The answers to questions 1 and 2 are PORTMANTEU and PHOTOGRAPHY.

Therefore the answer to #2 has to start with the first letter of each (P and P). Base on that people easily figured out the answer to #3 is PUMP. And #4 ihas to start with O and end with H, and is obviously OSTRICH.

So it absolutely starts with A ends with H and can have any number of letters as long as the answer fits the clue.
Sounds simple, but nobody has figured out in over 100 years of trying to solve that question in Lewis Carol's acrostic!!

Carol was of course the famous author of Alice in Wonderland, Oxford professor, and ordained in the Church of England. And required to be celibate and proscribed against marrying on pain of losing his guaranteed for life free residence and board at Christ Church college, Oxford University. Carol was relatively poor and the room was literally right next door to the Dean of the college. The Dean's daughter was Alice LIddel (the Alice of Wonderland). Such a free room was very prestigious for a poor man like Carrol (he had 10 siblings, mostly unmarried sisters, and he was head of his family because his father had died). His sisters depended on him.