For the amusement of his little friends, mostly little girls, Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll) invented a word-game whose name I disremember. Now, before I saw Carrroll's explanation of this game, I'd read a mention of this game, saying that it MODELED THE WAY MATHEMATICIANS DEVELOOP PROOFS OF THEOREMS. But the writer of this (whose name I also disremember) didn't describe the game or how to play it or how it resembled proofing.

When I finally saw the game in a book about Carroll's works, which I gave to our granddaughter, Laurel Hays, at Christmas, 1998, I realized what that writer was raving about.

So here is a brief explanation, followed by a demonstration.

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Carroll's game is a Challenge-Game:

• One kid challenges a second kid with two short words.
• The challenged kid is to TRANSFORM ONE OF THESE WORDS INTO THE OTHER by ONE LETTER AT A TIME such that each TRANSFORMATION IS A LEGITIMATE WORD.
• The number of STEPS IN A TRANSFORMATION are counted and POINTS for a GIVEN TRANSFORMATION are assigned to the TRANSFORMER.
• At game's end, the kid with FEWEST POINTS WIND.

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ILLUSTRATION: TRANSFORM "CAT" into "DOG".

TRANSFORMATION:

		CAT -> COT -> COG -> DOG

Of course, THE INVERSE TRANSFORMATION IS:

		DOG -> COG -> COT -> CAT

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CHALLENGE: TRANSFORM "FISH" into "WASP".

TRANSFORMATION:

		FISH -> WISH -> WASH -> WASP

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