Anagrams hold a special place in the annals of wordplay. Although dismissed by some as “intellectually frivolous” (A. E. Housman) or a mere “trifle” (Ben Jonson), the art of anagramming—rearranging the letters in one word or phrase to form another—has provided plenty of writers with literary inspiration. The metaphysical poet George Herbert, for instance, observed that the letters in MARY can be shifted around to spell ARMY, taking this to be a sign of the Holy Mother’s mysterious power. For Vladimir Nabokov, who created the alter ego Vivian Darkbloom—see what he did there?—anagrams were metaphors for the unconscious: “All dreams are anagrams of diurnal reality,” he wrote. And any genealogy of letter-scramblers must include the poet Jim Morrison, who unforgettably nicknamed himself “Mr. Mojo Risin’.”
You don’t have to be a writer, or on psychedelics, to enjoy the power of the anagram. Most puzzle fans know the rush of extracting a word from alphabet soup, or the delight of realizing that, say, the letters in BRITNEY SPEARS can also spell PRESBYTERIANS. If this kind of thing lights your fire, then The New Yorker’s new daily game, Shuffalo, is for you.
Shuffalo is an anagramming challenge with a twist: your goal is to unscramble a set of letters to make a word—but every time you do, an additional letter gets added to the set. As you play, the words get longer and the game gets tougher, culminating in an eight-letter scramble. (If you get that far and want to really show off, play on to the nine-letter bonus round.) Those who get stuck can always use a hint, but keep in mind that your final badge is determined by the number of hints you used. To see how it’s done, watch this video featuring the comedian and self-proclaimed vocabulary whiz Kate Berlant.
Part of the fun of Shuffalo—which was based on a game created by the New Yorker crossword constructor Adam Wagner—lies in the surprising transformations that you discover as you play. It calls to mind the Surrealist parlor game Exquisite Corpse: tack on one thing, and you get another thing entirely. Add an “I” to SOLVE, it turns out, and you can make OLIVES; then add a “T” to make VIOLETS; an “N” to make NOVELIST; and another “N” to make INSOLVENT. (Well, maybe that last one isn’t such a big leap.)
You can play a new Shuffalo every day in our Games hub, or by signing up for the Puzzles & Games newsletter. Is it intellectually frivolous? Depends who you ask. Either way, we hope it will add some delight to your diurnal reality. ♦
