Forum Discussion
Delete cells with exactly three syllables
- Oct 03, 2025
If you had been intending to identify word length in syllables, you would need a pronunciation source, such as most dictionaries. The Gutenberg Project offers (for free) this old-but-undated Webster's Unabridged Dictionary that could be used for that; the extraction of words and their syllable counts would include significant VBA coding. But the derived word forms (noun plurals, verb tenses, etc.) would be incomplete, and as this is an old work, some word spellings have changed, some pronunciations have changed, and other words were then not yet in use.
Identifying the number of consonants is more straightforward, but the sometimes-vowels Y and W cause a problem. See the attached workbook for more information and a partial solution. The count of consonants can mostly be done with formulas (I used helper columns). But to "delete" words requires a script; I include VBA code for that in the workbook. (The workbook is not macro-enabled; I will assume that you know how to create and edit macros.)
Edit: The forum software again loses a file that I attached (but it was not the one I intended anyway). Trying again...
Edit #2: Well that failed also. So access the workbook on OneDrive: 2025-10-02 RAHI words containing 3 consonants.xlsx
This is what it would take to solve in Excel.
- Pull together a list of the most common syllables found in English.
- Pull together a list of the most common words (or words most relevant to your data)
- Create all possible permutations (with repeats) from the list.
- Discard words which do not match words in your dictionary
- Discard words with precisely 3 syllables.
My advice is to use the best version of Copilot at: https://copilot.microsoft.com/
You can fit about 12,000 characters in a single chat post.