My (untested) solution for Sort Me Practice 8/21/2014

sortme.py

# Note: This is NOT tested!

# There's a constant in Python for this, but I couldn't remember
ABC = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'

def getWordList(length):
	words = []
	for i in range(length):
		words.append(input().strip())
	return words

# Note the use of maketrans here. Saves A LOT of time.
# Also, it probably would have been smarter to make this method a little more generic
def buildTranslator(new_ordering):
	global ABC
	translator = str.maketrans(ABC, new_ordering)
	return lambda S : S.translate(translator)

def buildUntranslator(new_ordering):
	global ABC
	translator = str.maketrans(new_ordering, ABC)
	return lambda S : S.translate(translator)

def printSortedWords(year, words):
	print('year', year)
	for word in words:
		print(word)

year = 1
while True:
	word_count, new_ordering = input().strip().split()
	word_count = int(word_count)
	
	if word_count is 0:
	  break

	words = getWordList(word_count)
	translated_words = map( buildTranslator(new_ordering), words)
	sorted_translated_words = sorted( buildUntranslator(new_ordering), translated_words )

	printSortedWords(year, words)

	year += 1