MANF ANGWA RDASM ORT = ?

May 16, 2009 12:14 AM

MANF ANGWA RDASM ORT. What does it mean?

Mike Doughty's guitar has letters (like the stickers you'd put on your mailbox) that spell out the above words, one per line. It's not rot13 or any other Caesar shift. Google turns up nothing. Nothing obvious looking at anagrams. Any ideas?

posted by 0xFCAF to Media & Arts (14 answers total)

Have you thought of emailing him? His email address is available on this page if I have the right Mike Doughty.
posted by b33j at 12:41 AM on May 16, 2009

Response by poster: I'll try, but I was just at his show and someone asked. He said "It's a secret code".
posted by 0xFCAF at 12:44 AM on May 16, 2009

If you separate the letters differently, you get MAN FANG WAR DAS MORT. Maybe a mix of languages, something decrying war and death?
posted by amyms at 1:00 AM on May 16, 2009

Something that doesn't work: I tried simple alpha substitution for all letters of the alphabet and it didn't result in anything useful.
posted by b33j at 1:02 AM on May 16, 2009

Best answer: This German translation of the Gospel of John begins with "Im Anfang war das Wort." Could you have a couple of the letters wrong?
posted by Sand Reckoner at 1:27 AM on May 16, 2009 [12 favorites]

I think Sand Reckoner wins, especially if the 'I' fell off, and the 'W' was turned upside-down for cryptographic value. (but hey, I have this neat perl script now that does substitution ciphers!)
posted by Maximian at 1:44 AM on May 16, 2009

Or Mort could be a jump to Latin, giving "In the beginning was Death."
posted by Scattercat at 2:10 AM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Here's a picture of him and the guitar. It's clearly "manf angwa rdasw ort." Sand Reckoner has it.
posted by sambosambo at 5:32 AM on May 16, 2009

Yea, Sand Reckoner has it right. Also, looking at that picture it seems to me that the neck of the guitar substitutes for the missing "I" in "Im".
posted by gemmy at 6:48 AM on May 16, 2009

Re: Sand Reckoner's response, that particular phrase translates to "In the beginning was the Word."

King James translation of the full verse: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." So "GOD" (German "GOTT") would be your secret password to open the bank vault.
posted by rongorongo at 7:52 AM on May 16, 2009

0xFCAF, jeepers, what a coincidence! I was the one who put that question in the jar. :-)
Thanks for posting the question to AskMeFi!
posted by browse at 8:04 AM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I knew you guys could do it.
posted by 0xFCAF at 11:20 AM on May 16, 2009

Arguably the guitar neck gives the "I".
posted by musofire at 2:56 PM on May 16, 2009

Best answer: ...and serendipitously, via Twitter: MikeDoughtyYeah: Am Anfang war das Wort.
posted by kittyb at 8:14 PM on May 16, 2009