Question

The number of words (with or without meaning) of two distinct letters of the English alphabet is,
A.625
B.650
C.600
D.675

Answer 1

Hint: Since we are asked for the number of words formed by two different letters of the alphabet , the first place of the word can be filled with 26 different ways and the second place can be filled with 25 different ways. Hence the number of words can be given by the product of 26 and 25

Complete step-by-step answer:
Step 1 :
We are asked to find the number of words formed by two distinct letters with or without meaning.
We need to fill two places with two distinct letters of the alphabet.
Since there are 26 letters in the English alphabet
We can fill the first place of our required two letter word in 26 different ways.
Step 2 :
Now we have 26 – 1 letters left (i.e.) 25 letters left to fill the second place of the required word
So we can fill the second place of the word with 25 different ways.
Step 3:
Hence the required number of words is given by the product of the number of ways found in the previous steps.
Number of words = 26 * 25
                                = 650
Therefore the number of words which can be formed by two distinct letters with or without meaning is 650
The correct option is B.

Note: If we are asked for the number of words with two letters which are not distinct then the first place and the second place can be filled by both 26 ways . That is, 26 * 26 = 676