Letters, letters, letters Anagrams Have a look at these pairs of words:LEMON/MELON DANCE/CANED ELVIS/LIVES Look really hard at the letters. What do you notice about them? Well, in each pair, the two words are made up of exactly the same letters, they’ve just been arranged differently. This is called an anagram. The word comes from two ancient Greek words—ana, meaning “back” or “again,” and gramma,meaning “letter.” When you write the letters again in a different order, you get a whole new word. Anagrams are often found in puzzle books or crosswords. But ancient Greek philosophers, like Plato and Pythagoras, thought that anagrams were more than just for fun—they believed anagrams revealed hidden meanings in words. Later, mathematicians and scientists like Galileo used anagrams as a code. They would put their discoveries into anagrams, so they could keep them a secret until they were ready to tell the world. People have always enjoyed making anagrams out of their own names.
