Sorting Words by Starting Letter for Faster Lookups

TL;DR: An A-to-Z middle-I list is fastest when you know the first letter. It is slow when you only know the last. Sort is a bet about which slot you learned. If the green is last letter Y, jump to a Y-ending clump or filter Y; do not walk from ABIDE to ZEITY hoping. The alphabet is a street. Know the address.

When A-to-Z is the right street

Green in slot 1 is an address. You open the D section and stay there. You do not “just glance” at C. Glancing is how a D-green brain types a C-word because it was prettier. Prettier is not green. Stay in the letter you earned.

If slot 1 is only yellow, A-to-Z still helps but you must visit every section that can host that letter in slots 2, 4, or 5. That is most of the book. Then A-to-Z is a weak sort. Prefer contains-search. Sort and search are different indexes. Pick the index that matches the green, not the index that matches your personality (some people love alphabet for no reason).

Last-letter indexes

Many word lists are first-letter only. Last-letter Y is common in English and in these puzzles. If your page cannot sort by last letter, search Y and then check the fifth glyph. Checking is slower than a true sort and still faster than reading 400 first letters. If you print a list for a tournament, print a second copy grouped by last letter. Two paper indexes beat one phone with a dying battery.

Slot 2 or 4 greens are awkward for A-to-Z. You will scan the third character of every line. That scan is valid. It is also why on-page filters exist. Use them. Pride in “I don’t need search” is a timer you cannot see.

Ties: same start, different cousins

BRICK, BRINK, BRISK sit together in A-to-Z. That is a gift. Read the cluster as a family, not as three randoms. The cluster tells you which slot still moves. If K is grey, the whole *ISK/*INK family may collapse differently than you think—check each fifth letter. Families save time only if you inspect the moving slot. Skimming the family as “those BR words” is how BRINK dies and you still type it.

On the middle-I list, clusters are already alphabetized. Put your finger under slot 5 when the first three letters match. Finger is a sort inside a sort.

Don’t re-sort by “words I like”

A mental sort of “common words first” is a prior, useful for guessing order, bad for finding. You will skip WHISK because you don’t like it, then need it. Finding is exhaustive inside the remaining mask. Liking is for choosing among 3 survivors. Do not like too early. Early liking is how six guesses become a personality quiz.

Frequency order (common English first) is a third index, great for choosing a guess among legal options, bad as the only paper sort if you cannot find the rare legal word when common ones die. Keep frequency in your head for pick, alphabet on the page for find.

Digital sorts that go wrong

Spreadsheet sorts can put still before stain if you accidentally lowercased wrong, or put words with spaces first. Trim. Ensure five characters. A six-letter contaminant sorts wherever and poisons the eye. Filter LEN=5 before you trust A-to-Z. If a list includes “their ” with a space, it may sort to the top as a space character. You will think the list is broken. It is dirty.

Phone “search in page” jumps to the first hit of a letter, which may be in the intro paragraph, not the list. Jump twice. Or use the list’s own box. Intro paragraphs contain the letter I a lot. That is not a word.

Tournament table setup

One sheet: A-to-Z. One sheet: by last letter. One tiny card: cousin groups. Three sorts, same words. You are not duplicating ego; you are buying indexes. In a timed event, grabbing the wrong sheet is still faster than scrolling a 15-meter A-to-Z on a phone. Label the sheets in marker. Unlabeled sheets become modern art at minute 40.

If you only have one screen, A-to-Z plus a last-letter query is enough. Two indexes. One lock. Go.

Numbers, spaces, and fake first letters

A list that starts with “5 letter…” in the first row will sort under numbers or spaces, not under A. Skip the header when you jump to D. If you include the header in a spreadsheet sort, D-words can slide. Clean headers live outside the sort range. Kids paste the whole page, header included, then swear D is missing. D is under a title row that stole the sort. Delete row 1. Then A-to-Z means A-to-Z.

Emoji bullets before words sort to the top on some phones. Strip bullets. Five letters only. Anything else is a different alphabet that jumped the queue.