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Topic: A favorite word puzzle

Listeners who love their word puzzles often challenge us by passing along a favorite. One such puzzle that only recently crossed our desk has in fact been around for decades, but its freshness remains.

Here we go. Try your hand at guessing the common nine-letter English word that has an unusual characteristic. If one letter at a time is removed from the word, the remaining (un-rearranged) letters spell out first an eight-letter word, then a seven-letter word, and so on, all the way down to a one letter word. All the words in this spelldown are ordinary, and the final word is I.

Highlight below for the answer:

The word is startling . . . that is to say, the actual word is startling. Strip off the second T or the L and startling turns into either starling or starting. Remove either the L or the second T and the seven-letter string looking back at you spells staring. Eliminate the A from staring for the six-letter string. Then eradicate the R to turn string into sting. Take away the T from sting to spawn sing. Jettisoning the G from sing secures the three-letter sin. Suspend the S from sin and in is in; nix the N from in and I stands all alone.

Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CDs including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.