More fun facts! I once wrote a script to search a word list for words that make valid regexen which convert one valid word into another.

$ perl -le 'print bangs =~s engender'
bands
$ perl -le 'print halved =~s avatar'
halted
$ perl -le 'print stove =~s evener'
stone
[download]

haukex is Evil.

---

Give a man a fish:  <%-{-{-{-<

I rewrote the code to find even more matches, here it is, enjoy :-)

use warnings;
use 5.014; # mostly for /r

my %words = map {chomp; $_=>1} grep {!/'s$/}
    do { open my $fh, '<', '/usr/share/dict/words' or die $!; <$fh> };

my %search;
for my $word (sort keys %words) {
    next unless $word=~ m{ \A
            (?<pre> s )?
            (?<sep> [a-zA-Z0-9] )
                (?<search> (?: (?!\g{sep}) . )+ )
            \g{sep}
                (?! \g{search} \g{sep} )
                (?<repl> (?: (?!\g{sep}) . )* )
            \g{sep}
                (?<flags> [msixpongr]* )
        \z }msx;
    push @{ $search{$+{search}} }, { word=>$word, %+ };
}
my @search = sort { length $b <=> length $a or $a cmp $b }
    keys %search;
my ($re) = map {qr/$_/} join '|', map {quotemeta} @search;
for my $word (sort keys %words) {
    next unless length $word > 1 && $word=~/($re)/;
    for my $s (@search) {
        next unless $word=~/\Q$s/;
        for my $r (@{$search{$s}}) {
            my $test = eval '$word=~s/\Q$s/$$r{repl}/r'.$$r{flags};
            defined $test or die $@;
            next unless length $test > 1 && exists $words{$test}
                && $test ne $word;
            my ($pre,$pat) = ($$r{pre}//'s',$$r{word});
            ( $pat = $$r{word} ) =~ s/\A\Q$$r{pre}// if $$r{pre};
            my $code = "\$word =~$pre $pat$$r{flags}r";
            eval($code) eq $test or die "$code - $test - $@";
            say "$word =~$pre $pat  => $test";
        }
    }
}
[download]

But seriously, to respond to Fletch's comments, of course this is just for fun ;-) When I wrote it I was thinking I might try my hand at some Perl poetry some time, unfortunately I don't think I'm creative enough in that way... at least here's some code if anyone else wants to give it a spin ;-)

and now pretty please an even weirder example with the x modifier and interspersed white-spaces, using your own name dear haukex! ;-)

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery FootballPerl is like chess, only without the dice}

an even weirder example

In the meantime, there's this message from Dave Mitchell available for studying on the fun-with-perl mailing list:

Dave Mitchell Tue, 19 Sep 2006 17:53:37 -0700

I believe the following is a genuine, punctuation-free Quine:

s zzs vvxv
and s ZVZchr 122Zie
and s ZVZchr 122Zie
and s ZVZchr 122Zie
and s SxSlcfirstSe
and s YZZxZYvvxvYi and print
z
and s ZVZchr 122Zie
and s ZVZchr 122Zie
and s ZVZchr 122Zie
and s SxSlcfirstSe
and s YZZxZYvvxvYi and print


-- 
A walk of a thousand miles begins with a single step...
then continues for another 1,999,999 or so.
[download]

perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'

example with the x modifier and interspersed white-spaces

A good idea for a coding challenge, perhaps? ;-)