Anagrams (also published under names including ''Anagram'', ''Snatch'' and ''Word Making and Taking'') is a tile-based

word game Word games are spoken, board, card or video games often designed to test ability with language or to explore its properties. Word games are generally used as a source of entertainment, but can additionally serve an educational purpose. Young ...

that involves rearranging letter tiles to form words. The game pieces are a set of tiles with letters on one side. Tiles are shuffled face-down then turned over one by one, players forming words by combining them with existing words, their own or others'. The game has never been standardized and there are many varieties of sets and rules. Anagrams is often played with tiles from another word game, such as ''

Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a Board game, game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, re ...

'' or ''

Bananagrams ''Bananagrams'' is a word game invented by Abraham Nathanson and Rena Nathanson of Cranston, Rhode Island, wherein lettered tiles are used to spell words. Nathanson conceived and developed the idea for the game with the help of his family. T ...

''.

History

Reputed to have originated as a

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

word game, Anagrams has appeared in many versions since then. An early modern version is Charles Hammett's ''Word Making and Taking'', released in 1877. The first version to include the word ''Anagrams'' in its name may have been ''The Game of Letters and Anagrams on Wooden Blocks'', published by

Parker Brothers Parker Brothers (known as Parker outside of North America) was an American toy and game manufacturer which in 1991 became a brand of Hasbro. More than 1,800 games were published under the Parker Brothers name since 1883. It remained family owne ...

around 1890. Another game called ''Anagrams'' was published in 1934 by

Selchow and Righter Selchow and Righter was a 19th- and 20th-century game manufacturer best known for the games '' Parcheesi'' and ''Scrabble''. It was based in Bay Shore, New York. It dates back to 1867 when it was founded as E. G. Selchow & Co. In 1880, to re ...

, which published ''

'' in 1953. ''Spelling and Anagrams'' (a set incorporating two distinct games, ''Spelling'' and ''Anagrams'') was also published in the 1930s. In 1975, Selchow published ''Scrabble Scoring Anagrams'', which featured tiles with point values like those in ''Scrabble''. Another version was published in the 1960s by the now defunct Transogram. The Embossing Company, formerly Halsam Products Company, also produced a yellow-on-black ''Eye-Rest'' set. Leslie Scott (the creator of ''

Jenga ''Jenga'' is a Game of skill, game of physical skill created by British board game designer and author Leslie Scott (game designer), Leslie Scott and marketed by Hasbro. The name comes from the Swahili language, Swahili word "" which means 'to bu ...

'') published a variation called ''Swipe'' in the early 1980s, and since 1990, Scott's company, Oxford Games Ltd, has published ''Anagram''. Tyco published ''Up For Grabs'' in 1995. Prodijeux has been marketing a variant, ''WordXchange'', since 2000, and Portobello Games produced a version, ''Snatch-It'', in 2001. ''One Up!'' is a version that adds a "wild" tile that can be any letter, like a blank tile in ''Scrabble''. Some players use several sets of tiles from games such as ''Scrabble'' or '' Upwords'' to play Anagrams, and a version of the game is popular among tournament ''Scrabble'' players. Writers

John Ciardi John Anthony Ciardi ( ; ; June 24, 1916 – March 30, 1986) was an American poet, translator, and etymologist. While primarily known as a poet and translator of Dante's ''Divine Comedy'', he also wrote several volumes of children's poetry, pursu ...

James Merrill James Ingram Merrill (March 3, 1926 – February 6, 1995) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1977 for '' Divine Comedies.'' His poetry falls into two distinct bodies of work: the polished and formalist lyri ...

, John Malcolm Brinnin, and

Richard Wilbur Richard Purdy Wilbur (March 1, 1921 – October 14, 2017) was an American poet and literary translator. One of the foremost poets, along with his friend Anthony Hecht, of the World War II generation, Wilbur's work, often employing rhyme, and c ...

reputedly played together regularly in

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, sometimes also with novelist

John Hersey John Richard Hersey (June 17, 1914 – March 24, 1993) was an American writer and journalist. He is considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling techniques of fiction are adapted to no ...

