Question

How many anagrams does the word YEARLY have?

Answer 1

Do you no what an anagram is?

Answer 2

yeah haha sorry since its for math it just means that it wants all of the possible letter combinations, but i don't know how to get it since it has two Y's

Answer 3

mrbarry's taking the right approach.

Answer 4

Okay, so let's start with how many anagrams does the word YEARL have?

Answer 5

5!=120

Answer 6

okay.. so how many permutations of the pair YY are there?

Answer 7

i mean it's either the first Y first or the second Y first, so you have 2! = 2 permutations.

Answer 8

but would the order of the two Y's matter since they are the same letter?

Answer 9

suppose in this case it does.

Answer 10

Alright

Answer 11

Anyway for YEARLY, you have 6 letters, and 2 are a pair. So if my rusty memory is not failing me, the possible number of permutations would be 6!/2!

Answer 12

i meant 2 are repeated.

Answer 13

Vocabulary: Distinguishable Permutation

When we mix the letters around, can we tell the difference between yearly and yearly? That is, since we can't tell if we switch the y's around we don't need to count them as separate anagrams.

Very nice @bahrom7893! Of course you are a 99 aren't you?

Answer 14

Alright makes sense. Thanks