Four-letter words

Here’s a simple but addictive word game that my students liked to play when I was teaching English as a second language:

Take any four-letter word, let’s say “book.” You can change any single letter or you can change the order of the letters (but not both) to make another word. The addictive thing about this game is that there is always another word. For example:

book
look
lock
lick
lice
mice
mace
came
cape
… to infinity and beyond!

You can play this game online (but without the letter switchero, which makes it easier) here:
http://robinwords.com/game/

A variation of this game is called Word Ladder, Word-links, or Doublets. It was invented by Lewis Carroll on Christmas Day, 1877. In this game you start with a given word and turn it into another word, sometimes with a contest to use the fewest number of steps. For more fun, the words can relate to each other in some way. For example:

wine
wins
wits
wets
bets
bees
beer

This game works with most three-letter and five-letter word pairs, too.

— Sue Burke