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Question

The inhabitants of the island of Jumble use the standard Roman alphabet (26 letters, A through Z). Each word in their language is 3 letters, and for some reason, they insist that all words contain the letter A at least once. How many 3-letter words are possible?

Accepted Answer

There are 26^3 possible words that can be formed. Of those words, 25^3 have no A. Thus, our answer is 26^3 - 25^3 = 1951.