quarta-feira, janeiro 10, 2007

A practical purpose

« Anagrams had a practical purpose for some people, as a method of concealing their real name. Voltaire, whose real name was Arouet, formed his pseudonym by making an anagram of Arouet L. J. (le jeune) using the 'u' as a 'v' and the 'j' as an 'i'. Casanova gave the reason he suspected for this name-change in his History of My Life: "Voltaire would never have attained immortality with the name of Arouet. . . He would have lost all self-respect if he had constantly heard himself called à rouer ('whipping-boy')". »

(The Oxford Guide to Word Games, p. 75)

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