Anagram

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For the game, see Anagrams.
Illustration of an anagram by George Herbert

An anagram (< Greek anagramma 'letters written anew', passive participle of ana- 'again' + gramma 'letter') 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; e.g., Silver-haired congenial scum = Louise is clever and charming, or Abnormal intellect = Malcontent liberal. Someone who creates anagrams is called an anagrammist. The original word or phrase is known as the subject of the anagram. Technically, any word or phrase which exactly reproduces the letters in another is an anagram; e.g., saltine = entails. However, the goal of serious or skilled anagrammists is to produce anagrams which, in some way, reflect or comment on the subject. Such an anagram may be a synonym or antonym of its subject, a parody, a criticism, or praise. Another goal of anagrammists is to produce an anagram which is not only new, or previously unknown to others (this is known as "discovering" an anagram), but also one that is considered clever enough that it becomes widely known and enters the canon of famous or classic anagrams, like the examples below.

History

The construction of anagrams is an amusement of great antiquity. They were popular throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, although it is widely believed the art of anagramming was invented by the Greek poet Lycophron.

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" (Serene 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".

Pseudonyms

The pseudonyms adopted by authors are sometimes 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", = "Regera Dowdy" or = "E. G. Deadworry" (and others); "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.

For his book Mu Revealed, a spoof on the works of James Churchward, occult writer Raymond Buckland used the pseudonym "Tony Earll", an anagram for "Not Really".[1]

"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.

Examples

Some of the following anagrams are from a jokes page on the GNU General Public License website. The Harry Potter ones are from Mugglenet.com The I am that is anagram comes from the novel Redwall by Brian Jacques.

Original word or phrase (or subject) Anagram
Doctor Who Torchwood
Gregory House
Eric Foreman
Allison Cameron
Robert Chase 		Huge Ego, Sorry
Ace Informer
Nonsocial Lamer
Case Brother
Dormitory Dirty Room
Evangelist Evil's agent
The Morse Code Here Come Dots
Slot Machines Cash Lost in 'em
Animosity Is No Amity
Mother-in-law Woman Hitler
Snooze Alarms Alas! No More Z's
Alec Guinness Genuine Class
Semolina Is No Meal
The Public Art Galleries Large Picture Halls, I Bet
The Earthquakes That Queer Shake
Eleven plus two Twelve plus one
Contradiction Accord not in it
Astronomer Moon Starer
Princess Diana End is a car spin
Year Two Thousand A year to shut down
Presbyterian Best in prayer
Presbyterians Britney Spears
Nessiteras rhombopteryx Monster hoax by Sir Peter S"
The eyes They see
George Bush He bugs Gore
Election results Lies - let's recount
"To be or not to be: that is the question, whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." "In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten."
"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." --Neil Armstrong "A thin man ran; makes a large stride, left planet, pins flag on moon! On to Mars!"
President Clinton of the USA To copulate he finds interns
Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky A C.I.A. mink and wild, sloppy intern
Mike Newell's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Enthralling film, yet we prefer to read the books!
Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson Cue fine new film drama starring Potter lad
The children's author JK Rowling hint: her skill conjured Hogwart!
The Germans soldiers Hitler's men are dogs
I am that is I Matthias
Clint Eastwood Old West action
Astronomers No more stars
Astronomers Morons stare
Astronomers A moron rests
Vala Mal Doran Amoral Vandal
Atheism It has me
"Godless: The Church of Liberalism" O, hell: Coulter's highbred fascism
"The Dark Tower" A word: the trek

E Pluribus Unum = Sum Lure U In Pub Spiro Agnew= Grow a Penis

Annuit Coeptis, Novus Ordo Seclorum = A Cut In On U.S. Providence! So, Lust Room!

Music

Anagrams have also shown up in music.

  • RIck Alexander's hit in 2002, "SANTA IS AN ANAGRAM FOR SATAN", became a very popular comedic example of anagrams.
  • 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 used the name Dan Abnormal for his contributions to Elastica's debut album and 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.
  • Guns N' Roses lead singer Axl Rose's stage name is an anagram of "oral sex".
  • The new wave band Devo has performed as a mock Christian pop group named "Dove".
  • 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.
  • On Brian Eno's album Before and After Science, there is a song entitled "King's Lead Hat", an anagram of "Talking Heads", a band Eno has worked with. The album's title anagrams into "Arcane Benefits of Creed", and Brian Eno's own name anagrams into "One Brain".
  • The music artist Imogen Heap released an album called "iMegaphone"
  • MF DOOM released the 2004 album, "MM..Food?"
  • Anne Clark released the 1993 album "THE LAW is an anagram of WEALTH"
  • French singer/songwriter Pascal Obispo's name is an anagram of the painter Pablo Picasso.
  • The track "Fat Hell" on Adult Net's 12" single "Incense And Peppermints" is played by The Fall.
  • Vibracathedral Orchestra released an album called Versatile Arab Chord Chart.

Literature

Summary anagrams

Another genre of anagramming is that which deals with using anagrams of quoted literature in order to convey the essence of the work itself. This style is commonly referred to as summary anagramming and is a favorite genre of noted contemporary anagrammatists such as Simon Woodard. Below is an example of one of Woodard's polished summary anagrams, on Homer's Odyssey:

"Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns, driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy." -Homer's Odyssey
=
Hurrying home to his wife, Odysseus shoved off, fled the sea god's wrath, endured many moments of mistreatment, then landed on southern Ithaca...a long epic![2]

Astronomy

One 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").

Notable anagrams

  • In 1975, British naturalist Sir Peter Scott coined the scientific term "Nessiteras rhombopteryx" (Greek for "The monster {or wonder} of Ness with the diamond shaped fin") for the aprocryphical Loch Ness Monster. Shortly afterwards, several London newspapers pointed out that "Nessiteras rhombopteryx" anagrams into "Monster hoax by Sir Peter S".[3]
  • The related words "parental", "prenatal", and "paternal" are all anagrams of one another.
  • "Eleven plus two" is an anagram of "Twelve plus one", and they have the same sums.
  • The antonyms "united" and "untied" are anagrams of each other.
  • Teachers often use the fact that Listen is an anagram of Silent when encouraging their students to listen quietly.

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.) Anagram dictionaries could also be used to create anagrams.

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’).

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)

Anagrammy Awards

Anagrammy, a non-commercial web site run by anagram aficionados, hosts a monthly competition for various categories of original anagrams, including peoples' names, current events, long anagrams, and rude anagrams. Participants are free to post their original anagrams throughout the month on the Anagrammy forum, and nominate those deemed worthy for an Anagrammy award. Voting is usually held during the first week of each month. An annual Grand Anagrammy voting contest is also hosted for all winning Anagrams. The web site also includes practical information on anagramming techniques, and a database of famous and winning anagrams.

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 a 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.
  • The Jumble is a puzzle found in many newspapers in the United States requiring the unscrambling of letters to find the solution.

See also

Look up anagram in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

External links

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