Re-arranging phrases.

Walking to work this morning I spotted a sign.

Naturally I re-arranged it in my head -

Play slowly please
Children driving

So let’s make a fun thread of re-arranged phrases, signs, famous quotes.
Ring them all, rule one and bind them in to the darkness.

Away Give.

Na it doesn’t work. :slight_smile:

Even as Way Give…oops

There is actually a term for this - ‘chiasmus’, which is “a reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases”. For example, the line attributed to Mae West, “it’s not the men in my life, it’s the life in my men”.

And, naturally, there is a website. Check out http://www.chiasmus.com

The first thing that came to mind was a local restaurant that sells t-shirts with amusing phrases on the back. There is one which reads “It is our business to do pleasure with you”.

This pants is thread.

I was in New Orleans during the Urban Cowboy craze. In the window of a mechanical bull bar, there was a bumper sticker; If you ain’t a cowboy, you ain’t shit. I was severely amused. The proof is in the converse, of course. If you are a cowboy… :dubious:

Then there’s always the “Slow Children At Play” sign, which doesn’t have to be rearranged at all. My brain on the other hand, well, maybe :slight_smile:

Not quite in the spirit of the OP, but there was a strawberry field on the edge of my village in England that had two signs outside it. At a certain angle as you drove towards it, they said:
Pick your own
Children!

Wow, and I thought I was the only one to do this.

I used to rearrange, “No parking at any time” to be, “No timing at any park”.

The old one about a defense attorney who had a sign on his door reading:

Prosecutors will be violated. :wink:

That reminds me. In Liverpool I saw a large professional looking sign which said “crap for Sale”

As we progressed along the road it became clear what the sign really said. (Scrap for sale)
(which, in hindsight, isn’t much of an improvement)

Hey! Here’s another one…why do we drive in the parkway and park in th–OW! Stop hitting!

The mind gap.

The waste is a terrible thing to mind.

Seen on a bumper sticker:

The weather is here. Wish you were beautiful.

I always contemplate that one and “Blind Child Crossing.” Is the crossing blind, or is the child blind?

I saw one somewhere, and I don’t think I quite remember how it goes…

“Every time a kitten masturbates you kill God” Or something like that. It was funnier than my version.

Actually, I think it was on the SDMB somewhere.

Re-phrasing ranges ar.

The Board Dope Straight Message.

You don’t have to work here to help, but it’s mad (from ‘Big Train’ UK comedy show)

In the north they have signs on the highways that say, “Bridge ices before road.”
I always read it as, “Ice bridges before road.”