You know this would be a great programming problem for CS students. Given the phrase “head less horse man”, generate all 4-word phrases, repeated words allowed. (Some of the ones in this picture aren’t 4 words, but anyways…)

Consider the words “head less horse man” to be digits in a base-4 number system; head=0 less=1 horse=2 man=3. Counting from 0 to (4^4)-1 would yield 256 unique values,

• head head head head = 0
• head head head less = 1
• head head head horse = 2
• head head head man = 3
• head head less head = 10 (4 base 10)
• …
• man man man man = (4^4)-1 = 3333 (255 base 10)

Bonus points for funniest picture to go with a value (must be hand-drawn by student, no AI allowed) :)

EDIT: not permutations, which I originally said. It’s more of an exercise in understanding how to count in bases other than 10.

I don’t know why the Manhorse bothers me so much that it’s not a centaur…

no horseless headless horseman?

is that… the beatles?

Missed opportunity: “maneless horse” and “horseless mane”

The meme forgot Centaur and Wrong Half