We made a list of 15 related things, arranged in chronological order. Each item on the list was from one to four words in length. We then removed from the list all common uncapitalized three-letter words that appeared as consecutive letters within words of four or more letters. Finally, we closed up any spaces between the remaining words and letters. As a result, two of the items disappeared entirely. The object of the contest was to determine what the original list was and send us the list of the 15 items as they appeared before the three-letter words were removed from them.

1. GS
2. CIRON
3. GDEL
4. GHTHED
5.
6. TY
7. I
8. MYFY
9. NIGHT
10.
11. THE
12. GHI
13. PLAN
14. RESTP
15. TIIC

The removed words appear in black below; inserted in the right places, they reveal a list of Academy Award Best Picture winners. Winners were selected at random from many hundreds of correct entries.