Bottle Room and Shred

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. It’s time for another round of Slang This, our weekly slang challenge.

Grant, today’s contestant from the National Puzzlers League is Chris Morse from Somerville, Massachusetts.

Hello.

Hi, how you doing?

I’m doing very well today.

I understand that you’re a chemistry professor and that you also teach a class in puzzle construction?

I do. We talk all about puzzles, where they came from, how to solve them, how to make them.

It’s kind of a fun experience.

Well, speaking of language, Chris, do you have a favorite slang word for us?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’ve decided that based on this summer, my new favorite slang word is bromance.

Bromance. Who is the brother that you were having a romance with?

No, no, no, no, no.

A bromance is a romance comedy.

Like the rom-com type of movie where it’s just sort of two guys non-romantically linked but having a very deep relationship together.

Kind of like Pineapple Express.

Pineapple Express is a bromance.

-huh.

I can dig it.

I can totally dig it.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, Chris, are you ready to play our game?

I think I am.

Okay.

Here’s how we do it.

Take it away, Grant.

There are two parts to this quiz today, and each of these parts has two possible answers.

Here we go.

He was so drunk, he took $1,000 out of an ATM and spent it in just one half hour in the clubs blank.

Did he spend $1,000 in A, the bell tower, or B, the bottle room?

Bell tower or bottle room?

What do you think, Chris?

Well, bottle room, I mean, we’re in a bar.

We’ve spent a lot of money.

The bottle room could be like a wine cellar,

Maybe if this were like an upper class sort of thing,

But kind of a more ghetto way of saying it.

Bell tower?

I have no idea what that could have to be,

Like, unless it’s like, like, Belle, like, you know, B-E-L-L-E, and it’s like, you know, a room full of very high-class women who are wasting some money on.

No, no, no, it’s B-E-L-L-No-E-T-O-W-E-R, Belle Tower.

A tower with a bell in it.

And possibly bats, right?

Yes.

Like a bill free?

For those expensive rabies shots that he’s going to do.

So let me read the sentence again, and I’ll read the choices again, and then we’ll see what your answer is, all right?

He was so drunk, he took $1,000 out of an ATM and spent it in just one half hour in the club’s blank.

Did he spend $1,000 in the bell tower or the bottle room?

That’s B-O-T-T-L-E, bottle room.

I feel like it’s a trap, but I think I’m going to go with bottle room.

I think I’m with you on that.

I think that would be where you keep your expensive good stuff.

That’s the correct answer. It is the bottle room.

But your getting there wasn’t quite right.

In some of the more she-she and upscale clubs, it’s customary to have a special set-aside room,

Kind of a VIP area, where liquor is sold for incredible markups.

And what you get with that is extraordinary service, exclusivity,

And a place where you can do maybe a few naughty or even illegal things

Without the prying eyes of other patrons.

It’s a bottle room.

Wow.

Yeah.

It’s a lifestyle I don’t need.

I was going to say.

I wouldn’t know about that.

Would you, Chris?

No.

I’m about to remodel my kitchen, and I think for two drinks I could get new countertops.

Oh, yeah.

It’s expensive stuff.

You can easily spend $1,000 in a bottle of room in a half an hour.

Easily.

No problem.

Okay.

So good work.

But you got that right.

You got it right.

So here’s the second one.

Dude, he’s almost pro on three boards.

Snowboarding, surfing, and skateboarding.

He can blank like nobody.

Is it A, shred, or B, scupper?

That’s S-C-U-P-P-E-R.

Scupper or shred?

Well, shred sort of gives me the idea of tearing up,

Sort of like you’re tearing up the course.

So you’re going really fast down it,

And since all of those sports kind of have to do with getting through a course fast

And kind of agilely, where scupper, I don’t know,

Scupper kind of sounds like a kitchen implement of some sort to me.

Like spatula?

It’s in the drawer next to the melon baller, right?

Yeah, I think scupper has to do with letting, you know,

Excess water out of a boat or something.

Right, so it could be the letting the water out or putting holes in something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I think you’d like shred up the course.

Well, I would totally use it that way,

And I’m going to start using it that way regardless of whether it’s right.

So you’re saying that a guy who’s good at snowboarding, surfing, and skateboarding can shred like nobody, right?

Yeah, that’s what I’m going to go with.

That’s great.

That’s exactly right.

It is shred.

Yeah, right.

And I think your logic was pretty good.

It originally comes from surfing.

So when you’re shredding, your board is cutting into the waves in such a way that you’re shredding the waves, as I understand it.

And, Martha, you’re right about scuppering.

To scupper a boat is to sink it deliberately.

Oh, okay.

Actually, you’re letting water in, though, rather than out.

So it’s like scuttling, too.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Well, that’s fantastic. You got them both right.

Well, that was, hey, 50-50 odds each time.

Well, you know, it’s not…

We’ll call them educated guesses.

He’s a college professor. He can do math. That’s great.

And Martha’s going to give you a million dollars now.

Excellent. I didn’t even need any lifelines.

Paid off $10 a year over the next several millennia.

Excellent. Well, Chris, thanks for playing.

Thanks so much for having me.

All right. You can find out more about the National Puzzlers League at puzzlers.org.

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