Quiz Guy John Chaneski donated blood the other day, which inspired this week’s puzzle based on the four blood types, A, B, O, and AB. Each clue involves a pair of words, and the challenge is to donate one of those four blood types to one word to make it synonymous with the other. Take, for example, the words ruble and debris. The addition of which blood type to the first word makes it mean the same thing as the second? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Blood Type Donation Word Game”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Martha Barnette.
I’m Grant Barrett, and out of the darkness comes that man of mystery, John Chaneski, our quiz guy.
Hi, John.
Hey, Grant. Hey, Martha. No mystery here. It’s a quiz, as usual.
You know, I know what you’re going to ask me.
John, what personal obsession of yours are you going to use as a flimsy excuse to hang on a quiz this week?
Well, will it be superheroes, puppies, British game shows? Thank you for asking.
I am a frequent blood donor and recently gave blood, and from that, believe it or not, I got the idea for this quiz.
I will give you two words. For example, ruble and debris.
Now, one of them needs a type of blood to become synonymous with the other.
As you know, the four blood types are A, B, O, and AB.
Now, for ruble and debris, do you know what you should add to one of those?
To get the other?
Yeah.
Ruble should get a B to become rubble.
Exactly.
Add a B to ruble, you get rubble, which is synonymous with debris.
Nice.
Now, alternatively, some words may need to donate blood.
For example, if I said kernel and seabed, what would you say?
This is kernel as in kernel of corn.
Right.
Oh, okay.
And seabed?
C-bed, right.
How about if you donate A-B?
Right, what do you get?
You get kernel and seed.
Seed, yes, very good.
You remove, you take the blood, the A-B from C-bed to get seed for kernel.
And also remember the blood types, A, B, O, or A-B.
You’ll have to add or remove one of those types to one of the two words to get a synonym of the other.
Here we go.
Awaken and ruse.
Awaken and ruse.
Oh, ruse gets an O.
It becomes rouse.
Right.
I call that O positive because you’re adding the O.
Rouse.
Very good.
Again, as we sometimes recommend, a piece of paper and a pencil might help you with this.
Let’s see.
Here’s the next one.
Container and cartoon.
Container and cartoon.
Oh, take one of the O’s out of cartoon and you get a carton.
Yes, you do.
That’s an O negative.
We remove the O.
All right.
Let’s try this one.
Coached and hidden.
Coached?
Oh, take the O out of coach and you get cached.
Cached for hidden.
Yes, very good.
Doable and allocate.
Doable and allocate.
Take that AB out.
You get dole and allocate.
Dole.
To dole something out.
To allocate.
Martha’s on the AB trip.
Yes.
Her blood is on fire.
Here’s the last one.
Decayed and rotated.
Rotate and rotated.
Oh, rotated becomes rotted by taking out an A.
Yes, very good.
Rotted.
Nicely done.
Thank you very much.
This is always a pleasure to have you on the show.
We really appreciate it.
It’s really my pleasure, guys.
Thank you so much.
We have great fun on the show.
We talk about all things related to language, but you know what we love to do?
We love to hear your stories.
What’s a funny word that the kids came up with and everybody uses and has for decades?
Tell us that story.
Or what’s something that grandma and grandpa used to say that has been passed down for generations?
We’d like to hear that one, too.
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