What are Anagrams ?
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Anagrams are the rearrangement of the letters in a word or
phrase using each letter once and once only and using all
the letters available.
The resultant anagram is either or word or phrase that, hopefully,
makes some sort of sense in the context in which the original
word or phrase and the anagram is viewed.
There are other types of anagrams as well:
- pairagrams - two words, which are anagrams of each
other, make up a two word phrase;
- trianagrams - three mutually anagrammed words make
up a phrase;
- antigrams - the resultant anagram has a meaning
opposite to the original word or phrase;
- pangrams - anagrams made up of all the letters
of the alphabet used once each.
See the alt.anagrams
FAQ and The Anagrammy
Awards pages for a lot more information on anagrams in
general.
A quick dip into the newsgroup alt.anagrams, or the
Anagrammy Awards
Forum, is well worth the time to see some of the real
experts at play.
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Warning!
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Rude or crude anagrams will be behind a warning link from
the main page. This may or may not be the case on other anagram
sites.
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Why Anagrams ?
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As I have been a part time cryptic crossword compiler for
a number of years, I've always had an interest in anagrams
as they are part and parcel of the many variety of devices
used to create a sensible cryptic crossword.
However, there is a vital but subtle difference between the
anagrams destined for a crossword and those which make sense
as "stand-alone" anagrams. These will be explored
further under thoughts.
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By hand or using a program ?
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In a word: both!
Personally, for the short words and phrases, I tend to do
fiddling with the letters by hand using either pencil and
paper or scrabble tiles before resorting to digital help.
However, I tend to do mainly long anagrams (see my spam
pages) where access to word lists is invaluable for helping
to sort out words and phrases. The program I use most is Anagram
Artist which is mainly an anagram checker and word list
generator though I also use Anagram
Genius.
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Conventions
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You will find, on these pages and in alt.anagrams that the
= (equals) sign is normally used to distinguish between
the original and the anagram, but a ~ (tilde) is used
where the anagram of the original makes a whole sentence.
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