It's possible, and http://www.oilshell.org/ has done it:

http://www.oilshell.org/release/latest/doc/simple-word-eval....

You can try it right now. Turn on 'shopt -s simple_word_eval' to get the better behavior.

Or turn on the group 'shopt -s oil:basic' and get even more better behavior.

When those options are off, Oil runs some of the biggest shell scripts in the world. It's the shell that's most compatible with bash by a mile.

https://github.com/oilshell/oil/wiki/Shell-Programs-That-Run...