I love anagrams.  You know, where you take a word, scramble the letters, and come up with another word?  Most of the times, there’s something poetic about the juxtaposition of two words that seem to be unrelated except for the accident of their having the same letters in various combinations.

VILE, EVIL, LIVE–that’s a simple trio, but isn’t there a funny little magic to it?  Why is it so satisfying?  Those first two are similar, and then *poof* you neutralize them with the third.  It’s sort of like a good haiku: Here’s an idea, here’s a similar idea, here’s a little bit of a surprise.

Just a vowel-step away, you have LOVE, VOLE, and that’s just cute.  And you can play a little with that because EVOL is the beginning of evolution, so there’s a whole new way to start a poem. . .

I’ve always been attached to the SANTA, SATAN acronym, because it feels sort of iconoclastic in a naughty schoolchild sort of way.

And I love the little ones that can just be twisted and turned inside out in all sorts of ways, RATS, STAR, ARTS, TARS, for example.

In longer words, I have a particular love of the ones that switch just a letter or two in the middle.  PRENATAL, PARENTAL, PATERNAL.  The first gives way to the other two.  I have slightly uncomfortable associations with the word paternal because it’s so close to paternalistic, but my own pater is a really amazing and wonderful person, so that redeems the word.  What I find really super-satisfying in this one is that prenatal makes use of a prefix, so it significantly reduces the possibility that they’re actually related in some obscure ancient Latin or Indo-European language.  Of course, it switches more letters than the others, so maybe it loses elegance points.

The next set does have some root relationship, but only in their prefix and ending.  CONSERVATION, CONVERSATION.  And we really do need to make sure that we’re having that particular conservation in these days, eh?  I had to pause before I typed that word to make sure I was getting the right one of the two.  Conserve, Converse.  Verse, Serve.  I should probably be less lazy and look up those roots.

I went to an Anti-GMO rally the other day and carried a sign I had made.  It reads: “Label GMOS: Our Food is Sacred.”  At one point during the rally, it hit me that an uncareful reader might think that I think our food is actually frightened of what is being done to it in labs.  Hmm.  SACRED, SCARED.  Are they opposites?  Not really, but they do sort of throw each other into relief.

(This last one feels like it wants to be a whole post itself, or a poem.  It’s what got me settling these words into the computer this morning.  Instead of a piece of inspiration, though, today you get a little glimpse of the classroom part of my brain.)

I wonder if there’s a term for this sort of anagram, the kind that just switches a couple letters in the middle, sort of like an internal Spoonerism.  I’m looking for others for my collection, if you have any to suggest.

Gratitude List:
1.  Lost is found
2.  Playing with words
3,  Sourdough bread (I have no Off button for sourdough bread, and may end up eating the whole loaf before my family wakes up this morning.)
4.  That marvelous Afghani supper my mom made for us last night.  (Hmmm. Perhaps I’ll stop with the sourdough bread and eat some of that for breakfast instead.)
5.   Feathers

May we walk in Beauty.