Rules

Different editions of the game use different rules, and players now often play by house rules, but most are variants of the rules given here, taken from Snatch-It. To begin, all tiles are placed face down in a pool in the middle of the table. Players then take turns flipping over tiles until somebody notices a word of three or more letters. A word can be formed by either: * Using a number of face-up tiles from the pool * "Stealing" a word from a player by combining it with one or more tiles from the pool to make a new word (e.g., the word TRACK may be formed with a K from the pool and a player's CART). Players may also combine their own words with additional tiles from the pool in the same way. When a player sees a word, they call it immediately (irrespective of who flipped the last tile) and place the word in front of them. The game then continues with further tiles being flipped. All words must be at least three letters long. When a word is expanded with tiles from the pool, the added tiles may not simply be a suffix (like -S or -ING). The game ends when all tiles are face up and no further words can be formed. Players then score according to the words they have in front of them: a 3-letter word is worth 1 point, a 4-letter word 2 points, and so on.

Variations

A host of variations come from both different versions and players'

house rules House rules are unofficial modifications to official game rules adopted by individual groups of players. House rules may include the removal or alteration of existing rules, or the addition of new rules. Such modifications are common in board ga ...

Scoring

Other scoring systems include: *Simple letter count. The most tiles win. *Simple word count. The most words win. *Add letter point values, using ''Scrabble'' letter values. *Remove one or two letters from each word and count the remaining tiles, rewarding longer words. *Sum of the squares of the lengths of the words, rewarding long words more. *The first player to spell or steal some number of (in the Selchow & Righter, eight) words wins.

Word length

The minimum acceptable word length can be adjusted to a player's skill level (for example, in a game with adults and children playing together, the children may be permitted to form four-letter words while the adults are restricted to words of at least five or six letters). Tournament ''

'' players often play with a minimum length of six or seven.

Turn-taking

In some editions of the game, such as the Milton Bradley and Selchow & Righter versions, only the player whose turn it is may form words. In the Selchow & Righter edition, a word may be stolen by any player ''immediately'' after it was made if they form a longer word with tiles from the pool.

National ''Scrabble'' Association

The

National Scrabble Association The National Scrabble Association (NSA) was created in 1978 by Selchow & Righter, then the makers of Scrabble, to promote their game. It coordinated local clubs and Scrabble tournaments in North America, including the National Scrabble Championship, ...

has published a set of rules for competitive Anagrams play in tournament setting. On a player's turn, after revealing a tile, they have a ten-second window during which only they can call a word. If a player calls a word on their own turn they take an extra turn. After 100 turns, the order of play reverses. Minimum word length is six letters.National ''Scrabble'' Association
Tournament Anagrams Rules
: 2005

Tile banks

One variation is to have each player have a "bank" of tiles in front of themselves, which affords players a clearer view of the "pool" of face-up letter tiles in the middle of the table.

Alaskan rules

A faster-paced version—sometimes known as "Alaskan rules"—has each of the players (or several, if there are too many) simultaneously put a tile into the pool. This results in many more possibilities being available at a time.

Miscellaneous variations

Players may not create a word by creating a word that is already on the table or steal one resulting in such a word. Some versions of the game name the winner as the person who, after the round of turns has finished, first acquires eight words. If more than one player has done so, then the winner is the player is the one with the most tiles. There may be a tie. A very similar rule found in The Embossing Company set simply says the "first player to complete ten words, wins." Players are permitted to combine two or more existing words with zero or more letters from the pool to create a single new word. This is often difficult in practice.

In popular culture

A game of Anagrams is played in the

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...

1941 thriller film '' Suspicion''. A game of Anagrams is played in

Ira Levin Ira Marvin Levin (August 27, 1929 – November 12, 2007) was an American novelist, playwright, and songwriter. His works include the novels '' A Kiss Before Dying'' (1953), '' Rosemary's Baby'' (1967), '' The Stepford Wives'' (1972), '' This Perf ...

's debut novel, '' A Kiss Before Dying''.

Letter distribution

Though there are many variants, one standard letter distribution of 188 letters (given in the Rust Hills article) is as follows: A variant with 220 letters: The distribution of 180 letters for ''Scrabble Scoring Anagrams'' (according to a review on funagain.com):

References

External links

www.gtoal.com's large collection images of various Anagrams sets and other wordgames.
* {{Scrabble Anagrams Milton Bradley Company games Selchow and Righter games Word games