Academy Awards Word Puzzle

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, and we’re joined from New York by John Chaneski.

Hello, John.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, Martha.

Hi, John.

What you doing?

I’ve got Mo Puzzles.

I’ve got Movie Night.

We’re going to talk about movies.

Okay.

The answers to all of the following wordplay questions are one-word movie titles, and all of the movies won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Oh, gracious.

Okay.

I’ll give you a lot of clues.

Here we go.

If you change the first letter of this movie title, you can make a word meaning insolent or one meaning garbage.

Crash.

Yes, crash.

Very good.

And the other words would be trash and?

Brash.

Brash.

Brash.

Excellent.

If you take this 10-letter movie title and break it into two five-letter words, you’ll find that you got to have the second word if you want to be the first word.

A 10-letter title into two five-letter words.

Right.

You got to have the second word to be the first word.

Let’s try it this way.

I need a clue.

You got to have…

Heart.

Yeah, and you got to have that if you want to be…

Alive.

I’ll give you a hint.

It’s a 1995 historical drama directed by Mel Gibson.

Brave Heart.

Brave Heart.

Very good.

Very nice.

Oh, that was tricky.

Now, the title of this movie is a man’s middle name that means for the love of God.

It’s also not a middle name you find very often anymore.

Isn’t this a Hebrew middle name?

Biblical?

No, but think about Latin when you think about for the love of God.

Oh, Amadeus.

Yes, Amadeus.

Very good.

Starring Fmurray Abraham.

Oh, man.

Fmurray.

Nice.

You could interpret an English translation of this title to mean Barack’s Barracks, which contains only four A’s, just like the movie title.

Four A’s.

So is this etymological origin of Barack as in Barack Obama?

That’s a clue to if you translate the title into English.

White House?

-huh.

Yeah.

Think of a movie title that could be translated.

Casablanca.

Casablanca is correct.

Nice.

Very good.

Very good.

This one word best picture title becomes a girl’s name if you remove its penultimate letter, then another girl’s name if you remove the next penultimate letter, and it’s only five letters long.

To start with or to end with?

To start with.

This is tough. I’ll give you a hint.

It’s a 1955 drama. By now, anybody who probably knows this movie has probably guessed it.

1955 drama directed by Delbert Mann and it stars Ernest Borgnine.

I was going to say Marty.

Yes.

Marty?

Yes, very good.

Marty it is.

Remove the penultimate letter and you get?

Oh, Mary.

And remove the penultimate letter again and you get?

Oh, May.

May.

Very good.

Penultimate meaning next to last.

Never seen it.

The title of this best picture can be interpreted to answer the following question.

What’s between F and J?

F and J.

G, H, I.

G, H, I?

G, H, I.

Well, here, I’ll let you know what the, if you write it out, it looks like G and H, I.

Gandhi.

Gandhi’s right.

Way to go.

Can I just say, by the way, my clues for this, by the way, this movie stars Ben Kingsley, of course, but also Martin Sheen and John Ratzenberger.

Oh, that would have helped.

Not at all.

I’m sure that would have really helped, yeah.

Finally, this title of a sports movie rhymes with the name of a sport, but not the sport featured in the movie.

So it’s one word, and it rhymes with the name of…

A sport.

A sport.

Hoosiers?

No.

I don’t know.

I need another clue here.

It also rhymes with a rice wine.

Saki?

Hockey?

Rocky.

Rocky is correct.

Well, that was kind of rocky, but you guys did pretty well.

That was a workout.

I feel like I run to the top of the steps and I’m jumping up and down.

Cut me, Mick.

After my raw egg.

Well, I’m going to fly now, so I’ll see you guys next time.

You are fly, John.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thanks, John.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

We’re the show about words and language and how you use them.

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