Levenshtein’s Fine Signs, a commercial signage company, is a favorite of new business owners for its ability to cheaply adjust a location’s existing signage to reflect the new business name. Instead of replacing the entire sign, Mr. Levenshtein replaces signs letter-by-letter whenever possible. Since Mr. Levenshtein offers “by-the-letter” pricing, he can offer very low prices when the name of the new business is very similar to the name of the old business.
Here, for example, are two recent jobs that Mr. Levenshtein completed:
C1. How much does Mr. Levenshtein charge for each of the following changes?
C2. How much would Mr. Levenshtein charge to change this sign?
C3. Each month next summer, Mr. Levenshtein will try out a new pricing scheme, where he discounts partic-ular kinds of changes or offers additional kinds of changes beyond just addition and deletion. Here are the May, June, and July prices for particular changes.
(Note: For this puzzle, you can treat spaces as insignificant, as if BOB’S RAFTS were just BOB’SRAFTS.)
A. How much would Mr. Levenshtein charge to make the following change, in each month?
B. Three new business owners are looking to change their signage. For each business, in what month should they buy their sign in order to minimize costs?
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