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Rebus Challenge 1

When I was a young tyke, I would write notes to my mother. What made me a little odd for your typical grade-schooler is that I often wrote them in code of one sort or another. Included in this correspondence (and stored for posterity by my mother) was a series of rebus puzzles, which turn out actually to be a combination of rebus and homophone and occasional other literary tricks. I present the first in the rebus series in honor of my mother's birthday, which was yesterday. (My siblings and Katie and I took her out to IHOP for dinner, which my mother chose because she once worked at IHOP as a waitress and wanted to reminisce. We didn't run into any of the people Mom worked with 45 years ago.)

Can you figure out my birthday message below? (Click for a larger image.)



Favorite part #1: That I drew a picture of a cat with a huge X through it to depict our dead pet Siamese cat, Happy.

Favorite part #2: That my map of Asia, while including a disclaimer that it is not to scale, has two Malaysias, no Vietnam or Iraq, and has China completely landlocked!

ANSWER KEY:

Dear Mom,
Happy Birthday!
I love you.
I hope you like this.
Signed,
JM Andresen

Line by line:

Dear Mom = deer, monday + m - ynda
Happy Birthday! = happy (our dead cat), bird + t + hay (move the d two spots to the right)
I love = eye, lock + venus - usnkc
you. I = yo + up - p, eye
hope you like = ho + ep (swap the last two letters), u, lie + k (move the k one spot to the left)
this. = hits (anagram)
Signed, = asian + bed - baa
JM Andresen

The only problem I have with my younger self is that the "signed" doesn't make much sense. I don't know why the map of Asia should depict the adjective "Asian." I'm also troubled that would misspell it as "sined." I do homophones such as "eye" for "I" but all pure rebus words are spelled correctly. Perhaps I erred in just forgetting about the "gn" and spelling out "sied." Can someone else figure out a way to get to "signed" (or something else that makes sense)?

Comments

  1. I *love* these. Very cool.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9:48 PM

    I actually interpreted the last bit as "I hope you like this side" which I found a bit odd, but not totally unreasonable.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There are two problems with "I hope you like this side." First, there is a large period right after "this". Second, I indicated in other words in the rebus where two letters should be swapped, and the anagram function had to be specifically invoked. So I think the letter order of si+ed needs to be honored. (I have the faintest memory of making an embarrassing mistake in one of my puzzles, and leaving out the "gn" of "signed" might just be it.)

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