I love messing with words.

My favourite of all the games you can play with them is anagrams.

Anagrams are where you take a word or a phrase, jumble the letters up and make them into a different word or phrase.

Let me give you an example, my own full name is Christopher Jordan. This turns out to be “Shh! Drain projector”, which, as a Civil Engineer, by trade, I think is somewhat appropriate.

Did you know that rearranging the letters of “George Bush” gives “He bugs Gore”, “Madonna Louise Ciccone” gives “Occasional nude income” and “William Shakespeare”, “I am a weakish speller”?

Politically if you are not interested, or wish to stay away from the political goings-on of other countries in which you cannot vote, then looking at some of the statements from those political parties can be fun.

Look at the US elections of 2008.

“Barack Obama for President” lets us know that he “Is barefaced, top-rank, Rambo”, while

“John McCain for President” unfortunately becomes “Confined major sphincter.”

Sarah Palin turned out to be” a sharp nail.”

I looked around on the web to see if anybody else was messing about with anagrams in the same way I was.

I found that the New York Times can be reconfigured as “monkeys write.” And the London tabloid The News of the World is an anagram for “tender, hot flesh — wow.”

Have a play around with the names of your friends or workmates.

I did this with some fellow writers on Triond. and came up with the following:

RJ Evans – our most prolific writer came up as “Save N. Jr”

And I’m sure my friend “s. hayes” won’t mind you leaving messages addressed to “Hey! Ass”!

I was pleased to see that the gentle Liane Schmidt appeared as “Ethical minds”,

and would love to know how “Lost in Arizona” felt to know that the “oil is on Tarzan.”

However I am bursting to listen to Michael Degenhardt, the accomplished poet, releasing material under the name of his metal band “Megadeath Children”

Our resident Doc, Kristie Leong M.D. becomes “’To kindlier gems”

And I bet that ‘Peter Cimino was impressed to know that he can say ‘ ‘I’m nicer poet.’

The best kinds of anagrams are those that appear to be appropriate.

For example

Clint Eastwood = Old West Action

Madam Curie = Radium came

A telephone girl = Repeating “Hello”

Western Union = No Wire Unsent

The country side = No City Dust Here

Evangelist = Evil’s Agent

Astronomers = Moon Starers  

Postmaster = Stamp Store

Elvis = Lives

Now it’s your turn!

I’ve scrambled up the names of some major box-office hits.

Can you rearrange the letters to find the international blockbuster films?

Ignore the punctuation.

1. A arcane war foible.
2. Wow! The hit ending
3. Drool frightens
4. Chief reprobate artisan
5. Host children ride ten-cent UFOs. Ok?
6. Cloven hoof ‘n’ sweet toe sucker.

I’ve tried to do them in such a way that they should also give you a clue about the film, or a character or actor in it.

One or more of them may be generic film names.

e.g.  Ars warts = Star Wars and not The Empire Strikes Back etc.

Good luck!

Let me know how you go on.

If they drive you mad and you have to know the answers then message me at C Jordan

Feel free to show your answers in “comments” but please try not to get carried away and give all the answers!

If you want to try some other types of puzzle, here are some more links to fellow writers on Triond.

• Songs of the Charts, Charts of the Songs
• The Trickiest and Most Mind-twisting Mathematics Questions