Word unscrambling, also known as anagramming, has been around since at least the 5th century B.C., and it’s been used by everyone from 19th-century English cryptographers to modern-day crossword puzzle creators to solve a number of different problems. In short, word unscrambling is the process of taking a string of letters, words or phrases and arranging them in the correct order. Whether you’re unscrambling letters to find out what they stand for, or you’re rearranging letters to spell out a word or phrase, word unscrambling is both fun and educational, as well as being one of the best ways to test your word knowledge and spelling skills.
Untangling a scrambled text may seem like an impossible task if you’re not sure where to begin and if you don’t have the patience to unscramble every word individually. Fortunately, unscrambling a scrambled text can be done in many ways once you know where to start and how to attack the problem. As a result, stay tuned for a few handy tips and tricks that you can put to use the next time you try to unscramble a word.
Things to try when trying to unscramble a word:
⦁ Frequent Letter Pairs
⦁ Word Fragments and Making Smaller Words
⦁ Pair Up the Same Two Letters
⦁ Vowels and Consonants
⦁ Digraph
⦁ Try and Try Again
Frequent Letter Pairs
You’ll do better-deciphering words if you consider common letter combinations. Analyzing how two or more letters behave with one another will take you closer to the solution. As an example, the letter E in the third spot often appears as the second letter in the word. This helps people who guess successfully more often. With just a single word as a guide, you’ll learn how to complete the other words using the remainder of the scrambled letters. Keep in mind that spacing between words typically reflects the way they are used in sentences. For words where vowels are expected to break or where vowels usually end, it might be good to try a different pattern.
Word Fragments and Making Smaller Words
One of the methods you can use to get better at understanding unscrambling words is to learn how to recognize word fragments and smaller words you can build on.
For example: Let’s take a look at ULNHAGLI. At first, it seems like an awkward phrase but it does contain a couple of word fragments which we can use in order to build up a proper word. Mainly, letter combinations such as “HA” and “LI”
It’s a good way to use these fragments as a starting block for a word, and in this case, we get:
HAuling
LIngual
Another tip would be to look out for prefixes and suffixes, as they are a tremendous help when trying to form a word.
Here is a table list of the most popular prefixes and suffixes used in English.
So why should you consider doing this?
Based on statistics, removing characters with prefixes and suffixes from the stack decreases the number of combinations of characters that can be sorted. This is what mathematicians call permutations or all possible arrangements. When there are six letters in a word, there are many more ways to rearrange them into unique combinations than when there are four letters. You can even remove certain characters by grouping them into prefixes or suffixes. Using the remaining letters to unscramble the word will help you guess what sequence will unravel it.
Pair Up the Same Two Letters
Finding the same two letters and pairing them up is an easy way to come up with a word from unscrambled letters since English has many double letters.
Frequent double-letter combination in the English language are: EE, FF, LL, MM, OO, SS, and TT
Here are some examples:
- EE – deed,feed,week,teen,weep,beep
- FF – earmuffs,cliff,office,staff,handcuffs,daffodil
- LL – bell,sell,bull,doll,small
- MM – comment,dilemma,skimmer,glimmer,drummer
- OO – moose,proof,noon,ooze,roof,boost
- SS – dress,fuss,hiss,kiss,boss
- TT – bitten,butter,cotton,bottle,swatter,bittern
Vowels and Consonants
Vowels can be used to build frames for other letters. Why are vowels useful? Each syllable must have at least one, often in the middle, and the rest will usually follow a familiar pattern.
In addition to the usual suspects (A, E, I, O, U). Most English words and syllables (important parts of words) are made up of vowels with consonants on one or both sides. Therefore, if there are few vowels or fewer vowels than consonants, there are very few ways to combine words. Put some consonants in the template, put the vowels in the middle, and try to move the letters around.
You will also begin to see some common patterns. For example, “consonant-vowel – consonant-vowel ” as this combination makes up a big case of four-letter words in the English language.
Here is another tip when you are looking for vowels.
Look for common two-letter consonant pairs like “th”. Example: OBTH can be converted to B O T H.
As for the letter S it’s a bit different because it has two functions. We can use S to form a syllable within the word it forms, or add it to the end of the last word to make it plural. Because it’s more versatile the letter S is the most useful letter in games like Scrabble.
So how does it work? Let’s take the word “VAEWS” We recognize the “VE” pattern. After rearranging the characters, we get VE. When building the rest of the word, the first letter we write is A (before V, the most logical way to keep the consonants of a word): AVE. Test the rest by placing them within the remaining two spaces. By swapping the letters around we finally get WAVES a word we are familiar with.
Digraph
Basically, a digraph is any combination of two letters that produces a single sound. The English language has many distinguishing digraphs to work with. The five most common digraphs are AI, EA, OI, SH, and TH.
For example:
- AI – gain, drain, vain, lair, rain
- EA – dream, cheat, stream, fear, break
- OI – adroit, joint, lion, moist, disjoin
- SH – shed, shock, shelf, shop, shoulder
- TH – thin, thumb, throw, third,
Try and Try Again
Trying trial and error letter combinations until you find one that works is the best option when you are in a word jumble and don’t know where to begin. You can use a program that unscrambles words or an anagram solver if trial and error don’t work. Enter the letters and it will give you the words that match. When you enter HUARTES in the generator, it will generate all the possible words that are valid in the English dictionary.
This quick guide should have made it easier for you to conquer your next unscramble challenge. If you wish to test yourself, why not try Scrabble or Word with Friends? Make sure you have fun while you’re at it!