; the more letters a parole has , the higher its total grows . But the comparatively in high spirits frequency of the letter in the first few places of the alphabet means that there are quite a few lengthy dollar Holy Scripture , including some with as many as 12 letters :
plain long of all is the 13 - letter wordadiabatically , a full term from weather forecasting and thermodynamics refer to any process that occurs without a exit or gain of heat .
But why stop at impart up ? Multiplying the numerical values of words direct to some considerably expectant numbers — and some considerably higher targets .
breed the letters of the password TYPEY together , for instance , and you ’ll cease up with 1,000,000 (= 20 × 25 × 16 × 5 × 25 ) . TEETHY multiplies to 2,000,000 (= 20 × 5 × 5 × 20 × 8 × 25 ) . And PEYOTE multiplies to 3,000,000 (= 16 × 5 × 25 × 15 × 20 × 5 ) . No word has yet been recover that totals on the button 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 , but some — like LURING ( 4,000,752 ) and JUICING ( 5,000,940)—have cometantalizingly close .
