Gems from old GAMES Magazines VII

November/December, 1979

ANAGRAMS 

by Henry Hook

For its challenge, competitiveness, and quiet elegance, the game Anagrams earned the title "the sport of sports" when it first caught on during the 1920's. Alexander Woollcott reported home-contest highlights in The New Yorker, and Silas Seadler's The Anagram Book (1929) went through a couple of editions. Every game store stocked wooden Anagram tiles. There was even a group called the Amateur Anagram Society of America, which promoted the game and codified the rules. 

   Today the game is still sold in many game shops and is widely played. The object is to "capture' words. To make a capture, all the letters of an existing word must be re-arranged, along with a new letter or letters, to form a single, longer word. For example, LOADING is captured with an A (as Alexander Woollcott discovered in an actual game) by scrambling and making DIAGONAL. SCYTHE can be taken with a K (as observed by writer Dorothy Parker) to make the lovely anagram SKETCHY.

   Test your Anagram skill with the 26 examples below, one for each letter of the alphabet. Proper names and hyphenated or foreign words are not allowed. G is plural. K, M, and Q are past tense. R is a valid, but outmoded word.

A + PENCIL ________________

B + LEAF __________________

C + PLAITS ________________

D + PAIR ___________________

E + FERVOR ________________

F + TEAR ___________________

G + ISSUE ___________________

H + PRICE ___________________

I + QUEEN ___________________

J + AROUND _________________

K + CREDIT __________________

L + WHOMEVER ______________

M + SCOOPED ________________

N + THOSE ___________________

O + FINGER __________________

P + LIME _____________________

Q + DILUTE __________________
R + CARAFE __________________
S + PRONE ____________________

T + OSTEOPATH _______________

U + BASE _____________________

V + COAL _____________________

W + FITS ______________________

X + ELUDE ____________________

Y + SPUR ______________________

Z + BONER _____________________

Answers:

 

A - PELICAN

B - FABLE

C - PLASTIC

D - RAPID

E - FOREVER

F - AFTER 

G - GUISES

H - CIPHER

I - EQUINE

J - ADJOURN

K - TRICKED

L - OVERWHELM

M - COMPOSED

N - HONEST

O - FOREIGN

P - IMPEL

Q - QUILTED

R - CARFARE

S - PERSON

T - TOOTHPASTE

U - ABUSE

V - VOCAL

W - SWIFT

X - DELUXE

Y - SYRUP

Z - BRONZE