Anagrams

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 ''binary'' into ''brainy'' and the word ''adobe'' into ''abode''.

The original word or phrase is known as the ''subject'' of the anagram. Any word or phrase that exactly reproduces the letters in another order is an anagram. Someone who creates anagrams may be called an "anagrammatist", and the goal of a serious or skilled anagrammatist is to produce anagrams that reflect or comment on their subject.

Examples

Anagrams may be created as a commentary on the subject. They may be a parody, a criticism or satire. For example:
* "New York Times" = " monkeys write"
* " Church of Scientology" = "rich-chosen goofy cult"
* "McDonald's restaurants" = " Uncle Sam's standard rot"
* " coronavirus" = " carnivorous"
* "She Sells Sanctuary" = "Santa; shy, less cruel" or " Satan; cruel, less shy"

An anagram may also be a synonym of the original word. For example:
* "evil" = "vile"
* "a gentleman" = "elegant man"
* "eleven plus two" = "twelve plus one"

An anagram that has a meaning opposed to that of the original word or phrase is called an "antigram". For example:
* "restful" = "fluster"
* "cheater" = "teacher"
* " funeral" = "real fun"
* "adultery" = "true lady"
* "forty five" = "over fifty"
* "Santa" = " Satan"

They can sometimes change from a proper noun or personal name into an appropriate sentence:
* "William Shakespeare" = "I am a weakish speller"
* " Madam Curie" = "Radium came"
* "Ronald Wilson Reagan" = "Insane anglo warlord"
* " George Bush" = "He bugs Gore"
* "Tom Marvolo Riddle" = "I am Lord Voldemort"

They can change part of speech, such as the adjective "silent" to the verb "listen".

"Anagrams" itself can be anagrammatized as ''"Ars magna"'' (Latin, 'the great art').

History

Anagrams can be traced back to the time of the ancient Greeks, and were used to find the hidden and mystical meaning in names.
They were popular throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, for example with the poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut. They are said to date back at least to the Greek poet Lycophron, in the third century BCE; but this relies on an account of Lycophron given by John Tzetzes in the 12th century.

In the Talmudic and Midrashic literature, anagrams were used to interpret the Hebrew Bible. Later, Kabbalists took this up with enthusiasm, calling anagrams ''temurah''.

Anagrams in Latin were considered witty over many centuries. ''Est vir qui adest'', explained below, was cited as the example in Samuel Johnson's '' A Dictionary of the English Language''. They became hugely popular in the early modern period, especially in Germany.

Any historical material on anagrams must always be interpreted in terms of the assumptions and spellings that were current for the language in question. In particular, spelling in English only slowly became fixed. There were attempts to regulate anagram formation, an important one in English being that of George Puttenham's ''Of the Anagram or Posy Transposed'' in ''The Art of English Poesie'' (1589).

Influence of Latin

As a literary game when Latin was the common property of the literate, Latin anagrams were prominent. Two examples are the change of ''Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum'' (Latin: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord swith you) into ''Virgo serena, pia, munda et immaculata'' (Latin: Serene virgin, pious, clean and spotless), and the anagrammatic answer to Pilate's question, ''Quid est veritas?'' (Latin: What is truth?), namely, ''Est vir qui adest'' (Latin: It is the man who is here). The origins of these are not documented.

Latin continued to influence letter values (such as I = J, U = V and W = VV). There was an ongoing tradition of allowing anagrams to be "perfect" if the letters were all used once, but allowing for these interchanges. This can be seen in a popular Latin anagram against the Jesuits: ''Societas Jesu'' turned into ''Vitiosa seces'' (Latin: Cut off the wicked things). Puttenham, in the time of Elizabeth I, wished to start from ''Elissabet Anglorum Regina'' (Latin: Elizabeth Queen of the English), to obtain ''Multa regnabis ense gloria'' (Latin: By thy sword shalt thou reign in great renown); he explains carefully that H is "a note of aspiration only and no letter", and that Z in Greek or Hebrew is a mere SS. The rules were not completely fixed in the 17th century. William Camden in his ''Remains'' commented, singling out some letters— Æ, K, W, and Z—not found in the classical Roman alphabet:

Early modern period

When it comes to the 17th century and anagrams in English or other languages, there is a great deal of documented evidence of learned interest. The lawyer Thomas Egerton was praised through the anagram ''gestat honorem'' ('he carries honor'); the physician George Ent took the anagrammatic motto ''genio surget'' ('he rises through spirit/genius'), which requires his first name as ''Georgius''. 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). Walter Quin, tutor to the future Charles I, worked hard on multilingual anagrams on the name of father James. A notorious murder scandal, the Overbury case, threw up two imperfect anagrams that were aided by typically loose spelling and were recorded by Simonds D'Ewes: "Francis Howard" (for Frances Carr, Countess of Somerset, her maiden name spelled in a variant) became "Car findes a whore", with the letters E hardly counted, and the victim Thomas Overbury, as "Thomas Overburie", was written as "O! O! a busie murther" (an old form of "murder"), with a V counted as U.

William Drummond of Hawthornden, in an essay ''On the Character of a Perfect Anagram'', tried to lay down rules for permissible substitutions (such as S standing for Z) and letter omissions. William Camden provided a definition of "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 appliable (i.e., applicable) to the person named." Dryden in ''MacFlecknoe'' disdainfully called the pastime the "torturing of one poor word ten thousand ways".

"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 Sir John Lambe, the dean of the Arches, "Dame Eleanor Davies", "Never soe mad a ladie".

