Word golf

Word golf is a game in which one word is turned into another through a process of substituting single letters. Each time a letter is replaced, a new English word must be formed. 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 likely invented by Vladimir Nabokov, and is referred to in his hypertext masterpiece Pale Fire as a favorite pass-time of the fictitious American poet John Shade. Shade's neighbour Charles Kinbote notes that some of his own records include "hate-love in three, lass-male in four, and live-dead in five (with 'lend' in the middle)." In the index to Pale Fire, Nabokov provides the following example of scoring lass-male in four: lass, mass, Mars, male.

See also Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov, Hypertext, Postmodernism