__ __ _ _____ _ _ _
| \/ | ___| |_ __ _| ___(_) | |_ ___ _ __
| |\/| |/ _ \ __/ _` | |_ | | | __/ _ \ '__|
| | | | __/ || (_| | _| | | | || __/ |
|_| |_|\___|\__\__,_|_| |_|_|\__\___|_|
community weblog
let my poople go
POOPLE Our dad invented this game to keep us occupied on family road trips, and now you can play! Get to "POOP" in as few steps as possible. Each word must be exactly one letter different from the last. A random starting word is chosen daily. Can you find the shortest path?
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs on Jun 08, 2026 at 7:01 AM
---------------------------
PEOPLE
ORDER
OUR
PATTIES
posted by BiggerJ at 7:09 AM
---------------------------
POLE
POOL
POOP
posted by runsrealgood at 7:25 AM
---------------------------
SHIT
SHOT
SHOP
SLOP
PLOP
POOP
posted by njohnson23 at 7:32 AM
---------------------------
5 steps, I didn't think to copy them. But this is now on my daily game list.
posted by mumimor at 7:36 AM
---------------------------
Hm...we accept "pome" but not "pont"?
posted by mittens at 7:43 AM
---------------------------
This is a variation of Doublets, a paper-based game invented by Lewis Carroll that I used to love as a kid. Here's an online version.
Poople makes it easier by restricting it to 4 letters and always having the same destination, so it doesn't have to be paper-based.
posted by snarfois at 7:51 AM
---------------------------
I wrote a quick Python program that searched for the shortest edit paths from POOP to 3175 other 4-letter words in my system dictionary. Here are some findings, according to the program:
There are 10 words different from POOP by 1 letter.
The largest group of words is at minimum distance 5 (1114 words).
The longest minimum distance to a reachable word is 15, and there is one word at that distance. It's an ironic one: EDGE.
There are also 176 words "at infinity", reachable by no possible paths. Three such words are URGE, CRUD, and TOFU.
The results would be quite different depending on the dictionary used. Mine is the american-english word list file from Debian Trixie. I removed all words with apostrophes and converted all words to uppercase. Nouns & proper names were therefore part of the list I used.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 7:51 AM
---------------------------
solidly enjoying the post title
posted by clew at 8:11 AM
---------------------------
heh, solidly
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 8:23 AM
---------------------------
solidly enjoying the post title
my enjoyment is positively explosive
posted by runsrealgood at 8:37 AM
---------------------------
Heh. Silly but fun and more challenging than I expected. I imagine these will get easier with practice, as I get my brain into the right head space for the game.
I will likely add this to my list of morning games.
posted by asnider at 8:51 AM
---------------------------
Anyone get better than 8? (pace, pack, pock, pork, pore, pole, poll, pool, poop)
Also, how do you hide/spoiler comments?
posted by roaring beast at 9:26 AM
---------------------------
Perfect game for the era of enshittification.
In 7 pace, pact, part, port, pout, pour, poor, poop.
posted by Former Congressional Representative Lenny Lemming at 9:35 AM
---------------------------
> Anyone get better than 8? (pace, pack, pock, pork, pore, pole, poll, pool, poop)
I got 5 for pace:
pace
pale
pole
poll
pool
poop
posted by ambulatorybird at 9:35 AM
---------------------------
PACE
PALE
POLE
POKE
POME
POMP
POOP
Definitely wasted some steps. Neat game concept.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:38 AM
---------------------------
→ The largest group of words is at minimum distance 5 (1114 words).
Won't an edit distance of 5 for a four letter word return the entire word list?
(if anyone else is merrily flailing about with tre-agrep, you need to influence its deletion and insertion vs substitution weights using -D 10 -I 10 -S 1, otherwise it will tell you that "oops" is one edit away from "poop")
The Lewis Carroll site has a solver, incidentally.
posted by scruss at 9:39 AM
---------------------------
clew: "solidly enjoying the post title"
Shamelessly stolen from an homage to poffin boffin, one of the best to ever do it (post i mean, poop ability unknown)
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 9:40 AM
---------------------------
I like to spoiler comments with the "details" tag, like <details> . you can add a <summary> inside too, so <details><summary>POOP here</summary>poop</details>
POOP here
Poop
posted by BungaDunga at 9:42 AM
---------------------------
Won't an edit distance of 5 for a four letter word return the entire word list?
No, because many letter changes do not produce a real intermediate word.
"You can't get there from here."
posted by clew at 9:43 AM
---------------------------
"You can't get there from here."
YOU JUST ADD A T
posted by mittens at 9:47 AM
---------------------------
Granted, I'm ill, so it took me a while, but who puts the Enter key on the bottom left?? As you were
ETA: Prepares for onslaught of many, many standard cases lol
posted by riverlife at 9:57 AM
---------------------------
riverlife: "Granted, I'm ill, so it took me a while, but who puts the Enter key on the bottom left?? As you were
ETA: Prepares for onslaught of many, many standard cases lol"
I ask that about Wordle every single time I open it.
posted by adekllny at 10:08 AM
---------------------------
WHADDAYA MEAN PULE ISN'T A WORD
posted by cortex at 10:24 AM
---------------------------
wrong thread cortex
you want the cheese thread
posted by runsrealgood at 10:29 AM
---------------------------
I can't have a pooh ? Ah come on...
posted by Webbster at 10:49 AM
---------------------------
Poople #298 8/5
⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜
⬜⬜
⬜⬜
⬜⬜
⬜⬜
⬜
It rejected one intermediate word so I had to backpedal, or I think I could have done 6.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:01 AM
---------------------------
Also related to the Levenshtein distance, though that doesn't require intermediate items to be words in a dictionary.
posted by SunSnork at 11:37 AM
---------------------------
My first attempt at this was terrible. It didn't help that it doesn't accept POOT.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 12:07 PM
---------------------------
Three such words are URGE, CRUD, and TOFU.
Does URGE connect to any four letter words? How many fully isolated words are there?
posted by Hermione Dies at 12:22 PM
---------------------------
last time I heard the portmanteau "poople" was the Swedish company Pee Poople, makers of the Peepoo, which was a fancy WAG bag.
Incredibly, I don't think branding was their biggest issue.
posted by Headfullofair at 12:41 PM
---------------------------
Let's settle the Peepee Poopoo debate once and for all
posted by BungaDunga at 1:29 PM
---------------------------
How many fully isolated words are there?
And what's the longest chain? Longest non self crossing chain? Is there anything lexicographically interesting about the segmentation?
posted by clew at 3:04 PM
---------------------------
POOD
Is not a word
Oh well
posted by eustatic at 3:35 PM
---------------------------
POOD Is not a word
oh yes it is
posted by mittens at 3:55 PM
---------------------------
pace
pale
pall
poll
pool
poop
5 steps
posted by eustatic at 3:56 PM
---------------------------
Rationing us to one poop a day seems unnecessarily cruel.
posted by Athanassiel at 5:15 PM
---------------------------
URGE is indeed a disconnected word in my word set.
There are 140 isolated islands of words. The vast majority of them are 1-word islands (e.g., URGE). The 2nd largest island has just 7 words, ABBR ABBY ABBÉ ABLE ABLY ALLY AXLE.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 6:33 PM
---------------------------
There are also 176 words "at infinity", reachable by no possible paths. Three such words are URGE, CRUD, and TOFU.
Tofu can't turn into poop. The vegan's lament.
posted by rory at 12:53 AM
---------------------------