Websites, books and tools
Learn more techniques for playing with your words.
Anagrams
Andy’s anagram solver
Type in your key word or phrase, and this tool will create anagrams from them. Whether you’ll like the anagrams, I can’t say. “Ann Wylie” generated “el yawn in” — not a phrase I’ll be using in my next training brochure!
Internet Anagram Server
Turn a list into a mnemonic device to help readers remember your key points. Create a meaningful acronym from the first letters of the words in your list with this online anagram server.
Oxymorons
Myspace Funny Oxymoron Generator
Get inspiration with this push-button generator. See contradictions in terms like “working vacation,” “political science” and “airline food.”
Serendipitous Oxymoron Maker
Practice creating your own paradoxes. Choose from a small list of positive adjectives with negative nouns (“beautiful disaster”) and negative adjectives with positive nouns (“miserable honesty”).
Word coiners
Verbotomy
Practice coining new words.
How can you surprise and delight readers?
Neurologists call it “the pleasure of the text,” the reward readers get from figuring out figurative language. (It can be quite a reward: If your wordplay is funny enough, your readers’ brains even deliver a little dose of dopamine.)
Bring Ann in to present Master the Art of Storytelling, a business-storytelling workshop — to your team.
There, they’ll learn to flip phrases; compress details; sub sound-alikes; list, rhyme and twist — even coin new words with free online tools that do the work for you. They’ll get inspired by some of the world’s most creative headlines. And they’ll polish their skills in a wordplay workout, with recipes from anagram to oxymoron.
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