Anagram

“ It is conceited and fantastical: so are they. It seems to be what it is not: so do they. Its very essence is transposition, involution; what one might call a sort of Jump-Jim-Crow-ism: and so is theirs. Hence the partiality which they have always shown for the anagram: their Rebuses, Almanacs, Annuaires, and collections of trifles are full of them. One-half of the disguises adopted by their anonymous writers are in the shape of anagrams, formed from their names; and one of them has gone the length of composing and publishing a poem of 1200 lines, every line of which contains an anagram. ”

“ Has the anagram become altogether extinct, or is it only awaiting the advent of some competent genius to restore it to its proper rank in the republic of letters?
To me it is clear that the real cause of the prevailing dearth of anagrams is the great difficulty of producing good ones. Good anagrams are, to say the least of it, quite as scarce as good epic poems ”

“ Each word or group of words in italics forms, when the letters are shuffled and recast as an anagram, a military title. Can you decipher them?
Solution
[145]
178. A CHARADE
My first transposed becomes a name
Which may quite mean be reckoned,
Two syllables combine the same,
With one or two for second.
My whole when fields are fresh and green,
And softly blows the wind,
Where the first signs of spring are seen
Within the woods we find.
Solution
179. AN ANAGRAM ENIGMA
Silent long is the wood-bird’s song,
Bare is the woodland bough ”

“ This is indeed a literary amusement which will extend the intellect and quicken the thinking powers of all ingenious riddlers who seek to excel in this mental pastime. In past ages it engaged the attention of statesmen and divines, and many wise and witty persons have devoted their leisure hours to this exercise of ingenuity.
The term anagram, in its proper sense, means the letters of one or several words written backwards, being derived from two Greek words "ana" (backwards) and "gramma" (letter) . Thus the word live would form its anagram—evil ”

“ Some critics are of opinion that we do possess six good epic poems. Now, where shall we find six good anagrams? If they exist, let them be exhibited in the pages of "NOTES AND QUERIES."
Indeed, it may be said that the anagram and the epic poem are the alpha and omega of literature. I am aware that by thus placing them in juxtaposition the contrast may have the effect of disparaging the anagram. The epic poem will naturally enough suggest the idea of the sublime, and the anagram, as naturally, that of the ridiculous: and then it will be said that between the two there is but a step. ”

“ Our young friends must not be discouraged at their first attempts in forming anagrams—their anagrams may have little merit, crude efforts seldom have much to recommend them—but perseverance here, as elsewhere, will be rewarded. The true merit of an anagram springs from an apt association of ideas, and a close relation between the transposed words and the original from which they are derived. ”

“ Whether the above origin be theoretical or not, the anagram can be [Pg 190] traced to the age of Lycophron, a Greek writer, who flourished about 300 B.C.
Among the moderns, the French have most cultivated the anagram. Camden says: “They exceedingly admire the anagram, for the deep and far-fetched antiquity and mystical meaning therein. In the reign of Francis the First (when learning began to revive) , they began to distil their wits therein.” There is a curious anecdote of an anagrammatist who presented a king of France with the two following upon his name of Bourbon ”

“ The above will give you all an idea of how an anagram should be made. All are excellent specimens of American work—in fact, I am certain no better were ever composed. The puzzle column in this paper, I am sure, would publish some anagrams if my young readers will take the trouble to try and make them. ”

“ A happy anagram on a person's name might have a moral effect on the feelings: as there is reason to believe, that certain celebrated names have had some influence on the personal character. When one Martha Nicholson was found out to be Soon calm in Heart, the anagram, in becoming familiar to her, might afford an opportune admonition. ”

“ Solution
184. PROVERB ANAGRAM
Here is another proverb in anagram:—
Behest on thy lips, Society!
Can you recast it, and so recover the proverb, with which it is quite in keeping?
Solution
185. WHAT’S IN A NAME?
An epidemic of anagrams broke out in a public school, and eight of the prefects, having turned their Christian names into other words, fashioned from them this sentence, which contains them all in order.
“I, thy Tom, am sober and lie or live in dew, but her brain sinned.”
Can you decipher them?
Solution
186. AN ENIGMA
In any coward’s company you find
That I have place. ”

