The writer and poet Robert Graves liked to present his listeners with a riddle.
What word can have its metrical quantity – simply, its number of syllables – lessened by the addition of a letter?
The answer is “beatified” [be-a-ti-fied (4)]which, with an added “u” become “beautified” [beau-ti-fied (3)].
Source: The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books by John Carey