By P.J. Harston
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 21/97) - This much fun should require a licence. Many people out there have no idea how much fun anagrams can be.

In the past, I've never been one to get into that sort of thing. But since I've become "wired," the world of really (really, really) nerdy pastimes has opened its doors wide and has become subject to my twisted and, shall we say sub-adult, sense of humor.

Sure, in the past I've halfway completed a few crossword puzzles, and I've even played serious Scrabble once or twice over the years -- but not since I was about 12.

It was about that time I realized a serious game of Scrabble can never even come close to replacing a good game of dirty word Scrabble, which is hilarious and educational all at the same time.

But the other day, while jetting around the infosphere, I found an anagram generator. Ever since, I've been coming across extremely funny and even the occasional "dirty" word combinations by having my computer rearrange the letters of well-known people's names.

For instance, did you know that if you rearrange the letters in Premier Don Morin's name, you can spell: "Do in morn?" Or even: "Don, I Norm." I'm not even going to mention "Din Moron," that would be an unwarranted savage attack on an unsuspecting politician.

But our premier's anagrams don't even come close to the possibilities that await the name of the territorial minister responsible for constitutional affairs.

When you feed Stephen Kakfwi's name into the generator, thigh-slappers like "Speak few think," "Has few kept kin" and "Ask the pew fink" come out the other end. And "Waken kept fish" and "Hank keep swift" are pretty good, too.

Unfortunately, I'm prohibited by law (and my editor) to go into the many anagrams with the word "shaft" that come out of the generator.

And just when I thought it couldn't get much better than that, Minister of Transportation Jim Antoine's name accidently ground its way through the generator.

His name, once anagramized, threw me into fits of laughter with such good ones as: "Inmate, I Jon" and "A jet I'm in on."

But -- this really isn't Jim's fault and I don't want you to draw any conclusions from this because it's all meant in fun -- the best ones are: "Jane, I'm Toni" and "Joanne, I'm it."

Yellowknife Mayor Dave Lovell wasn't a favorite choice of the anagram generator. In fact, of the four or five anagrams it came up with for Dave Lovell, the only one that came even close to making sense is: "All devolve."

However, if you think the fun stops there, think again. Let's see what the old generator thinks of Western Arctic MP Ethel Blondin-Andrew: "A hell bender Don twin," "A hell bender don't win" and, my personal favorite, "Bold, lewd hen intern."

Again, none of these anagrams should be taken as insults, because they are, after all, meant in jest -- besides, I just put the names in the generator, I didn't actually spend hours at my desk rearranging letter in these people's names.

I have much better things to do, like search for Adult's Only web sites under the heading: Bold, lewd hen interns of the North. You should see all of the full-color pictures.

Just kidding. Ha.