This will produce a 5x5 square of 5, 5-letter words that read the same across as down.

WITH UNIQUEnTuples (n, Tuples) AS

(

SELECT 1, CAST(strcol AS VARCHAR(max))

FROM @t

UNION ALL

SELECT 1 + n.n, t.strcol + ',' + n.Tuples

FROM @t t JOIN UNIQUEnTuples n ON t.strcol < n.Tuples

WHERE CHARINDEX(t.strcol, n.Tuples) = 0 AND n < 2

),

MatrixOfLetters AS

(

SELECT rn, cn, RandomLetter=MAX(rl)

FROM UNIQUEnTuples a

CROSS APPLY

(

SELECT Tuples=CASE n WHEN 1 THEN Tuples + ',' + Tuples ELSE Tuples END

,RandomLetter=CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NEWID()))%26)

) b

CROSS APPLY

(

-- VALUES (CAST(LEFT(b.Tuples, 1) AS INT), CAST(RIGHT(b.Tuples, 1) AS INT), RandomLetter)

-- ,(CAST(RIGHT(b.Tuples, 1) AS INT), CAST(LEFT(b.Tuples, 1) AS INT), RandomLetter)

SELECT CAST(LEFT(b.Tuples, 1) AS INT), CAST(RIGHT(b.Tuples, 1) AS INT), RandomLetter

UNION ALL SELECT CAST(RIGHT(b.Tuples, 1) AS INT), CAST(LEFT(b.Tuples, 1) AS INT), RandomLetter

) c (rn, cn, rl)

GROUP BY rn, cn

)

SELECT rn, cn, RandomLetter

INTO #Temp

FROM MatrixOfLetters;

SELECT word=

(

SELECT RandomLetter + ''

FROM #Temp b

WHERE a.rn = b.rn

ORDER BY cn

FOR XML PATH('')

)

FROM #Temp a

GROUP BY rn

ORDER BY rn;

GO

DROP TABLE #Temp;

It is not guaranteed to produce words but you could run the result against a dictionary of 5 letter words and keep any that match 5x5.

Explanation? What you want an explanation too? Jeez. OK.

Start here: Generating n-Tuples with SQL[/url]

The CROSS APPLY VALUES thing is here: An Alternative (Better?) Method to UNPIVOT (SQL Spackle) [/url]

Then for the concatenation, read this: Creating a comma-separated list (SQL Spackle) [/url]

If you still have questions let me know.

That was fun! 😛 Now on to serious business.

Edit: Ooops! Forgot CROSS APPLY VALUES is not available in SQL 2005, so I modified it to use SELECT/UNION ALL/SELECT but the concept is the same.