An example from France was a flattering anagram for Cardinal Richelieu, comparing him to Hercules or at least one of his hands (Hercules being a kingly symbol), where ''Armand de Richelieu'' became ''Ardue main d'Hercule'' ("difficult hand of Hercules").

Modern period

Examples from the 19th century are 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". The Victorian love of anagramming as recreation is alluded to by the mathematician Augustus De Morgan using his own name as an example; "Great Gun, do us a sum!" is attributed to his son William De Morgan, but a family friend John Thomas Graves was prolific, and a manuscript with over 2,800 has been preserved.

With the advent of surrealism as a poetic movement, anagrams regained the artistic respect they had had in the Baroque period. The German poet Unica Zürn, who made extensive use of anagram techniques, came to regard obsession with anagrams as a "dangerous fever", because it created isolation of the author. The surrealist leader André Breton coined the anagram ''Avida Dollars'' for Salvador Dalí, to tarnish his reputation by the implication of commercialism.

Applications

While anagramming is certainly a recreation first, there are ways in which anagrams are put to use, and these can be more serious, or at least not quite frivolous and formless. For example, psychologists use anagram-oriented tests, often called "anagram solution tasks", to assess the implicit memory of young adults and adults alike.Java, Rosalind I. "Priming and Aging: Evidence of Preserved Memory Function in an Anagram Solution Task." ''The American Journal of Psychology'', Vol. 105, No. 4. (Winter, 1992), pp. 541–548.

Establishment of priority

Natural philosophers (astronomers and others) of the 17th century transposed their discoveries into Latin anagrams, to establish their priority. In this way they laid claim to new discoveries before their results were ready for publication.

Galileo used ' for ' (Latin: I have observed the most distant planet to have a triple form) for discovering the rings of Saturn in 1610. Galileo announced his discovery that Venus had phases like the Moon in the form ' (Latin: These immature ones have already been read in vain by me -oy), that is, when rearranged, ' (Latin: The Mother of Loves Venusimitates the figures of Cynthia the moon. In both cases, Johannes Kepler had solved the anagrams incorrectly, assuming they were talking about the Moons of Mars (') and a red spot on Jupiter ('), respectively. By coincidence, he turned out to be right about the actual objects existing.

In 1656, Christiaan Huygens, using a better telescope than those available to Galileo, figured that Galileo's earlier observations of Saturn actually meant it had a ring (Galileo's tools were only sufficient to see it as bumps) and, like Galileo, had published an anagram, '. Upon confirming his observations, three years later he revealed it to mean ' (Latin: It aturnis surrounded by a thin, flat, ring, nowhere touching, inclined to the ecliptic).

When Robert Hooke discovered Hooke's law in 1660, he first published it in anagram form, ', for ' (Latin: as the extension, so the force).

In a related use, from 1975, British naturalist Sir Peter Scott coined the scientific term ' (Greek: The monster (or wonder) of Ness with the diamond-shaped fin) for the apocryphal Loch Ness Monster. Shortly afterwards, several London newspapers pointed out that ' anagrams into ''Monster hoax by Sir Peter S''. However, Robert Rines, who previously made two underwater photographs allegedly showing the monster, countered that they can also be arranged into ''Yes, both pix are monsters, R''.

Pseudonyms

Anagrams are connected to pseudonyms, by the fact that they may conceal or reveal, or operate somewhere in between like a mask that can establish identity. For example, Jim Morrison used an anagram of his name in the Doors song " L.A. Woman", calling himself "Mr. Mojo Risin'". The use of anagrams and fabricated personal names may be to circumvent restrictions on the use of real names, as happened in the 18th century when Edward Cave wanted to get around restrictions imposed on the reporting of the House of Commons. In a genre such as farce or parody, anagrams as names may be used for pointed and satiric effect.

Pseudonyms adopted by authors are sometimes transposed forms of their names; thus " Calvinus" becomes "Alcuinus" (here V = U) or " François Rabelais" = "Alcofribas Nasier". The name "Voltaire" of François Marie Arouet fits this pattern, and is allowed to be an anagram of "Arouet, l j une (U = V, J = I) that is, "Arouet the younger". Other examples include:
* " Damon Albarn" = "Dan Abnormal"
* " Dave Barry" = "Ray Adverb"
* "Arrigo Boito" = "Tobia Gorrio"
* "Buckethead" = "Death Cube K"
* "Daniel Clowes" = " Enid Coleslaw"
* "Siobhán Donaghy" = "Shanghai Nobody"
* "Glen Duncan" = "Declan Gunn"
* " (Theodor) Geisel" = "(Theo) Le Sieg"
* "Edward Gorey" = "Ogdred Weary", = "Regera Dowdy" or = "E. G. Deadworry" (and others)
* " Anna Madrigal" = "A man and a girl"
* " Ted Morgan" = "(Sanche) de Gramont"
* " Lorin Morgan-Richards" = "Marcil d'Hirson Garron"
* "Vladimir Nabokov" = "Vivian Darkbloom", = "Vivian Bloodmark", = "Blavdak Vinomori", or = "Dorian Vivalkomb"

Several of these are "imperfect anagrams", letters having been left out in some cases for the sake of easy pronunciation.

Titles

Anagrams used for titles afford scope for some types of wit. Examples:
* Homer Hickam Jr.'s book '' Rocket Boys'' was adapted into the 1999 film ''October Sky''.
* The tapes for the revival of the BBC
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