“ Properly to enjoy this amusement, it is necessary to be provided with a box of letters, from which may be selected those forming the anagram. Place the letters on a book or table, and continue to transpose them until the original word is discovered. A whole room full of people may be entertained in this manner. ”

“ In the small hours all his painful meditations were threaded by the vision of that Anagram Tea; it kept marching to and fro and in and out of all his other troubles, from thirty to sixty people, mostly ladies and callers, and a great number of the letters of the alphabet, and more particularly P. I. K. P. S. and T. O. E. C. O., and he was trying to make one word out of the whole interminable procession. . . . ”

“ Few readers require to be told that anagrams and acrostics were formerly one of the most fashionable species of composition. Lovelace here pictures a poetaster "stewing" his brains with a poem of this description, which of course demanded a certain amount of tedious and minute attention to the arrangement of the name of the individual to whom the anagram or acrostic was to be addressed, and this was especially the case, where the writer contemplated a DOUBLE acrostic. ”

“ Solution
[22]
No. XXII.—EVOLVING A PAINTER
There are two English words which are appropriate to this picture—
One of them has as its anagram the very apposite sentence, “Or not a man first;” the other treated in similar fashion becomes, “O I love nuts!” What are the two words?
Solution
14. DOUBLETS
Who can turn WHEAT into BREAD with six links, changing one letter each time, and preserving the general order of the letters throughout?
Solution
[23]
No. XXIII.—THE PICK OF THE PACK
How can we decide by anagram whether this is a fancy portrait of “William or dear Jack?” ”

“ Camden, in a chapter in his Remains, on this frivolous and now almost obsolete intellectual exercise, defines Anagrams to 50be a dissolution of a name into its letters, as its elements; and a new connection into words is formed by their transposition, if possible, without addition, subtraction, or change of the letters: and the words should make a sentence applicable to the person or thing named. The anagram is complimentary or satirical; it may contain some allusion to an event, or describe some personal characteristic. Thus, Sir Thomas Wiat bore his own designation in his name:—
Wiat—A Wit. ”

“ Solution
242. A TANGLED SQUARE
Can you readjust the 16 letters in this square so that they form a perfect word square?
Image
Solution
243. RIVERS IN ANAGRAM
What European rivers are concealed in these eight anagrams:—Set in red robe Henri Le Roi O sell me red pine nerves biter.
Solution
244. A PIED PALINDROME
Rearrange these letters so that they form a palindrome, or sentence that reads alike from either end:—
F PPPP RRRR SSSS TT
EEEEII OOOO
Solution
[160]
245
What political parrot cry can be evolved by anagram from this sentence, which condemns it?
O fool! O musty cry! O lurid woe! ”

“ Hoping the editor, who must be accustomed, from the variety of his contributions, to (8) stand queer noise, will excuse this trifling, I beg to subscribe myself,
(9) DAN. STONE, ESQUIRE.
As some of your readers feel an interest in anagrams, I venture to make an additional contribution. Polemics apart, it will strike most persons as remarkably happy:
"But, holie father, I am certifyed
That they youre power and policye deride;
And how of you they make an anagram,
The best and bitterest that the wits could frame. ”

“ The moderns have given unequivocal proofs of their fecundity in the same line, and the anagrammatic labours of the French nation alone would form several volumes. Indeed, to that nation belongs the honour of having introduced the anagram; and such is the estimation in which "the art" was held by them at one time, that their kings were provided with a salaried Anagrammatist, as ours are with a pensioned Laureate. How comes it then that a species of composition, once so popular, has found no representative among the many learned correspondents of your popular periodical? ”

“ Here is the picture of a parsnip lying across a swede readjusted and reversed.
We gave as a clue the anagram—
“Here is our parsnip on swede.”
ANAGRAM
Wise and superior person he!
but this is now hardly needed to show who is thus represented in friendly caricature: (With apologies to G. B. S.)
Return to description
[227]
No. XXXII
The letter puzzle is solved thus—
Image
Within this square the word LEVEL runs in twelve different directions, being itself a palindrome. ”

