Anagram a day may keep dementia away

ANAGRAMS (‘ana’ means anew and ‘gramma’ means letter; Latin, Greek and French origin) arrived in the English language at the end of the 16th century. They demonstrate a skill with words and wordplay and remain integral to crossword puzzles as nothing whets the appetite of crossword buffs as anagrams can. At the simplest level, an anagram is a rearrangement of letters comprising a word. The word ‘astronomer’ rearranges itself as ‘moon starer’, the word ‘dormitory’ can also spell ‘dirty room’. While the rearrangement of words in an anagram can throw up interesting associations, any new arrangement of letters is not required to have the same meaning as the previous combination of letters, as in ‘teaser’ and ‘Easter’. Long lists of anagrams circulate on the Internet, appealing to a diverse range of readers.

Anagrams are used often to jumble up names. This is done by authors. Lemuel Gulliver, the central character in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, visits strange countries. Two of these, Tribnia and Langden, are anagrams for Britain and England. JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series introduces us to ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’. The letters in his name form the   anagram “I am Lord Voldemort” (he who must not be named), much to the consternation of the inhabitants of Hogswarts and the reader.

‘Mr Mojo Risin’ features in the song LA Woman towards the end as the singing rises to a crescendo. Did you know that ‘Mr Mojo Risin’ is an anagram that Jim Morrison of The Doors created, thereby inserting himself into the song? 

Anagrams can also be used to carry messages and secret codes. More importantly, anagrams work as great recreational activity and enhance memory by enabling us with quick recall. Do you recall learning Roman numerals at school? It was easy enough to commit to memory the symbols for the numerals up to 49. A permutation and combination of the letters I, V, X was used 49 times. Difficulties began with 50 and 100 because the symbols changed. Perhaps that is why even today, most introductions to scholarly books usually end by page xxiii (23). 

On a serious note, Roman numerals fell into disuse due to the advent of modern mathematics. In any case, my grandfather made me learn the anagram ‘Lucky cows drink milk’ to get the sequence right. The first letter of each word L (50), C (100), D (500) and M (1,000) corresponds to the symbol of the Roman numeral in that denomination. Anagrams are also reinforced in memory by strong visual images. To remember this anagram, visualise dressed up cows at Keventers, sipping flavoured milk. The sequence gets imprinted on to memory and maths classes become less incomprehensible for a while. 

At college while doing literature, I needed to remember the seven deadly sins in a particular chronological order. Plays in medieval England constantly reminded human beings of their susceptibility and weakness. Vices they could fall prey to were catalogued and personified as the seven deadly sins, namely pride; covetousness; envy; gluttony; sloth; avarice and lust. In order to be able to recall them effortlessly, my personal anagram hinged on the visit of Prince Charles to our college. The anagram I created was “Prince Charles Enters Graciously Smiles And Leaves”.

Anagrams sharpen memory and reflect great wit and humour. They are great memory aids and form part of personal repertoires. The good thing about anagrams is that they are abundant in language. Most words lend themselves to being rearranged as anagrams and provide for endless wordplay.

An anagram a day can keep Alzheimer’s (dementia) at bay!