Are you looking for a comprehensive list of scramble words in English for your word game? Word games are a marvellous way to stretch your mind, develop your linguistic agility…and have fun! Today’s article delves into Word Scramble, a decades-old classic that has entertained generations and continues to delight the young, the old, and those inbetween! Stick with us for the lowdown and all the essential ins and outs.
What Is Word Scramble?
Word Scramble is a word puzzle based on solving an anagram and accompanying cartoon and caption to find the answer phrase. Commonly known as Jumble, the current syndicated version owned by the Chicago Tribune is found in 600 newspapers worldwide and goes by the game’s official title: ‘Jumble – That Scrambled Word Game‘.
Created in 1954 by comic book artist Martin Naydel, the game includes a cartoon depicting a clue paired with two five-letter anagrams and two six-letter ones. They are followed by a clue to an answer phrase which is itself an anagram composed of selected letters taken from the first four anagrams. The cartoon gives a supplementary, pictorial, hint as to the answer phrase – usually a pun, homophone, or some other form of wordplay.
Stewardship of the game changed hands in 1962, at which time cartoonist Henri Arnold and Bob Lee took over the feature and maintained it for the next 30 years. Ironically enough, Arnold, who was credited by the Tribute Content Agency as being the game’s greatest contributor, wasn’t interested in playing Jumble or any other wordplay-based games, saying: “I’m not interested in puzzles. And I’m terrible at crosswords. Art, ideas and gags are what I’m interested in.” Despite his reservations he stuck with working on the puzzles until retiring at the age of 90 in 2008. Over the years he co-authored several books on Jumble with Bob Lee. When Lee left the role in 1993 he was succeeded by newspaper editor Michael Argirion who took on the task of crafting the wording aspect of the daily puzzles.
Since 2013, Jumble and its variations have been managed by games inventor David L. Hoyt and graphic artist and puzzle creator Jeff Knurek.
There are multiple versions of the game including Jumble Word Web, Hollywood Jumble, Jumble Word Vault, Jumble BrainBusters, Jumpin’ Jumble, Jumble for Kids, Jumble Crosswords, TV Jumble, Jumble BrainBusters Junior, Jumble Jong, and Jumble Solitaire. The children’s versions of the game present a three-letter word and three four-letter words.
How to Play Word Scramble
The conventional and most methodical way to play is to unscramble all four anagrams and note the circled letters in each. Those circled letters themselves form an anagram of the answer phrase which the player finds by either unscrambling all the letters, working out the written clue, or deciphering the prompt provided by the cartoon. More often than not puzzlers deploy all three of these methods simultaneously.
Scramble Cheat and Tips
There are sites online providing computerised assistance to solve Jumble words. Doing so will give you the answer in very few clicks but you’ll be robbing yourself of the thrill of the chase and the triumph of revelation.
However, we have some great tips that strike the happy balance between being useful and practical without spoiling the fun. Here are the steps we suggest you follow:
- Rearrange the letters’ order
- Group the letters into common pairings
- Separate consonants and vowels
- Extract prefixes and suffixes
- Rearrange the letters’ order
Reordering the letters can give the mind a jump start by providing a new perspective. Try writing the letters in a circle and turning your paper or screen to get new starting points.
- Group the letters into common pairings
Sorting the letters in this way gives you fewer elements to try and unscramble. For example, where it doesn’t begin the word, the letter H will often follow P, S, T, W or G, and Q is almost always succeeded by U.
- Separate consonants and vowels
Write all the jumbled word’s consonants in one column and its vowels in another. Then, write all the ways in which the consonants can be ordered before placing the vowels into each combination to see which form plausible words or word-fragments. Note that triple vowel groupings are rare, but when they do occur will usually take the form OUE (for example in pirouette) or EAU, as in bureau.
- Extract prefixes and suffixes
Identifying common prefixes and suffixes is another fast method of grouping letters and reducing the number of elements you need to concentrate on. Common prefixes include: un-, in-, ex- re-, de-, dis- and sub-. Some suffixes that appear frequently are: -ed, -ly, -er, -ing, -ness, and -ment.
Conclusion
Playing Jumble confers the same benefits as other word games: they boost your ability to think creatively, solve problems and improve your vocabulary. Thank you for reading and don’t forget to use our tips and see how helpful they are in helping you unscramble those anagrams in absolutely no time!
Scramble Words
