Ideally the anagram created relates in some (perhaps humorous) way to the original word or phrase. Such anagrams are described as cognate. The best anagrams are grammatically correct and use techniques such as abbreviating and to 'n' only minimally.

The anagrams on this site are mainly humorous cognate anagrams. Generally the best ones are of the names of famous people or institutions, particularly those with relevance to recent major events in the news. Other witty anagrams include definitions (e.g. A shoplifter Has to pilfer1), pairs of questions and answers where each is an anagram of the other (e.g. Eleven plus two? Twelve plus one2) and completed sentences (e.g. Circumstantial evidence can ruin a selected victim).

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Several words are used to describe different varieties of anagrams, particularly amongst the online anagramming community. Many of these words are not generally accepted words that you will find in dictionaries:

ambigram3	An anagram which is ambiguously opposite to the original phrase, such as The Nuclear Regulatory Commission = your rules clone atomic nightmares4.
anigram5 or animagram6	An animation (usually in a computer format) showing the letters of a word or phrase moving as they rearrange to form an anagram.
antigram7	An anagram which is antonymous of the original phrase, such as violence = nice love.
pairagram	A transposed couplet in which the anagrams are linked in meaning, or form a sentence when juxtaposed. Examples are Elvis = lives8 and married = admirer9.
pangram	Not really a variety of anagram, but included here because of the similarity in name and meaning. So called perfect pangrams are anagrams of the alphabet, e.g. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz = Blowzy night-frumps vex'd Jack Q.
spamagram10	A term used exclusively in the newsgroup alt.anagrams. Those who spam the newsgroup (i.e. post irrelevant messages) will find their words anagrammed by alt.anagrams regulars. The resulting anagrams are termed spamagrams.
synanagram11	Single words that are anagrams of other single words, such as angered = enraged12.
trianagram	Also called triplets, these are three-way anagrams such as mastering = emigrants = streaming.

1. by Irene Fullarton of New Jersey, 1908.
2. by Melvin O. Wellman of Michigan, 1948.
3. "ambigram" was first coined by Sibyl (Judith Bagai), former editor of "The Enigma", according to O. V. Michaelsen in "Words At Play; Quips, Quirks & Oddities".
4. by Jed Martinez of Florida, 1993.
5. "anigram" was first coined by Tom Myers.
6. "animagram" was first coined by Richard Brodie.
7. "antigram" was first coined by Sans Souci in "Ardmore Puzzler", Sept. 22, 1900, according to O. V. Michaelsen in "Words At Play; Quips, Quirks & Oddities".
8. by David N. Axford.
9. by Morton L. Mitchell of Missouri, 1928.
10. "spamagram" was first coined by Haynes Lee in 1997 in a posting to the newsgroups alt.anagrams, news.admin.net-abuse.email, and alt.humor.net-abuse.
11. "synanagram" was first coined by Murray R. Pearce of North Dakota in "Word Ways; The Journal of Recreational Linguistics", Aug. 1971, according to O. V. Michaelsen in "Words At Play; Quips, Quirks & Oddities".
12. by William A. Moore, Jr, of Illinois, 1899.

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