You've probably seen the classic list of anagrams that's been doing the rounds on the internet for quite a few years now. You know the ones, like...
Clinton, President of the USA
William Shakespeare
To Copulate He Finds Interns
I Am A Weakish Speller
Have you ever wondered what kind of brilliant minds found these anagrams?
I was surprised to find out that the credit for most of the more famous anagrams in the last decade or so does not belong to a human being, but rather to a computer. In fact, most of the truly great finds owe their existence to one specific computer program. It's called
Anagram Genius
and I've been having some fun with it of late.
Here's how I used it in an unsuccessful attempt to outdo that great Shakespeare achievement above...
And here's me taking revenge on an old boss I couldn't stand...
You'll notice I had to ... um ... trim the border on that one ;-)
Now I'm not into those staged testimonials or anything, but here's a testimonial that sold me. I guess it's more of a short story really. But don't worry, it won't take long...
You see, the creator of
Anagram Genius
is a renowned Artificial Intelligence expert by the name of William Tunstall-Pedoe. Here he is now...
You can tell just by looking at him that he's a guru, don't you think?
Anyway, one day in September 2002, William received an email from a customer. The customer was a fledgling author who was writing a mystery novel that relied extensively on anagrams, and was using William's anagram generator to accomplish it.
After exchanging a few emails, William sent the author a copy of an anagram book he had penned, and the author in turn sent him a signed copy of the novel he had finally been able to complete thanks to William's
Anagram Genius.
If you scroll down a little, I'll show you a photo of the autograph...
You can get the low-down on all the funky things this anagram generator can do, and also download a
free trial copy here.
But make sure you've got plenty of time to kill, and that the boss isn't standing behind you!