title: Algorithm for fuzzy pairing of strings from two lists
body: <p>Suppose you have two lists of strings containing similar items, with changes (eg. List 1: Apples,fruits_b,orange; List2: Fruit,apples,banana,orange_juice). </p>
  
  <p>Given a distance metric such as the Levenshtein distance, what are good algorithms for finding the optimal pairing, that is the pairing that minimizes the sum of distances for all pairings?</p>
  
  <p>The result corresponding to my example would be:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Apples    - apples
  fruits_b  - Fruit
  orange    - orange_juice
            - banana
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Subsidiary question: is there some tool that already implements this or something similar?</p>