Anagram

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An anagram (Greek ana- = "back" or "again", and graphein = "to write") is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce other words, using all the original letters exactly once. Someone who creates anagrams is called an anagrammist.

Anagrams are often expressed in the form of an equation, with the equals symbol (=) separating the original subject and the resulting anagram. ‘Earth = heart’ is an example of a simple anagram expressed in that way. In a more advanced, sophisticated form of anagramming, the aim is to ‘discover’ a result that has a linguistic meaning that defines or comments on the original subject in a humorous or ironic way; e.g., Roll in the hay = Thrill a honey (discovered by Tony Crafter), Desperation = a rope ends it, Mother-in-law = woman Hitler, or Slotmachines = Cash lost in em. When the subject and the resulting anagram form a complete sentence, a tilde (~) is commonly used instead of an equal sign; e.g., Semolina ~ is no meal. or Somewhere Over the Rainbow ~ Worrisome However Beneath.

1 History
2 Pseudonyms
3 Astronomy
4 Methods
5 Crosswords
6 Games and puzzles
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

[edit] History

The construction of anagrams is an amusement of great antiquity. They were popular throughout Europe during the Middle Ages.

W. Camden (Remains, 7th ed., 1674) defines "Anagrammatisme" as "a dissolution of a name truly written into his letters, as his elements, and a new connection of it by artificial transposition, without addition, subtraction or change of any letter, into different words, making some perfect sense applyable (i.e., applicable) to the person named." Dryden disdainfully called the pastime the "torturing of one poor word ten thousand ways" but many men and women of note have found amusement in it.

A well-known anagram is the change of "Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum" (Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord [is] with you) into "Virgo serena, pia, munda et immaculata" (Bright virgin, pious, clean and spotless). Among others are the anagrammatic answer to Pilate's question, "Quid est veritas?" (What is truth?), namely, "Est vir qui adest" (It is the man who is here); and the transposition of "Horatio Nelson" into "Honor est a Nilo" (Latin = Honor is from the Nile); and of "Florence Nightingale" into "Flit on, cheering angel". James I's courtiers discovered in "James Stuart" "a just master", and converted "Charles James Stuart" into "Claims Arthur's seat" (even at that point in time, the letters I and J were more-or-less interchangeable). "Eleanor Audeley", wife of Sir John Davies, is said to have been brought before the High Commission in 1634 for extravagances, stimulated by the discovery that her name could be transposed to "Reveale, O Daniel", and to have been laughed out of court by another anagram submitted by the dean of the Arches, "Dame Eleanor Davies", "Never soe mad a ladie".

A famous recent anagram is "Britney Spears" which becomes "presbyterians".

[edit] Pseudonyms

The pseudonyms adopted by authors are often transposed forms, more or less exact, of their names; thus "Calvinus" becomes "Alcuinus" (V = U); "Francois Rabelais" = "Alcofribas Nasier"; "Arrigo Boito" = "Tobia Gorrio"; "Edward Gorey" = "Ogdred Weary"; "Vladimir Nabokov" = "Vivian Darkbloom", = "Vivian Bloodmark" or = "Dorian Vivalcomb"; "Bryan Waller Proctor" = "Barry Cornwall, poet"; "Henry Rogers" = "R. E. H. Greyson"; "(Sanche) de Gramont" = "Ted Morgan", and so on. It is to be noted that several of these are "imperfect anagrams", letters having been left out in some cases for the sake of easy pronunciation.

"Telliamed", a simple reversal, is the title of a well known work by "De Maillet". One of the most remarkable pseudonyms of this class is the name "Voltaire", which the celebrated philosopher assumed instead of his family name, François Marie Arouet, and which is now generally allowed to be an anagram of "Arouet, l[e] j[eune]" (U=V, J=I) that is, "Arouet the younger". Anagramming may also be used to good effect in farce or parody. A writer might take an unpleasant person he knows, base a character in a book on him, and then transpose the letters in the source's name. Anagrams have also shown up in rock music. The Doors' lead singer Jim Morrison invoked his name as "Mr. Mojo Risin'" on the song "L.A. Woman", the band Sad Café released an album called Facades, Blur singer Damon Albarn uses the name Dan Abnormal for the title of a song on The Great Escape and all of the band adopt anagrammed pseudonyms for the music video of M.O.R., the new wave band Missing Persons recorded an album called Spring Session M, and Guns N' Roses lead singer Axl Rose's stage name is an anagram of "oral sex". Canadian progressive rock trio Rush, even have a song in which the lyrics are made entirely of anagrams: Anagram (for Mongo), from their Presto album.

