FAQ - Part Three
Larry Brash
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (-> "Quit! End one's flaky requests.")
PART THREE OF THREE
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
13. Are there any books available on anagrams?
14. Who are the regulars here?
15. What is the Anagrammy?
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13. ARE THERE ANY BOOKS AVAILABLE ON ANAGRAMS?
(Source: William Tunstall-Pedoe & Michael Curl)
(1) Anagram Genius, Authors: William Tunstall-Pedoe & Donald L. Holmes.
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton. (Recommended)
You have tried the software, now read the book (or vice versa). A highly
entertaining book, anagramming famous people and institutions and has
great cartoons illustrating the anagrams. Signed copies are available
direct from the author's company: http://www.genius2000.com/
(2) The Anagram Dictionary, Author: Michael Curl. Publisher: Robert Hale,
1996. (Recommended)
What's in it? A brief history of Anagrams - from the ancient Greeks to the
present day. A compilation of of over 20,000 words, including proper
names, in alphabetical order, with all their known anagrams - from AARONIC
(ocarina) to ZONED (dozen). Cognate Anagrams - that is, words, phrases or
names anagrammed to give a phrase that is somehow related to the original.
This is the section of book that most people find really intriguing. -
http://thinks.com/words/andict.htm for details.
(3) Palindromes and Anagrams, Author: Howard W. Bergerson, Publisher:
Dover Publications.
An important book on anagrams. However, most of the anagrams date from the
last century. The author is a former editor of Wordways and so the book is
fairly comprehensive. The book contains an excellent introduction to
multi-word anagrams as well as a list of over one thousand examples mostly
drawn from pre-1930 sources. It also covers several other subjects related
to wordplay including Palindromes, Palindromic Poetry and Vocabularyclept
Poetry.
(4) The Oxford Book of Wordgames. Author: Tony Augarde. Publisher: Oxford
University Press.
Chapter 8 of this book deals with Anagrams. It contains a very
comprehensive history of the subject and some examples.
(5) The Richard Stilgoe Letters, a jumble of anagrams, Author: Richard
Stilgoe. Publisher: Unwin paperbacks.
This is out of print, but if you are anxious to find it, it can be found
in a few of the biggest British libraries, such as the Cambridge
University library. This is a highly eccentric book of fiction where all
the characters are anagrams of the author's name. For example Dr Gloria
Ethics, Col Tiger Rashid etc. The phrase "surreal humour" appears
throughout the preface.
It does however contain a good introduction on the subject of multi-word
anagrams using "Florence Nightingale" as an extended example. He shows
that there are many relevant anagrams such as "Leg on fire - change lint",
"Ten facing gore in hell", "Fetch Nigel an iron leg" etc. but then shows
that their relevance is coincidence as there are other anagrams which have
absolutely no relevance such as "Ringo, the cleaning elf".
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14. WHO ARE THE REGULARS HERE?
Here are the most active dozen or so anagram freaks at alt.anagrams, in no
particular order. Most are from the UK or USA, but there are also
contributors from Australia, The Netherlands, Scandinavia, Israel, Ireland
and Chile. There are several computer programmers, two doctors, various
academics and university students in our midst.
The very regular contributors:
Johnnie Burning Elk (aka Neil J. Rubenking, Senior Technical Editor with
PC Magazine) is a prolific contributor and loves recycling spam and
finding rude anagrams. He also has a great knack of solving anagram
puzzles. Of course, he uses his own program Namegram (see above).
Richard Brodie is a mathematician and is the creator of the amazing
Animagrams - animated anagrams at http://www.animagrams.com/ . Find out
about them at his must-visit website. Richard was kind enough to animate
some of my anagrams there. Richard is the newsgroup's resident
intellectual and inaugural winner of the Anagrammy Award. He has taken the
phrase "The God of Israel" and come up with anagrams relevent to over 2100
biblical verses.
Earle Douglas Jones (Large-nosed, jealous) is a frequent contributor and
avidly anti-spam. He is the one who said "All men are created
anagrammable, but some are more anagrammable than others".
Steve Krakowski (aka Krakers) took the newsgroup by storm with his
sub-genre of lengthy literary anagram puzzles. They are very clever and
the anagram will always give a clue to the answer which is also a often
palindrome. He likes "to seriously play with languages; including the very
language of life." See his webpage at
http://ddi.digital.net/~krakowss/index.htm .
William Tunstall-Pedoe, author of Anagram Genius the software and book, is
probably the most famous anagrammatist in the group. Many of us use his
software. William has an uncanny ability to find the rudest of anagrams.
Mick Tully is very active with some excellent postings. He is close to
overtaking me with his frequency of postings. Mick has a great sense of
humour and is an inveterate practical joker. Watch out for his friends,
Roland Souls and Pudni Wasti, who may try and sneak in the group and cause
havoc.
