Question: From the letters in “MAAGOOSH”, we are going to make three-letter ‘words’. Any set of three-letter counts as a word, and different arrangements of the same three letters (such as ‘MAG’ and ‘AGM’) count as different words. How many different three-letter words can be made from the eight letters in MAAGOOSH?
If these were 8 unique letters, the answer would simply be 8 * 7 * 6
But because there are repetitions, some answers would have to be removed
A and O both occur twice, so answer would be:
\frac{8 * 7 * 6}{2! * 2!} = 84