Recent Alphametic Compositions

Mike Keith
1998

See my main Alphametics Page for a survey of the subject of alphametics and another collection of interesting puzzles composed by myself and others.

I here present mostly recent (circa 1998) compositions inspired by a variety of topics and ideas. Every alphametic here has a unique solution - that is, there is only one way of assigning digits to letters to form a valid numerical addition.

 

Inspired by the film "The Truman Show":

  TRUMAN
+BURBANK
 DREAMER

What happens 70 times in the '98 U.S. baseball season:

  MCGWIRE
 +REWARDS
  SCREAMS

And to show I'm not too Americentric:

  CRICKET
  TACTICS
 +    ARE
  DEEPEST

Monkeys, Typewriters,
and Shakespeare

     TO
     BE
     OR
    NOT
     TO
     BE
   THAT
     IS
 +  THE
  ABORT
      

Monkeys, Typewriters,
and Gertrude Stein

   
   ROSE
     IS
      A
   ROSE
     IS
 +    A
  POPPY

Wide Puzzles
The goal here was to compose unique-solution alphametics using only long words.

  INTERCOURSE
+  ACCUSATION
 SUSSURATIONS

(Yes, that one does refer to a certain news event in the U.S. circa August 1998. Note that sussuration is "a whisper - in early use, malicious whispering, tattle" [Oxford English Dictionary].)

  NUMISMATIST
+  ASSAILANTS
 STEALTHINESS

(Think I can't use that in a sentence? Well..."Although the rare coin dealer had a buzzer behind the counter, the numismatist assailants' stealthiness caught him off guard, so he forgot to press it.")

  OENOLOGICAL
+  COLLISIONS
 GLYCOGENESIS

("After the wine tasting, which involved many oenological collisions, glycogenesis left me with an overly sweet aftertaste...")

  DESTITUTION
+  DIMINISHED
 STUDIOUSNESS

(An almost perfect summary of the character Edward Reardon in George Gissing's 1891 novel New Grub Street.)

   PIONEERING
+ INTERESTING
 RETROCESSION

("After pioneering interesting retrocession techniques, she went on to spearhead several more important developments in time-travel technology.")

   SORORITIES
+ REANIMATION
 INTERCESSORS

("The Sororities Reanimation Intercessors - usually called 'SRI' - pleaded with the college Board to reinstate Pi Alpha Pi's license.")

  DISPIRITING
+  SPEEDINESS
 TRANSGRESSED

("Blodgett, with dispiriting speediness, transgressed again only two days after parole.")

  ATTRACTIONS
+  INTENTIONS
 REGENERATION

(The age-old story of boy meets girl?)

  ABRACADABRA
 +SALESLADIES
  CANNIBALISE

(Weird goings-on at the department store.)

   TOLERATION
 + TOLERATION
  LIBERALISTS

(No explanation needed here, I think.)

   ACCURACIES
   ACCURACIES
   ACCURACIES
   ACCURACIES
 + ACCURACIES
  MATHEMATICS

(Ditto.)

  SPONSORSHIP
  SPONSORSHIP
 +SPONSORSHIP
  RASPBERRIES

(That's what I think of every event under the sun having corporate sponsorship. By the way, did you know that raspberry is one of the few bits of Cockney rhyming slang to have become common in American English? You're supposed to think "raspberry ____", of course, which rhymes with "____". Get it?)

  INHERITRESS
  INHERITRESS
 +INHERITRESS
  PORTIONLESS

(Can you imagine?! - they were all three left out of the will!)

   INFERENCES
   INFERENCES
 + INFERENCES
  PREDESTINED

(Attempting to draw us into the predestination-versus-free-will debate, no doubt...)


Birds of a Feather
These involve groups of words of the same kind. The sum word is either another word of the same kind or a word describing the category.

ILLINOIS + MAINE + MINNESOTA + OHIO = TENNESSEE
IDAHO + IOWA + OHIO + TEXAS = STATES
VENUS + EARTH + URANUS = SATURN
MARS + SATURN + URANUS + NEPTUNE = PLANETS
LINCOLN + CARTER + REAGAN = CLINTON     (no comment...)
ALPHA + THETA + KAPPA + PI + PHI = GREEK
GALLIUM + SELENIUM + TITANIUM = ELEMENTS
THREE + NINE + TEN + SIXTEEN + EIGHTEEN + NINETEEN = INTEGERS

 

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