Ernesto Guiraldes, from Chile, is a one of the most active contributors,
despite difficulty with his newsfeed. He gets a huge number of nominations
in the Anagrammy Awards. In August 1998, he received nominations in every
category, a feat not achieved before. Not bad for someone whose first
language is Spanish.
Meyran Kraus, from Israel, is another prodigious anagrammatist who always
figures well in the Anagrammy nominations. One of his specialities is Art
Anagram Riddles (the name of a painting and it's author).
Richard Peers is a Senior Developer for a small IT consultancy. He has
been interested in puzzles, crosswords, word games and anagrams since
early childhood, but only came across the newsgroup a couple of months
ago. He says that sense of humour can be fairly dry, not to mention
downright sarcastic at times. He fits in well.
IKOIKO (aka Tom Meyers) sends us his latest animated topical anagrams,
which can be found on his animated anagram webpage at
http://www.ani-gram.com/ . Not surprisingly, he is always in the Topical
Category of the Anagrammy Awards.
Keith Lehman recently joined us and has already picked up some nominations
in the Anagrammy Awards. A 40-year old college freshman, he became
interested in anagrams as a kid. Now it is a rather fun diversion.
Mattias Inghe hit alt.anagrams with a bang with really long anagrams,
including a three verse limerick which he anagrammed into another three
verse limerick. Amazing! Even Richard Brodie (no stranger to long
anagrams) could not match this feat.
Jon Gearhart (Earth Jargon/The Organ Jar) is another specialist in long
anagrams. So brilliant were these long anagrams (eg. poems anagrammmed
into other poems). that a new Special Category in the Anagrammy Awards was
created for them.
Jean Fontaine, despite winning 2 Anagrammy Awards for some great anagrams,
is a bit of a mystery person who never lets on about him/herself. His/her
minimalist anagrams are very clever.
And finally, there is me, Larry Brash. I have been a regular here since
October 1997. My main claim to fame here is that I post more frequently
than anyone else, as I am hopelessly addicted to anagrams. You can find
out more about my warped mind on What a Brash Idea for a Homepage!
http://brash.net/larry which includes Larry Brash's Anagram Website
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~lbrash/anagrams/ .
The newer contributors:
Michael Jeans-Jakobsson is new, but has had several nominations in the
Anagrammy Awards, including a win in the General category in November.
John Morahan, from Ireland, picked a surprise win in the November
Anagrammy (Long Categoru) with his very first posting to alt.anagrams.
Graham Perkins, Daniel Etter, Paul White, Paul Howard are recent converts
to anagrams.
The occasional contributors.
Michael Curl is an occasional contributor, but is usually busy in his role
as Editor, Thinks.Com (Fun and games for playful brains)
http://thinks.com/ . He is the author of the Anagram Dictionary, mentioned
above.
Mike Hatton frequents our newsgroup between working on The Anagram Page at
http://www.pyramus.demon.co.uk/anag.htm .
Darren Donlen is another Aussie contributor (G'day, mate). He has been posting
to the group for a couple of months and made some good contributions.
David James Polewka has contributed some very clever anagrams of the
longer variety.
Wayne Baisley has been a now-and-again contributor for some while. Check
out his homepage at http://www-oss.fnal.gov/~baisley/
David Byron, is another occasional visitor has had nomination-standard anagrams.
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15. WHAT IS THE ANAGRAMMY?
In late March 1998, following a spate of brilliantly funny anagrams from
some of the above contributors, it was decided to choose The Anagram of
the Month. There are now 10 categories and we award each winner an
Anagrammy. Here is the place to read the nominations and to vote for your
favourite: Anagrammy - Voting Page is at
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~lbrash/anagrams/anagrammy.html
The Anagrammy FAQ at
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~lbrash/anagrams/anagrammy_faq.html (also
written by Larry Brash) is worth reading, too.
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END OF PART THREE
(C) 1998 Larry Brash mailto:la...@brash.net
Permission is granted to freely distribute this document in electronic
form provided it is done so unaltered and in its entirety. Information,
alterations and constructive criticism should be sent directly to the
author for inclusion in future versions. All such contributions will be
acknowledged in the body of this FAQ unless you stated otherwise.
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THE ALT.ANAGRAMS NEWSGROUP = Mash letters, unwrap a gag! No?
--
Larry Brash mailto:la...@brash.net
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What a Brash Idea for a Homepage! http://brash.net/larry
Bill Gates/Microsoft Jokes Page http://brash.net/msjokes
Alt.anagrams FAQ Page http://brash.net/anagrams/FAQ
Anagrammy Awards - Vote now! http://www.anagrammy.com
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