A letter bank is a relative of the
anagram
An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word ''anagram'' itself can be rearranged into ''nag a ram'', also the word ...
where all the letters of one word (the "bank") can be used as many times as desired (minimum of once each) to make a new word or phrase. For example, IMPS is a bank of MISSISSIPPI and SPROUT is a bank of
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS.
The term was coined by
Will Shortz at the 1980 convention of the
National Puzzlers League The National Puzzlers' League (NPL) is a nonprofit organization focused on puzzling, primarily in the realm of word play and word games. Founded in 1883, it is the oldest puzzlers' organization in the world. It originally hosted semiannual conventi ...
. This puzzle type is the basis for the word game ''
Alpha Blitz
Mike Selinker is an American game designer, puzzle maker, and the founder and president of Lone Shark Games.
Credits
Selinker's design credits include ''Pirates of the Spanish Main'' and ''Fightball'' with James Ernest, '' Axis & Allies Revised ...
''.
An imperfect anagram letter bank algorithm can be used to correct spelling mistakes, overcome transposition, dyslexic errors and double letter errors. Combined with other algorithms such as
soundex
Soundex is a phonetic algorithm for indexing names by sound, as pronounced in English. The goal is for homophones to be encoded to the same representation so that they can be matched despite minor differences in spelling. The algorithm mainly enc ...
,
metaphone, and
Levenshtein distance, it could make a very powerful "
did you mean?
Dissociative identity disorder (DID), better known as multiple personality disorder or multiple personality syndrome, is a mental disorder characterized by the presence of at least two distinct and relatively enduring personality states.
The di ...
" response to
search engine
A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
queries.
Word puzzles
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