Anagram

An anagram (Greek ana- = "back" or "again", and graphein = "to write") is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce other words, using all the original letters exactly once. Anagrams are often expressed in the form of an equation, with the equals symbol (=) separating the original subject and the resulting anagram. ?Earth = heart? is an example of a simple anagram expressed so. In a more advanced, sophisticated form of anagramming, the aim is to ?discover? a result that possesses linguistic meaning which comments on the original subject in a humorous or ironic way; e.g., Roll in the hay = Thrill a honey (discovered by Sir Anthony Fortesque-Crafter). When the subject and the resulting anagram form a complete sentence, a tilde (~) is used instead of an equal sign; e.g., Semolina ~ is no meal.

Astronomy

Perhaps the only practical use to which anagrams have been turned is to be found in the transpositions in which some of the astronomers of the 17th century embodied their discoveries with the design apparently of avoiding the risk that, while they were engaged in further verification, the credit of what they had found out might be claimed by others. Thus Galileo announced his discovery that Venus had phases like the Moon in the form "Haec immatura a me iam frustra leguntur—oy" (Latin: This immature (feminine) one has already been read in vain by me—oy (with a subject-verb number agreement error)), that is, "Cynthiae figuras aemulatur Mater Amorum" (Latin: The Mother of Loves imitates the figures of Cynthia ). Similarly, when Robert Hooke discovered Hooke's law in 1660, he first published it in anagram form. One might think of this as a primitive example of a zero-knowledge proof.

Related Topics:
Astronomer - 17th century - Galileo - Venus - Phase - Moon - Cynthia - Robert Hooke - Hooke's law - Zero-knowledge proof

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There are also a few "natural" anagrams, English words unconsciously created by switching letters around. The French chaise longue ("long chair") became the American "chaise lounge" by metathesis (transposition of letters and/or sounds). This is an example of folk etymology. It has also been speculated that the English "curd" comes from the Latin crudus ("raw").

Related Topics:
Chaise lounge - Folk etymology

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