plonq | (no subject)

The Mensa calendar is at it again today. The last time they had one of these word ladder problems, I got annoyed with their answer because they inserted a needless letter swap in the middle. This time around they did not do that, but when I solved the puzzle, I accidentally solved it in six steps instead of seven.

WORD LADDER

Make your way from BANK to LOAN in only seven steps, changing one letter at a time to make a good English word at each step.

BANK
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
LOAN

ANSWER: BANK, BANE, LANE, LONE, LORE, LORD, LOAD, LOAN (There may be other ways.)

I toyed with the words for a bit, and then the answer simply fell into place as quickly as I typed out the words.

BANK,BAND,LAND,LAID,LAIN,LOIN,LOAN

Or a better solution:

BANK,BAND,BEND,LEND,LEAD,LEAN,LOAN <-- I like this one better, because you pass by LEND to get your LOAN.

I'm not entirely satisfied with my own answer, and I can't shake the feeling that with a bit more thought I could solve this in 5 steps. I'll post an update here if I have enough free time this morning to contemplate on this further.

[Edit: Five steps would be a snap if we could just the word LOND into the dictionary.]

[Edit the Second: I did it!]

BANK,BONK,BOOK,BOON,LOON,LOAN