I was marking a set of exam papers written by 120 fifteen-year-olds. One of the questions required a single-word answer: isosceles. Please note that this word appeared on the exam paper in another place. All 120 of them gave the "correct" answer, in that it was there, and it was understandable.
Afterwards, I collected all these isosceleses and discovered that it is possible to spell the word wrongly, but understandably, in at least twenty-seven different ways. For the reader's delectation, I give them all here.
ilsoslens; iscoseles; iscosolese; isoceles; isocelese; isocelles; isocles; isocoles; isocolese; isosalease; isosales; isosceles; isoscelese; isoselas; isoseles; isoselese; isosicles; isosiles; isosles; isoslice; isosoceles; isosocles; isosolees; isosoles; isosolese; isosolies; isosolies; issoles
The trick is to find the correct one (as there are twenty-eight, and I found twenty-seven wrong ones, it must be there!) (and no, we don't penalise spelling errors in maths papers) in this alphabetical list.
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