Word golf is a game, a version of Word Ladders, in which one word is turned into another through a process of substituting single letters. A new English word must be formed each time a letter is replaced, and players score points according to the number of steps taken. As in regular golf, the player with the lowest score at the end of the game wins.
The game was popularized by Vladimir Nabokov, and is referred to in his hypertext masterpiece Pale Fire (1962) as a favorite pastime of the fictitious American poet John Shad ...
In the index to Pale Fire, Nabokov provides the following example for scoring lass-male in four:
Lass
Mass
Mars
Mare
Male
To transform dog into pot, the following sequence of steps may be taken:
Dog
Dot
Pot
In which case, the player's score would be two.
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