Damerau–Levenshtein Distance modification (Edit Distance for Strings)

[JrPtn]

Is there a way to modify the Damerau–Levenshtein distance algorithm to allow the transposition of substrings? By this I mean that instead of simply turning "ba" to "ab" you could calculate "worra" to "arrow" and have that cost only be 1. An example might help:

If you had a target of timeflieslikeanarrow and a staring string of tfemiliilzejeworrbna, you would have the following operations for a minimum of 6.

tfemiliilzejeworrbna (the target)
tfemiliilzejeanbrrow (transpose)
tfemiliezlijeanbrrow (transpose)
timefliezlijeanbrrow (transpose)
timefliezlijeanarrow (a substitution)
timefliezlikeanarrow (a substitution)
timeflieslikeanarrow (a substitution)

[razzle]

Is there a way to modify the Damerau–Levenshtein distance algorithm to allow the transposition of substrings?

Is this an unresolved research proposition?

Are you asking for an unassuming genious to help you get a doctorate?

[razzle]

I guess you'll have to do it the hard way then, by your own deep thinking.

This is the kind of cheating I dislike the most. Posting hard unsolved problems all over the place in the slim chance someone gifted is struck by genious coming up with a solution you can copycat as your own.

Earn your own Ph.D.