Watsky words

2025-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Between 2019 and 2023, rapper George Watsky released three albums titled Complaint, Placement, and Intention. When arranged next to each other, the titles form a 3x3 word puzzle that can be read across and down:</p>
com pla int</span></span>
pla cem ent</span></span>
int ent ion</span></span></code></pre>
In an interview with Philip DeFranco</a>, Watsky said the following:</p>

when I worked with this linguist, we plugged the rules of this word puzzle into the english dictionary and it only spit out one possibility of 9-letter words that interlocked in the way we wanted it to...there was only one solution</p>
</blockquote>
Let's double check their work.</p>
We start by assembling a list of nine-letter english words:</p>
$ curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cullback/english-wordlist/refs/heads/main/words.csv \</span></span>
    | rg '^[a-z]{9}$' \</span></span>
    > words.csv</span></span>
$ wc -l words.csv</span></span>
    18841 words.csv</span></span></code></pre>
Checking all three-word combinations of that list would take a long time (18841³ = 6,688,239,997,321).</p>
We can explore the search space more efficiently by using binary search to find the words with the prefix we want:</p>
import</span> fileinput</span></span>
from</span> bisect</span> import</span> bisect_left</span></span>
</span>
def</span> starts_with(words: list[str], prefix: str) -> list[str]:</span></span>
  i</span> =</span> bisect_left(words, prefix)</span></span>
  matches</span> =</span> filter(</span>lambda</span> w: w.startswith(prefix), words[i:])</span></span>
  return</span> list(matches)</span></span>
</span>
words</span> =</span> sorted(w.rstrip()</span> for</span> w</span> in</span> fileinput.input())</span></span>
</span>
for</span> first</span> in</span> words:</span></span>
  for</span> third</span> in</span> starts_with(words, first[</span>6</span>:]):</span></span>
    for</span> second</span> in</span> starts_with(words, first[</span>3</span>:</span>6</span>]):</span></span>
      if</span> second.endswith(third[</span>3</span>:</span>6</span>]):</span></span>
        print(</span>f</span>"</span>{</span>first</span>}</span>,</span>{</span>second</span>}</span>,</span>{</span>third</span>}</span>"</span>)</span></span></code></pre>
If we limit our search to only the top 1000 words, we reproduce their result:</p>
$ head -n1000 words.csv </span>|</span> python</span> watsky.py</span></span>
    complaint,placement,intention</span></span></code></pre>
Running this gives us 1480 solutions:</p>
$ cat words.csv </span>|</span> python</span> watsky.py</span> |</span> wc</span> -l</span></span>
    1480</span></span></code></pre>
Some other titles Watsky could have chosen include:</p>
worshiped</span></span>
shittiest</span></span>
pedestals</span></span>
</span>
castrates</span></span>
traumatic</span></span>
testicles</span></span>
</span>
prostates</span></span>
statistic</span></span>
testicles</span></span></code></pre>
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Watsky words