[edit] Astronomy

Perhaps the only practical use to which anagrams have been turned is to be found in the transpositions in which some of the astronomers of the 17th century embodied their discoveries with the design apparently of avoiding the risk that, while they were engaged in further verification, the credit of what they had found out might be claimed by others. Thus Galileo announced his discovery that Venus had phases like the Moon in the form "Haec immatura a me iam frustra leguntur -oy" (Latin: These immature ones have already been read in vain by me -oy), that is, when rearranged, "Cynthiae figuras aemulatur Mater Amorum" (Latin: The Mother of Loves [= Venus] imitates the figures of Cynthia [= the moon]). Similarly, when Robert Hooke discovered Hooke's law in 1660, he first published it in anagram form. One might think of this as a primitive example of a zero-knowledge proof.

There are also a few "natural" anagrams, English words unconsciously created by switching letters around. The French chaise longue ("long chair") became the American "chaise lounge" by metathesis (transposition of letters and/or sounds). It has also been speculated that the English "curd" comes from the Latin crudus ("raw").

[edit] Methods

Before the Computer Age, anagrams were constructed using a pen and paper or lettered tiles, by playing with letter combinations and experimenting with variations. (Some individuals with prodigious talent have also been known to ‘see’ anagrams in words, unaided by tools.)

Computers have enabled a new method of creating anagrams, the anagram server, anagram solver or anagrammer. These are often used to find solutions for crosswords, Scrabble, Boggle and other word games. A large number of these are available on the Internet. When the anagrammist enters a word or phrase the program or server utilizes an exhaustive database of words to produce a list containing every possible combination of words or phrases from the input word or phrase. Some programs such as Lexpert (used for Scrabble) only allow one-word answers. Many anagram servers can control the search results, by excluding or including certain words, limiting the number or length of words in each anagram, or limiting the number of results. Anagram solvers are often banned from online anagram games, such as Yahoo! Literati where they can be used for an unfair advantage, in some cases allowing a player to never miss a single word.

Anagram solvers do not have to use English. Any language can be used, particularly those which use the Roman alphabet. Anagrammers can even find solutions in multiple languages at the same time. Anagrammers may have other related functions, such as fitting the letters into a certain sequence. If while doing a crossword the reader knows he has a seven letter word in the form Z?R??N? (the question marks represent a blank square) then an anagram solver can tell us all the words that fit this pattern, for example zeroing and zircons.

When sharing their newly discovered anagrams with other enthusiasts, some anagrammists indicate the method they used. Anagrams constructed without aid of a computer are noted as having been done ‘manually’ or ‘by hand’; those made by utilizing a computer may be noted ‘by machine’ or ‘by computer’, or may indicate the name of the computer program (using ‘Anagram Genius’).

Some internet examples are

Janagram (finds anagrams as you type)
Anagram Logic Anagram Finder (find anagrams by choosing interesting words)
Internet Anagram Server (generate a list of anagrams) - its name being an anagram of "I, rearrangement servant".
Anagram Genius (generate a single anagram, or get a free trial of the Anagram Genius software)
Arrak Anagrams (generate a list of anagrams)
Andy's anagram solver
Lexpert

There is also software to download and run locally, such as

Fourmilab Anagram Finder (free command line program available as source code or Win32 executable)
Anagram Artist (free windows program)

[edit] Crosswords

Cryptic crossword puzzles frequently use anagrammatic clues, usually indicating that they are anagrams by the inclusion of a word like "confused" or "in disarray". An example would be Businessman burst into tears (9 letters); the solution, Stationer is an anagram of into tears, the letters of which have burst out of their original arrangement to form the name of a type of businessman.

What is the most anagrammable name on record? There must be few names as deliciously workable as that of "Augustus de Morgan" who tells that a friend had constructed about 800 on his name (specimens of which are given in his Budget of Paradoxes, p. 82)!

[edit] Games and puzzles

Anagrams are in themselves a recreational activity, but also make up part of many other games, puzzles and game shows.

In Scrabble, the players must make words by placing lettered tiles on a grid to score points in an effort to have scored more points than the opponent at the end of the game. A version of Scrabble called Clabbers, the name itself being an anagram of Scrabble, allows for tiles to be placed in any order on the board as long as they anagram to a valid word.

In Boggle, players make words from a grid of sixteen random letters by joining adjacent cubes to make valid words.

On the British game show Countdown contestants are given 30 seconds to make the longest word from nine random letters. One point is awarded per letter of the word, or 18 points for using all nine letters.

On the British game show BrainTeaser, contestants are shown word broken into randomly arranged segments and must announce the whole word. At the end of the game there is a "Pyramid" which starts with a three-letter word. A letter appears in the line below to which the player must add the existing letters to find a solution. The pattern continues until the player reaches the final eight-letter anagram. The player wins the game by solving all the anagrams within the allotted time.