“ When the anagrammatist takes a name to work upon, he considers it at first as a mine not broken up, which will not show the treasure it contains till he shall have spent many hours in the search of it; for it is his business to find out one word that conceals itself in another, and to examine the letters in all the variety of stations in which they can possibly be ranged. ”

“ A sentence in which each letter of the alphabet is used exactly twice:
“XLV gruff nymphs jerk XLV jaws,” quoth wag B. Dick, Q.C., to Ben Dizzy, M.P.
44. THE MISSING LINK
If anagrams count, our “ancestor” was not a monkey but a Norse cat!
45. A STRIKING ANAGRAM
The name of Randle Holmes, author of a notable book on heraldry, was so recast that it formed the words: “Lo, men’s herald!”
46. A CURIOUS PALINDROME Dog as a devil deified lived as a god.
47. AFTER THE EVENT
An Anagram. ”

“ It lures a cat.
Solution
225. AN ENIGMA
Without my head I circulate
With speed and inclination;
Without my tail, at any rate,
I still have circulation.
Transpose three letters, in unbroken state,
I then receive the ashes of the great.
Solution
[155]
226. ANSWER BY ANAGRAM
Many will remember how often the great tenor, Sims Reeves, was prevented from singing by his delicate throat. An excellent anagram can be evolved from his name which, with some exaggeration, proclaims this. Can you discover it?
Solution
227. MISSING WORDS
Consuming lust for ....., now so rife,
Like ..... ..... ”

“ Is it common in monkish Latin?
C. FORBES.
Temple.
Anagrams (Vol. iv., pp. 226. 297.) .
—MR. BREEN put another Query besides "Where shall we find six good anagrams?" He asked, "How comes it that a species of composition once so popular should have become extinct?"
Let me venture to refer MR. BREEN to The Spectator for an answer to this inquiry; where, in Addison's brilliant papers on "False Wit" (Nos. 58. &c.) , he will find the whole family of ingenious quibblings,—anagrams, acrostics, chronograms, puns, bouts-rimes, &c.,—mown down to their just level. ”

“ The vowels were represented by English letters, by the various points, and by algebraic symbols. An expert would probably decipher nine tenths of these memoranda at a glance, but here and there the words symbolised are themselves anagrams of Greek, Latin, and German words, and, in a few instances, the clue is hard to seek. ”

“ The Old English long vowels have shifted their phonetic values with such uniform regularity that it is possible in almost every case to infer the Modern English sound; but our spelling is so chaotic that while the student may infer the modern sound, he cannot always infer the modern symbol representing the sound.
(2) Analogy. 24.
But more important than vowel shifting is the great law of Analogy, for Analogy shapes not only words but constructions. It belongs, therefore, to 24 Etymology and to Syntax, since it influences both form and function. ”

“ To those who observe well, it will from this order alone, appear, that I have divided this whole Alphabet into Vowels, Semi-vowels, and Consonants. The Vowels are a Voice or Sound modified by a various opening of the Mouth only, and are either Simple, or Uniform, as a. e. i. j. y. o. u. w. Or else they are mixt, which out of two, do so melt down into one, as that they are pronounced together, and are different from Diphthongs, in as much as their Vowels are successively pronounced: Now these mixt Vowels, are ä. ö. ü. which some Nations either have not at all, or else do write them evilly ”

“ The earliest, nearest approach to a pure alphabet, was an alphabet of consonants.
The Semitic languages differ from all other idioms in structure. The original roots of Semitic words are tri-consonantal, consisting of three consonants.
Out of a language so constructed it is easy to understand the development of such an alphabet. The confusions of its use are also manifest. Thus, in the changes of signification of the Semitic root word, k-t-b, signifying “write” we have, when spoken, ka-ta-ba, “he has written,” ku-ta-ba, “it has been written,” ka-ta-bu, “writing,” and ka-tu-bu, “written.” ”

“ The anapestic measures are few; because their feet are long, and no poet has chosen to set a great many in a line. Possibly lines of five anapests, or of four and an initial iambus, might be written; for these would scarcely equal in length some of the iambics and trochaics already exhibited. But I do not find any examples of such metre. The longest anapestics that have gained my notice, are of fourteen syllables, being tetrameters with triple rhyme, or lines of four anapests and two short surplus syllables. ”