Wikipedia:April Fools/April Fools' Day 2005/Susej

Susej (pronounced soo-sedge, similar to sausage) is a common manipulation of the name of Jesus by the process of reversal. This may be used for comic effect, as part of a parody, or sometimes in a derisive sense by those who disagree with Christianity.

In a comic sense, Susej shares common ancestry with many simple children's ciphers and word games. Primitive codes such as open sesame and ROT13 are often used to comic effect in situations where such codes would be severely inadequate for the level of security required.

In Satanism, the idea of inversion or reversal of Christian symbols has stood since its inception. Common examples of this include the inverted pentagram and inverted cross often used as icons. Susej, in that sense, is sometimes used on T-shirts and other items as something of an inside joke to others who recognise the backwards formulation of the name. Moreover, a number of (usually quite obscure) heavy metal bands use inversed Christian names, such as American black metal act Havohej.

A modern phenomena of the reversal of words is found in the french verlan - verlan = lan ver = l'envers (meaning the reverse).