Chi-chi-chi Chaneski Challenge

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 by John Janiski, who is not only our quiz guy, but he is a world championship hide-and-seek player.

John, how many days have you been missing?

So far, it’s been 60 years. I’ve been missing 60 years. No one has found me yet. I’ve come out of hiding to deliver this puzzle, this quiz.

I have this sad friend. He’s a guy who always wants language to be frozen in time, or better yet, changed back to old ways. Unfortunately, as time marches on, he’s always left behind, ranting, and no one understands him.

For example, he’s obsessed with the Greek alphabet, and every time he sees the name of a Greek letter in print, he has to pronounce it like the Greek. And this leads to confusion. He saw a man standing idly by while his wife struggled with grocery bags, and he goes, “Well, Kivalry is dead.” And Kyvulry, you see, anywhere he sees C-H-I, he pronounces it Kyvulry. Kyvulry is dead. Weird.

Now, let’s explore this fellow’s confusing world, okay?

Yeah.

Okay.

At a Kentucky-based fast food place, he leaves frustrated and hungry. He cannot get anyone to serve him fried poultry.

Chiken restaurant? Kyken? Chiken? Kyken, yes. It sounds like Kraken, but it’s Kraken. It’s not. It’s Kyken. Release the chicken.

Release the chicken, indeed. Once he was a sculptor, but he’ll get no work done now, as the hardware store refuses to sell him a wedged hand tool for carving stone.

A kaisel.

A kaisel, yes. Why would you do that to the poor hardware store guys?

A kaisel. He sticks by his guns, though. Anyway, at a clothing store, he just wanted some khaki-colored pants made of cotton twill, but he left pantsless, as no one knows what he wanted.

He wanted kynos.

Kynos, yes. Is this the only Greek letter he knows?

Apparently. Well, just I’m focusing on his one battle he has to deal with.

Gotcha. You know, we could do future quizzes about other, you know.

Okay. Save me some material, Grant, please. So, yeah, Kynos for Chinos.

Now, I once asked him where he was born. I’d never heard of the place. He said, “How can you not know the Windy City, the city of big shoulders in Illinois?”

The city of big shoulders. Kago.

Chicago is his kind of town. It’s Chicago, right? John, what is this guy’s name?

Oh, it’s Kyle. It’s my friend Kyle. So we’re sitting on Kyle’s porch enjoying nature, and he suddenly claimed that the squirrels were making some strange sound. I thought they were just making squirrel noises, but he said they were…

Kitering.

Kitering. Kitering squirrels for chittering, yes. What a weirdo.

Now, finally, he told me he was going to get a dog, but his partner doesn’t like, you know, big dogs. So he said he’d get a small dog, some obscure breed I’d never even heard of.

Kiwawa?

Kiwawa, yes. Kiwawa? I got you to say the word Kiwawa, yes, instead of Chihuahua.

Oh, John, I think I’m going to have to give my inner Kyle a hug.

Very nice. Thank you, John. We appreciate it. We’ll talk to you next week.

We’re kind of silly on this show sometimes, and we also talk about serious subjects when it comes to language, so give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send us an email, words@waywordradio.org.