With inspiration from davorg's above example, taking it a step further (and a step further (and a step further (...))):

     #!/usr/bin/perl -w

     use strict;

     my %trans = (
             '$name'  => 'Frank',
             '$color' => 'Cherry Red',
             '$time'  => sprintf ("%d:%02d:%02d",
                                  (localtime(time))[2,1,0]),
             '$date'  => sprintf ("%04d-%02d-%02d",
                                  (localtime(time))[5] + 1900,
                                  (localtime(time))[4] + 1,
                                  (localtime(time))[3]),
             '$dstr'  => '$time on $date',
     ); 

     my ($trans_rx) = join ('|', sort { length($b) - length($a) }
                                 sort
                                 map { quotemeta ($_) }
                                 keys %trans);

     my ($string) = 'I\'m $name and I prefer $color objects, at least 
+on $dstr';

     while ($string =~ s!($trans_rx)!$trans{$1}!o) { }

     print "$string\n";
[download]

For output like:

     I'm Frank and I prefer Cherry Red objects, at least on 15:33:43 o
+n 2001-02-06
[download]

This version doesn't replace stray references to things like $1.95 with nothing, but it might get caught in a loop if you specify two entries which convert to eachother recursively such that "$a -> $b" and "$b -> $a".

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