Millions of people across the world think that Scrabble, Words With Friends, Boggle, or similar games are a great pastime. Indeed, they are not only a lot of fun but a super workout for the brain. The ability to quickly rearrange a senseless set of letters into a word that makes perfect sense is key to success but not all people have it. The great news is if you are not one of those “born to be” champions who can solve any problem at lightning speed, with a little bit of practice, you can easily defeat your rivals and top the leaderboard. Here are tried and true tips for solving even the trickiest anagrams really fast.
What Is An Anagram?
An Anagram is a word or phrase generated by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase respectively. As a rule, each of the original letters can be used only once. The word anagram itself has a Greek origin, being a short form for Ana-grammatismos, which literally means “to transpose letters”.
According to the widely accepted definition, the original word is considered the subject of the anagram while people who create them are called anagrammatists. A seasoned anagrammatist aims to create anagrams that have something in common with their subject, for instance, reflect it in a certain way or comment on the subject.
Take Advantage Of Solver Tools
We live in the ear of state-of-the-art technologies, so why not use them to solve anagrams? There is a range of dedicated tools available out there but it’s safe to say that the easiest to use and the most comprehensive is the one featured at unscramble.org, a treasure trove for all lovers of word games.
It is an excellent tool for unscrambling letters in a wide variety of popular word games, as well as in different puzzles and crosswords. Despite what some people might suggest, using this and similar tools is not cheating, it is just a fast and efficient way to find a new combination of letters that makes sense.
Naturally, a lot depends on how often and in what situations you take advantage of innovative technologies but the truth is, the majority of avid anagram solvers use them to master their skills. you are allowed to use everything that can help your progress.
So, if you feel stuck with some tricky pattern of letters, wasting another couple of hours with pretty faint odds of generating a triumphant combo doesn’t really make sense. Safely leverage the capacities and a massive database of a solver tool that will deliver the desired word right to your fingertips and in a heartbeat.
Start With Looking For Suffixes Or Prefixes
Professional anagrammatists always start with the search for potential suffixes or prefixes in the letters they have at their disposal. Everyone who wants to speed up the process should follow the example of avid players and look for the most common letter combinations that either begin or end words.
When it comes to suffixes, the most widespread are -ing, -ness, -ly, -ism, -ed, -er, -ry, -ous, -ment, and –tion while the most frequently seen prefixes are un-, dis-, sub-, re-, de-, in-, ab-, ad- and ex-. It is a good idea to set these combos aside from the very outset because the remaining letters will be much easier to deal with.
Just a heads up, this advice is targeted at newbies since seasoned pros usually avoid starting their words in such a conventional way. That being said, if you are not a beginner but rather a pretty skilled and experienced anagrammatist, then you will have to use other tips for upgrading your performances.
Train Your Eye For Combinations Of Consonants
Consonants give shape and sound to a word, therefore it makes perfect sense to pay them special attention. Try to ignore all the vowels and focus on what really matters – likely combinations of consonants that can make your day. Many professional anagrammatists prefer to place them in a circle, letting them be at full display for an easier arrangement into new words and boosting your creativity.
Of course, after some time of solving all sorts of anagrams, you will know the great bulk of common patterns by heart. If anything, just go through the English dictionary of your choice to figure out which consonants are in charge of the frequently used clusters. Similarly, it will also pay off to learn the rarest combos and words that contain them, so you can fish them out of your memory when you need them the most.
Learn To Recognize Combinations Of Vowels
Do not ignore the fact that many words are built with a big number of vowels, which often even exceeds the number of consonants. What’s more, there are words (not many, however) with three vowels in a row such as beauty, for instance. Anyway, learn to recognize the most common combinations including “ie”, “ea”, “ou”, “eau”, or “iou”. Pay attention to the consonant they are usually followed by. In fact, the big idea lies in the creation of your own database through studying all possible ways of building words.
Eliminate Unlikely Pairs
Some consonants are never or incredibly rare to go together, therefore set aside some time to detect such pairs and save a heck of a lot of time in the future. There is nothing worse than wasting precious minutes trying to squeeze a non-existing compound into your would-be word.
For example, there are plenty of words where the letter “q” is followed by “u” but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a combination with “o” or “e”, not to mention the absence of words where “q” is followed by “y”. The combination of “y” and “a” is also extremely rare, with “yacht” obviously being the one to cross your mind first. The same situation is with consonants where certain combinations clearly top of the list of most commonly used pairs. For instance, the letter “h” in the middle of a word often follows letters “c”, “p”, “s”, “g”, “t”, and “w”.
Solving anagrams is a lot of fun but it’s even more fun when you can do it faster. Use these tips to improve your skills and take your experience to the next level, literally.