WORD PLAY

Credit: Marilyn vos Savant in Parade Magazine 1/2/11

In each of the words below, two adjacent letters may be replaced with different letters to form new words. The replacement letters are the same for each word, although they do not necessarily occur in the same places in each word. What are the replacement letters?

AREA

PIECE

ESTATE

INSPIRE

SENTENCE

HINT:

In STAID and SPLASH, the second and third letters are replaced.

In SHIVER and DRIBBLE, the first two letters are replaced.

Answer:

The letters are QU:

AQUA, PIQUE, EQUATE, INQUIRE, SEQUENCE

SQUID, SQUASH, QUIVER, QUIBBLE