Animal Name Word Puzzle

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, and we’re joined once again by our quiz guy, Greg Pliska.

Hello, Greg.

Hello, Grant. Hello, Martha.

Hiya, Greg. Nice glasses.

Thank you. They’re still working. They’re still working. I’m not running into things anymore.

What I find disconcerting about the glasses is that now I can see the script in front of me, and I can see Grant across from me.

He’s like, it’s too much input. It’s much better when I can only see one thing in focus.

So what do you have on those pages?

Well, speaking of Grant, this week’s challenge is called Missing Links.

How is that for a transition?

Hardly hard.

Now, this is not about prehistoric beasts like the Tyrannosaurus or the Allosaurus, but about that contemporary beast, the Thesaurus.

Yes.

So imagine you’re looking up a word like imp in your handy Thesaurus, and you notice a word in the entry, and you turn to that word, and you notice mess around in that entry.

So the question is, what word is the missing link that got you from one to the other, from imp to mess around?

So it’s a word that has to mean both imp and mess around.

Exactly.

So an imp is what, a goblin or a gremlin or something like that?

Well, here’s a hint.

The missing link, as it would be, is a kind of animal.

Aha.

So to mess around, it might also appear in an entry related to wrench, as in blank wrench.

Monkey? Oh, monkey.

Monkey, yes.

Oh, okay.

And monkey is an imp is a monkey.

It’s kind of synonymous, and to monkey with something is to mess around with it.

Right, sure.

Right.

So for each one of these, I’ll give you the first word and the last word, and you have to tell me what word is the missing link between them.

And again, in true Darwinian fashion, the missing link will always be an animal.

Just one link, though.

Oh, nice.

Just one link.

Here’s a pair for you.

What’s the missing link between school and angle?

I’m thinking fish and anglers and schools of fish, but that doesn’t…

That’s perfectly good.

Oh, is that it?

That’s exactly what I was looking for.

Yeah, it’s a little…

School isn’t really synonymous with fish, although you can find it in the entry for fish.

Also, that was tricky, so angle was a verb.

Yeah.

Fake out.

Angle as a verb.

You guys know all the parts of speech, right?

Here’s another pair.

Deliver and stomach.

Deliver and stomach.

If you can stomach something, you can take it.

And if you deliver something, you can take it somewhere.

And the animal is a take, of course.

I just saw one of those.

I’m thinking out loud.

Hello.

So what’s another synonym for stomaching something in that sense?

Tolerating.

No.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

That’s a type of fish in the Amazon, the tolerated.

I don’t think I can blank another minute of this.

Endure might be another word.

Endure.

It’s going to be a common one probably.

Right.

They’re all the same.

Come on, Grant.

Animal found in the Pacific Northwest.

Badger, otter.

Grizzly, bear.

I don’t think I can bear.

Salmon?

Bear.

Oh, bear.

Oh, bear.

To bear a child is to deliver a child.

Okay, okay.

To stomach something is to bear it.

I see.

Bear.

All right.

Okay.

All right, here’s another pair for you.

Coward.

Now, Grant’s already noticing that it starts with the three letters of cow, but that’s a different puzzle.

Okay.

Coward.

Actually, it ends with the four letters of war.

There we go.

Coward and showdown.

Ooh.

A little bit of a tricky one.

The coward is pretty straightforward, but showdown is a tricky link.

Coward.

I’d work with coward as your starting point.

Would you work with coward?

A coward is someone who’s a yellow-bellied.

How about a yellow-bellied sapsucker?

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

And we’ll play a game of yellow-bellied sapsucker.

No, no, no.

Well, a coward is a chicken, but what does that have to do with showdowns?

Oh, to play chicken.

To play chicken is a kind of showdown.

Chicken is a kind of showdown between two people.

Okay.

Good teamwork there, Grant.

It’s in a James Dean movie.

Isn’t there some scene where they drive right at each other in the car?

Oh.

All right.

Here’s another pair for you.

Highway and weapon.

Highway and weapon, and it’s related by an animal.

Well, a weapon, an animal is a dart.

Oh, there are all kinds of animal names for weapons, too.

Lane, Road, Street, Thoroughfare, Parkway, Freeway.

Bazooka.

Home Pass, Underpass.

Weapons.

Weapons.

There are all kinds of…

Lance.

Dart, Arrow, Lance.

Bazooka.

You said bazooka.

Boy, Little Boy.

Atomic Bomb.

Why am I blanking on this?

I know this.

Grant is becoming a thesaurus right here.

He’s listed every word.

I’m just reading.

The entry for weapon.

Is it the full moon again?

If you drive in New Jersey, you drive on the New Jersey park.

There you go.

Oh, man.

I was thinking all these sophisticated weapons that cost billions and have buttons to push.

And you’re thinking of like a pole.

With a sharp end.

A pointed stick, really, as far as sophisticated as I go.

But think, when you were in the schoolyard getting beaten up for knowing too many words, if you’d had a pointed stick, it would have helped.

Right.

I had a pointed stick.

I had a bigger pointed stick.

I had a bazooka, and it just didn’t work out.

Well, hey, Greg, this was much better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Gosh, thanks.

No, really.

Well, thanks, Greg. That was loads of fun.

And if you’d like to have some fun with us on the air, give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or you can poke the bear with a sharp stick by sending us an email to words@waywordradio.org.