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A puzzle from MIT Technology Review, September-October 1999: A popular pastime at Bell Labs in the 1970s was to identify a word that contains a given string of letters — for example, OOKKEE is found in BOOKKEEPER. Michael Foster found English words that contain HIPE, HCR, and UFA. What are they?

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ARCHIPELAGO, WITCHCRAFT, and MANUFACTURE.

August 6, 2020August 5, 2020 | Language · Puzzles

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Futility Closet is a collection of entertaining curiosities in history, literature, language, art, philosophy, and mathematics, designed to help you waste time as enjoyably as possible.

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