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Behold a set of ten anahomophonagrams: expressions taken from well-known idioms, song lyrics, and pop culture, converted to like-sounding words and then reordered into new expressions.

For example,

    Wise motto: use hate, home sate, ohm toe ate.

can be reordered to

    use hate home ate toe wise sate ohm motto

which, when spoken (and with the tiniest bit of imagination) becomes the well-known English saying, "You say tomato, I say tomahto."

As with regular anagrams, capitalization and punctuation are unimportant (you should ignore them).

Can you figure out the correct word order and the corresponding expressions?

An upvote from me for every answer that solves at least one anagram (not already solved). The golden green checkmark goes to the answer that solves the most anagrams, or to the earliest such answer in the event of a tie.

Anahomophonagrams:

  1. Plea kin him or us wok door. Knots wand tomb.
  2. Tar, coal, tolls! Win it, colt twin!
  3. I ache, thick easel.
  4. Sick van fad? Nether have enough? Sieve us won.
  5. Mow randy month: arrange hoe wear, elope ear lay, ant thud!
  6. Us fart leap? Neigh. Tick ink gun. Tray ill.
  7. Oat comb: ah foreign elk whale tooth. Yeah caliph!
  8. Enough gin, leigh! Hurry thatch descent tome.
  9. Yaw, our thorn wheat malice pie owes woods. Aim yen.
  10. Be uh tees. Whole thaw door. I've pew synth.

Disclaimer: I'd intended the word "leigh" to be pronounced "lay", but the English language, my dastardly arch nemesis, has evidently outwitted me again with another one-of-a-kind exception (it's pronounced "lee"). Nevertheless, please treat it as though it were "lay".

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    $\begingroup$ "use hate home ate toe wise sate ohm motto" - that only works in an American accent :-/ To me it sounds like "you say tom-ayt-o, I say tom-ot-o", neither of which is the right pronunciation! $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Feb 11, 2018 at 16:45
  • $\begingroup$ @Randal'Thor: I should disclaim that I came up with these in a Canadian accent (which is basically a northeastern US accent). I can't vouch for how they sound in other dialects. $\endgroup$
    – COTO
    Feb 11, 2018 at 16:48
  • $\begingroup$ An ink bot (ish). This teak pan (ish). Whizz - know specs! $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Feb 11, 2018 at 16:56
  • $\begingroup$ This is basically scrambled Mad Gab. $\endgroup$
    – maxathousand
    Feb 12, 2018 at 15:15

6 Answers 6

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Title Use us, fop. All kin ill.

kin | u|se all f|o|p us ill = can you solve a puzzle?

1 Plea kin him or us wok door. Knots wand tomb. [done by Bass]

2 Tar, coal, tolls! Win it, colt twin!

twin col|t win coal | it toll|s tar = Twinkle, twinkle, little star (nursery rhyme).

3 I ache, thick easel. [done by Rand al'Thor]

4 Sick van fad? Nether have enough? Sieve us won.

sick s|ieve | won | have f|a|d us en|ough v|an n|ether = six of one, half a dozen of another (cliche).

5 Mow randy month: arrange hoe wear, elope ear lay, ant thud!

hoe m|ow m|on|th ar|range | wear | thu|d ear r|and|y | ant elope | lay = Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play (traditional song). Not entirely convinced by "month", though.

6 Us fart leap? Neigh. Tick ink gun. Tray ill. [done by Bass]

7 Oat comb: ah foreign elk whale tooth. Yeah caliph!

whale comb | too|th ah | oat el|k caliph foreign yeah = Welcome to the Hotel California. (Song by the Eagles.)

8 Enough gin, leigh! Hurry thatch descent tome. [done by Sam Spencer]

9 Yaw, our thorn wheat malice pie owes woods. Aim yen. [done by M Oehm]

10 Be uh tees. Whole thaw door. I've pew synth. [done by Rubio]

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  • $\begingroup$ You can add the title too. $\endgroup$
    – Mordechai
    Feb 12, 2018 at 1:52
  • $\begingroup$ @Morechai I hadn't added the title because I was embarrassed at not being able to solve it. But I've done it now :-). $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Feb 12, 2018 at 2:19
  • $\begingroup$ With four solved, you're the winner of the golden green checkmark. Well done. $\endgroup$
    – COTO
    Feb 12, 2018 at 13:21
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  1. thick ache easel I $\rightarrow$ "the cake is a lie"

  2. Something to do with

    seven and one ("sieve van" and "won").

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    $\begingroup$ That three before the spoiler tag is acting pretty funky! $\endgroup$
    – Bass
    Feb 11, 2018 at 23:33
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1: Plea kin him or us wok door. Knots wand tomb.

Wand us knots him plea wok kin tomb or door -> One does not simply walk into Mordor — Lord of the Rings

6: Us fart leap? Neigh. Tick ink gun. Tray ill.

neigh fart tick ill us leap ink tray gun -> Never tickle a sleeping dragon — English for the Hogwarts’ motto

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8 Enough gin, leigh! Hurry thatch descent tome.

Leigh descent gin tome enough thatch hurry = Ladies and gentlemen of the jury

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  • $\begingroup$ Looks like you got the last one. Good show. $\endgroup$
    – COTO
    Feb 12, 2018 at 13:19
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    $\begingroup$ I was sure I was onto something when I pieced together "enough descent hurry" as "-ing of the century", now I know why I couldn't make sense of the rest! $\endgroup$
    – Teo
    Feb 12, 2018 at 13:28
  • $\begingroup$ Cheers! my first go on puzzling too so I'm pleased as punch. Thanks for the puzzle $\endgroup$
    – Sam Spencer
    Feb 12, 2018 at 13:30
  • $\begingroup$ I admit that English isn't my first language, and I make many errors with my pronunciation. But this, this thing, it's just on a whole another level. Even with the words in the correct order, there's very little chance of getting this one. There's, what, 2 correct vowel sounds in the whole thing? So, extremely well done, I guess! $\endgroup$
    – Bass
    Feb 12, 2018 at 14:45
  • $\begingroup$ @COTO, just to be sure I wasn't completely off my gourd, I looked the pronunciations up in a dictionary, using the closer match if there were many possible pronunciations. I got "liː dɪsent dʒɪn toʊm ɪnʌf θætʃ hɜːri" and "leɪdiz ənd dʒɛntlmən ʌv ðə dʒʊəri". Indeed those have two vowel sounds in common: the "o" in "of" and the final "y". The "i" in "ladies" is pretty close too, but the other 6? Not even by a long shot. Is there really a dialect that makes them sound the same? $\endgroup$
    – Bass
    Feb 12, 2018 at 17:15
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10 Be uh tees. Whole thaw door. I've pew synth.

pew tees s|yn|th uh | I|'ve| thaw | be whole door = Beauty's in the eye of the beholder. (aphorism)

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9 Yaw, our thorn wheat malice pie owes woods. Aim yen.

ou|r owes | pie y|en yaw thor|n aim | wood|s mal|ice wheat
A rose by another name would smell as sweet. (after Romeo and Juliet)

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