There is a common English word that is nine letters long. Each time you remove a letter from it, it still remains an English word — from nine letters right down to a single letter. What is the original word, and what are the words that it becomes after removing one letter at a time?
The English language has at least one nine-letter word that remains a word as each of its letters is successively removed, right down to a single letter. That word is "startling":
Startling:
remove the l, and the word becomes: starting
remove one t, and the word becomes: staring
remove the a, and the word becomes: string
remove the r, and the word becomes: sting
remove the other t, and the word becomes: sing
remove the g, and the word becomes: sin
remove the s, and the word becomes: in
remove the n, and the word becomes: I