The linked file (1138090f) is based on an Official Scrabble Word list. NOTE: while it is labeled as a .doc file, it is really a .txt file, so you don’t need any special libraries to open it/read it***.
Sort the words in the file by length (NOTE: it is important that you perform a stable sort, i.e. in considering the following words: ‘can’, ‘cart’, ‘cat’, ‘dog’, ‘door’… when sorted by length, the items with the same length should still retain their original relative order, as follows… ‘can’, ‘cat’, ‘dog’, ‘cart’, ‘door’)
Once you have sorted the list by length, find the words with the following indexes…
22615, 10582, 353, 1660, 43880
The words will reveal the secret phrase.
The backstory:
The attached file is part of the Moby Project which collected a wide variety of word lists. The scrabble dictionary above comes from the following compressed archive: mwords.tar.Z [4.0MB]
Notes:
*** wordpress has annoying restrictions on what can be uploaded. apparently .txt files are verboten, but .doc files are not. = /
Want more puzzles?
See this page for links to more puzzles…
The dark art of coding 