De-coding your Ceitativry (Using anagrams for Creativity)
If I had a dollar for every time someone claimed they had no creativity within them – I could pay for the trade mark of the word creativity and float off on my own hand made cloud.
We ALL have creativity. We are born with it. It is primal and imperative for survival. And like a set of abs or a strong bicep… the more we work it – the bigger it grows.
But ‘How’ you say? I have no time for art class and my creativity bicep is a chicken wing.
Pfftt.
Start small. Try an anagram. Remember Boggle? Turns out this is a great way to stretch our creative thought muscles.
The origin of the anagram goes right back to the dawn of recorded history. The Greeks loved anagrams and they played a significant role amongst poets, writers and philosophers when Latin was the main language. Seems in modern day, the anagram came into its own in the 17th Century – at a time when puzzles first gathered momentum.
Mary Queen of Scots, who died by execution, was posthumously memorialized with the Latin expression Trusavi regnis morte amara cada ("Thrust by force from my kingdom I fall by a foul death"), which is an anagram of Maria Steuarda Scotarum Regina ("Mary Stewart Queen of Scots") (Note that V = U in Latin script).*
Taking a word and re-arranging the letters to form as many other words as possible calls on all the scientific modes of thinking associated with creativity, divergent thought and coming up with a variety of solutions in a free-flowing manner.
So, try these anagrams below. See how many words you can discover and go home feeling sated that your creativity muscle is just that little bit stronger today!
CREATIVITY – over 170 word solutions (3 letter words – 10 letter words)
EMBRACES – over 180 word solutions (3 letter words – 7 letter words)
EVERYONE – over 40 word solutions (3 letter words – 8 letter words)
*Marcel Danesi – psychology today
