This week Puzzle Guy Greg Pliska presented a quiz called Categorical Allies. He gave a word and Martha and Grant had to come up with the second word that was in the same category as the first and began with the same two letters that the first one ends with. So, French was a clue, to which we responded Chinese, the category being languages (though it would work as food, too). The two letters CH end FrenCH and start CH inese. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Categorical Allies: a Word Puzzle Linking Category Mates by Overlapping Letters”
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. Hey, Greg, I’ve been meaning to ask you a question.
Oh.
It’s my turn to ask you a question.
If Grant and I have a morbid fear of your giving us a quiz on Friday the 13th, does that mean that we suffer from Pliska-deca-phobia?
Oh, I thought you were going to say quiz-cadeca-phobia, which is bad, too.
I like plisskadekaphobia a lot.
I don’t like it.
No, I don’t.
It’s being afraid of meeting me and nine of my relatives.
Oh, what do you got over there anyway?
I should say up front that I’ve borrowed this idea from a fellow puzzle guy, Puzzle Master, Will Shorts.
So I want to say that right up front before somebody writes in and says, you know, this is just like a puzzle Will did on his show.
That’s because I stole it from him.
All right.
But I have a title for it.
I’m calling it categorical allies or dandy dyads.
And I’m wondering if you notice anything about the spelling of the pairs of words in those titles.
Categorical allies and dandy dyads.
Dandy dyads.
Categorical.
I’m stumped.
Well, there’s two Ds in both words.
Close.
Where the words meet what’s going on.
Oh, okay.
Oh, I see.
This is a very da-da puzzle.
The second word you’ll notice begins with the same two letters that end the first.
Right.
Categorical allies and dandy dyads.
Wow.
The way this puzzle is going to work is that I’m going to give you the first word, and you have to come up with a second word that’s in the same category as the first and begins with the same.
And begins with the two letters that the first one ends with.
Gotcha.
Suppose I gave you the word French.
What’s another item in the same category that starts with CH?
Chinese.
That’s good.
Oh, good.
Food or nationalities, either one.
Yeah.
Languages is what I was thinking.
So you could have said Chechen maybe or Church Slavonic, but Chinese was the most likely answer.
Okay.
So if you guys understand what’s going on, I’ll give you your first one.
I think we do understand.
It’s never stopped us before.
Well, good.
Here we go.
First word I’m going to give you is grape.
Grape.
G-R-A-P-E ends with pear.
Peach.
Pear and peach.
Persimmon.
Both good answers.
Ooh, persimmon.
All right.
Woo.
You don’t get three times as many points.
I don’t.
That was good.
All right.
Here’s another one.
Omega.
Ends with a G-A.
Gamma.
Gamma would be it.
Absolutely.
Great.
What are these?
Why?
Well, we’re going to move for some harder ones.
My quiz technique is unstoppable.
It’s a good thing I’ve got 30 of these.
30.
Oh, right.
Quickly.
Gosh.
All right.
Going on.
Here’s a word you’ll be familiar with.
Brain.
Brains.
Brains.
Brainy brains.
N-S.
No, brain.
Oh, I said singular.
Oh, I see.
Okay.
Brain.
Intestine.
Oh, gosh.
Great.
You were just cleaning up on these.
Also, inner ear.
But I was thinking of organs in particular.
Wow.
Okay.
Yes.
So here’s another one.
Juno.
J-U-N-E-A-U.
Thanks.
Okay.
So she was a goddess.
Not that spelling.
Not that kind of Juno?
J-U-N-E-A-U.
That spelling.
Juno.
This is far-fetched, but you could say Aurora Borealis because they’re both in the north.
Yes.
It’s a big category of things in the north.
There probably is a Wikipedia page for things in the north.
Now, Juneau is something a little more specific than that.
Right.
It’s a city in Alaska.
It’s a city.
So there’s Auburn or Augusta, Maine.
Well, Augusta would be good.
A capital city.
There we go.
Perfect.
So Juneau ends with AU, and then Augusta is another capital city that begins with AU.
Austin, Texas also would have been a legitimate answer.
Here’s one perfect for you verbivores.
Adjective.
Adjective.
Adjective.
Verb.
Verb, absolutely.
Another part of speech.
So parts of speech.
Adjective ends with V-E and verb starts with that.
How about Mali, M-A-L-I?
Mali.
Liberia.
Another African country.
Another African country beginning with L-I.
Or, what is there another one?
Yep.
Mali.
It’s in the northern African country.
Libya.
Libya.
Yes, that’s the one.
How about this one?
Hello, goodbye.
What about yes and no?
No.
Hello, goodbye.
Hello, goodbye.
Yellow.
You say yes, I say no.
It’s a Beatles song, Hello, Goodbye.
Oh, hello, goodbye.
So yesterday.
Yesterday or yellow submarine would be good.
How about one more?
One more.
Well, I’ve got a bonus one.
So why don’t we do that one?
Okay.
Because I found us, we talked about this earlier, I found a string that links four members of a category together in a row.
All righty.
Now, I’ll give you the first one, and you try to get through four.
The first one is Alabama.
So are they all states?
So they’re all states, yes.
We used to actually play this game, but only with the last letter.
This was a road trip game.
It makes it a little harder when you get two letters.
So Alabama.
Huh.
You can’t really do Massachusetts because you can’t do anything with that T and that S, can’t you?
Titsy fly, but that’s not a state.
Yeah, there’s no states that start with T.
Yes, tsunami.
So what else?
Maine is not a bad one.
Then you can go to Nebraska.
And then you can go Kansas.
There you go.
Yes.
Bingo.
You could also go Maine, New Mexico, Colorado if you wanted to.
Whoa.
But I thought it would be fun to see if listeners can come up with a string of more than four items in a given category.
And, I don’t know, they could post it on the forum at waywordradio.org.
That is not a bad idea.
Great idea.
That’s terrific.
But a tight forum can’t be like things in the north.
Yeah.
Things in the north would be not a very tight category.
How about things?
Yeah, right.
Nouns.
I found a string of 1,600 words.
They’re all nouns.
It’s amazing.
Well, thank you.
This was a lot of fun.
I’m glad that I got so many right.
I know.
What happened?
What’s going on there?
This was the easy day.
Well, thanks, Greg.
You’re welcome.
Thank you.
And if you’d like to puzzle us with a word question, call us at 1-877-929-9673.
Or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.
