Do you know this brain teaser?
Today we have something for our visitors who like a challenge. No, we aren’t the originator. This brain teaser was sent in by one of our visitors … thank you, Lonesomejack.
Are you ready? Here is the question:
What English word that is nine letters long, and each time you remove a letter from the word, it still remains an English word (in other words, starting from a nine-letter word in the beginning and subtracting a letter every time until only a single-letter word remains)?
Here is a small hint for those who are struggling. The mystery word is a rather common word. We may not have the opportunity to use it everyday, but it definitely is in the English vocabulary.
Still stuck?
Okay. Here is another hint. What is the shortest word in the English language? It is exactly one letter long. It may be the most used word and is always capitalized.
Give up?
The answer: the nine-letter English word is startling.
To form the eight-letter word, remove the “l” and we have starting.
By removing the second “t” we have staring, our seven-letter word.
Next, we remove the “a” and we have string, for the six-letter word.
The five-letter word is sting by removing the “r”.
We get our four-letter word sing by removing the “t”.
It then becomes the three-letter word sin when the letter “g” is dropped.
Dropping the “s” we have the two-letter word in.
Our single letter word, of course, is I.
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