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Ishmael of the amusing word blog Everyone Is Jumping Off the Brooklyn Bridge noticed our post on the Anagram Hall of Fame from last week and dredged up a few more, including this gem:
To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune = In one of the Bard’s best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten.
He also complains that the following anagram isn’t mentioned in the Hall of Fame:
Go hang a salami = I’m a lasagna hog
Of course, “go hang a salami, etc” is also a famous palindrome, celebrated in one of my very favorite parodies of all time, titled simply “Bob.” Please, please, if you’re a Bob Dylan fan and you have Rhapsody or you can find the MP3 (or you’re, y’know, not a cheapskate and are willing to buy the album), give this a listen or at least read the lyrics, which are entirely palindromic. You’ll never hear the phrase “a Toyota’s a Toyota” in quite the same way again… oh, and of course, if you have favorite palindromes, send ‘em our way!
Swap God for a janitor, rot in a jar of dog paws.
posted by Lucres on 8-8-2006 at 12:51 pm
I personally like this one:
twelve plus one = eleven plus two
For anagrams, plus a banner that appears with a new animated anagram everyday, I turn to wordsmith:
http://wordsmith.org/anagram/topical.html
posted by Sammy on 8-8-2006 at 6:36 pm
Plenty of palindromes in the They Might Be Giants song “I Palindrome I.” See http://www.tmbg.org/band-info/songs/lyrics/IPalindromeI.html
and
http://www.tmbg.org/band-info/songs/interp/IPalindromeI.html
posted by Milbarge on 8-8-2006 at 11:19 pm
“Bob” is indeed where I first heard the palindrome/anagram mentioned at “Everyone’s Jumping”. The complete lyrics are listed here:
http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Weird-Al-Yankovic/Bob.html
Incidentally, if anyone didn’t get why I bothered to mention “Jeremy’s Iron”, it comes from The Simpsons episode “Lisa’s Rival”:
Taylor: Oh, don’t be modest. I’m glad we have someone who can join us in our anagram game.
Alison: We take proper names and rearrange the letters to form a description of that person.
Taylor: Like, er…oh, I don’t know, uh…Alec Guinness.
Alison: [thinks] Genuine class.
Taylor: Ho ho, very good. All right, Lisa, um…Jeremy Irons.
Lisa: [looks with consternation] Jeremy’s…iron.
Taylor: Mm hmm, well that’s…very good…for a first try. You know what? I have a ball. [pulls one from his pocket] Perhaps you’d like to bounce it?
Text taken from http://www.snpp.com/episodes/1F17.html.
posted by Ishmael on 8-9-2006 at 4:36 am
Drew from toothpastefordinner.com brought to my attention this one:
won ton, not now
which is incredibly simple, but I think that’s why it’s my favorite.
posted by Emily on 8-9-2006 at 1:32 pm
Probably all my favorite palindromes come from the song mentioned earlier or Jon Agee’s book So Many Dyanamos. My favorites:
emu fume
Snot or protons?
Tin sanitary rat in a snit
They don’t seem so funny until you see the illustrations which totally crack me up.
Also I always have to think of my biochemistry class when I think of palindromes. We were studying something about DNA and how a certain enzyme will cut it at a palindrome. So for homework my professor had us all find one and bring it to class the next day. He then read some of the funnier ones out loud. Mine got one of the bigger laughs:
Nurse I spy gypsies! Run!
Good times, good times.
posted by Janel on 8-12-2006 at 4:23 pm