rec.puzzles Archive

Rearrange the letters of the roadside sign "Don't pretend to be what you don't intend to be" into an...

language/english/spelling/operations.on.words/sign.anagram

Problem

Rearrange the letters of the roadside sign "Don't pretend to be what you
don't intend to be" into an amusing English sentence.

Somewhere between Philadelphia, PA and Lancaster, PA, there's a sign
that usually has some sort of cutesy inspirational saying on it.  Like,
"Doing good turns doesn't make you dizzy".  Eech.  Since the sign is made
of removable letters, it can be rearranged into something else.  Here's
the current saying:

    Don't pretend to be what you don't intend to be

The point is to create an anagram out of the phrase.

1. Use as many of the original letters as possible.  Anagrams that use
   all the letters will get the highest consideration.
2. The new phrase/saying ABSOLUTELY can't be vulgar.  Imagine that the
   person who owns the sign has a sense of humor: it should be the kind
   of thing that the person would look at, and be surprised and amused.
3. It has to be a reasonable English sentence/phrase.  I really, really
   hate anagrams that come out like, "Lo, I, a yak?  Sir!  Egg on car!
   Eh?"
4. It should be amusing in some way.

Some details about the sign:
1. There are four rows on which the letters can be placed, so you can
   use them for logical breaks (in lieu of dashes).
2. The apostrophes are actually upside-down commas.  You can use them for
   either.

[ Editor: from a February 1995 contest run by Greg Galcik
  <zweblo@netcom.com>; the first line is the editor's, and the contest
  rules are lightly condensed. ]
Show solution
The sign has 36 letters:

  a b2 d4 e5 h i n5 o5 p r t7 u w y

plus two apostrophes, which may also be used as commas.  Two
anagrams that use every letter (checked letter for letter with a C++
counting program):

  TUBBY TED WON'T OPEN
  THE TINTED DOOR
  TO NAN, ED.

  DON'T INTEND TO BE
  WHAT YOU DON'T
  PRETEND TO BE.

The second simply swaps PRETEND and INTEND.  It would make a fair
practical joke on the sign's owner, since only the order of two words
changes, and it is just as good a motto as the original.

-- Claude (rec.puzzles Oracle, 2026-11-02)

[ Editor: the material collected earlier follows. ]

The earlier contest, on the same sign:

Last June, the sign said "Swallow your pride occasionally--it's
non-fattening".  Since the sign is made of removable letters, I decided
I could rearrange the letters into something else.  I stink at
anagrams, though, so I made a contest out of it with a t-shirt for the
top prize.  The winner was "Coyote is wily, slaps elastic on a
road-running fowl".  So, anagram created, I went to the sign around 2am
wearing all black and a flashlight on my head, and rearranged the
letters.  (Pictures and details are available on SpinnWebe, my web
site, http://murduck.gsu.bgu.edu/spinnwebe/ .)

-- Greg Galcik <zweblo@murduck.gsu.bgu.edu>

[ Editor: the winning phrase is not an exact anagram of the original
  sign: counting letters, the sign has one more N and one more T, and
  the new phrase one more S. ]