Guide to the Enigma » Flats » Deletion

Deletion

A word or phrase becomes another when an interior letter is removed. Example: simile, smile.

The solution: ONE = Lepanto, TWO = lean-to.

A deletion may include more than two words. A famous old example: NINE = startling, EIGHT = starling, SEVEN = staring, SIX = string, FIVE = sting, FOUR = sing. (Do you want to go on to THREE = sin and TWO = in? In NPL terms, those are not deletions but one curtailment and one beheadment. You could still use all eight words in one puzzle, but you’d have to warn the solver that two—unspecified— steps were a curtailment and beheadment, not deletions.)

In a phonetic deletion, a word or phrase becomes another when an interior sound is removed. Example: revelry, reveille. For discussion of what constitutes a single sound, see phonetic flats.

In a reversed deletion, after you’ve deleted a letter from the first word or phrase, you reverse it to get the second. Example: ONE = espalier, TWO = relapse.

In a repeated-letter deletion, a word or phrase becomes another when one letter is removed wherever it occurs. Example: ba(ss)i(s)t; and ONE = prospered, TWO = rose-red (“(p)ros(p)ered” in the solutions).

In a multiple repeated-letter deletion, all repeated letters are deleted. Example: catacomb, tomb.

In a bigram deletion, a word or phrase becomes another when two consecutive interior letters are removed. Example, ca(te)nary.

All sorts of combinations of these elements are possible. An example of a repeated-bigram deletion: ONE = derrières, TWO = dries. This would appear as “d(er)ri(èr)es”. A repeated-trigram deletion: ONE = card-carrying, TWO = drying. This would appear as “(car)d-(car)rying”. A repeated-tetragram deletion: ONE = George Orwell, TWO = well. This would appear as “(Geor)(ge Or)well”.

In a palindrome deletion, a word or phrase becomes another when an interior palindromic sequence of three or more letters is deleted. Examples: pes(simis)t;

s(taccat)o and or(igi)nate. The palindrome deletion was invented by Newrow and introduced in October 2004.

In a multiple-palindrome deletion, a word or phrase becomes another when two or more palindrome strings are deleted from different locations, with no indication of a beheadment or curtailment. Examples: (fif)th es(tat)e and di(visiv)(ene)ss.

In a successive-palindrome deletion, a sequence of three or more letters that make a palindrome is deleted from the original answer, and then a further palindrome is deleted from the result to give the second answer. Example: [T(oro)nt]o.

In the rarely seen Baltimore deletion, each letter in turn is removed to form a new word. Example, TOTAL = peat, ONE = eat, TWO = pat, THREE = pet, FOUR = pea.

In a synonym deletion, a synonym of the main base word has letters which are a subset of the letters in the main word. Remove those letters, and what remains, in that order, spells a second word. The synonym might be a synonym for a sense of the main word other than the one used in the flat. Examples: separate; see, apart [synonym] and against; gas, anti [synonym]. The synonym deletion was invented by Endgame.