An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word anagram itself can be rearranged into the phrase "nag a ram"; which is an Easter egg suggestion in Google after searching for the word "anagram".
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",Anagrammatist, Dictionary.com. Retrieved on 12 August 2008. 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"
An anagram may also be a synonym of the original word or phrase. For example: "evil" = "vile" "a gentleman" = "elegant man" "silent" = "listen" "eleven plus two" = "twelve plus one" "angered" = "enraged" "the eyes" = "they see"
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" "George Bush" = "He bugs Gore" "Tom Marvolo Riddle" = "I am Lord Voldemort" "Jim Morrison" = "Mr Mojo Risin" "The Morse code" = "Here come dots" "Alec Guinness" = "Genuine Class" "John Gielgud" = "Jiggle Hound"
"Anagrams" itself can be anagrammatized as "Ars magna" (Latin, 'the great art'). [Original article's link to video is dead, but link in archived article works.]
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.Of Anagrams, By H.B. Wheatley pg. 72, printed 1862 T. & W. Boone, New Bond Street, London They were popular throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, for example with the poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut.Guillaume de Machaut, "Here of a Sunday Morning", WBAI 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, notably by Eleazar of Modi'im. Later, Kabbalists took this up with enthusiasm, calling anagrams temurah.Isaac Broydé, "Anagram " in Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906 full text
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 [is] with 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:Cited in Henry Benjamin Wheatley, Of anagrams: a monograph treating of their history (1862); online text.
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.Henry Benjamin Wheatley, On Anagrams (1862), p. 58. William CamdenRemains, 7th ed., 1674. 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".Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame In keen iambics, but mild anagram: Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command Some peaceful province in acrostic land. There thou may'st wings display and altars raise, And torture 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".Oxford Book of Word GamesHugh Trevor-Roper, Archbishop Laud (2000), p. 146.
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").H. W. van Helsdingen, Notes on Two Sheets of Sketches by Nicolas Poussin for the Long Gallery of the Louvre, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 5, No. 3/4 (1971), pp. 172–184.
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 MorganIn his A Budget of Paradoxes, p. 82. 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.Robert Edoward Moritz, On Mathematics and Mathematicians (2007), p. 151.Anna Stirling, William De Morgan and His Wife (1922) p. 64.
In the novel Iracema, published by Brazilian novelist José de Alencar in 1865, the titular character is a Native Brazilian woman whose name is an anagram of "America", which in Portuguese can also refer to the Americas as a continent.
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.Friederike Ursula Eigler, Susanne Kord, The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature (1997), pp. 14–5. The surrealist leader André Breton coined the anagram Avida Dollars for Salvador Dalí, to tarnish his reputation by the implication of commercialism.
Anagrams are also known to be intentionally used as names for music acts, as acknowledged by musicians or their managers. According to American pop rock band Imagine Dragons, their name is an anagram for a phrase only known to members of the group, which lead vocalist and founding member Dan Reynolds stated each member approved of. One of the possible anagrams of their band's name is "Ragged Insomnia", which is the name of their recording studio in Las Vegas."Imagine Dragons: The Billboard Cover Story" . Billboard, December 7, 2013 by Ray Waddell The name of South Korean girl group Le Sserafim is an anagram of the phrase "I'm fearless". This practice is also done by solo musicians, such as American singer Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, known professionally as Halsey, which is an anagram of her first name.
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 [= Venus] imitates 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.