Commonalities Quiz

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 who is that handsome man? It’s John Chaneski, our quiz guy. Hello, John.

Two handsome men right here.

You’re the puzzle guy. You have puzzles for us. That’s the thing.

I do. Yeah. I have actually, I don’t know if you guys know this, by the way, I co-host a trivia, a pub trivia night in New York.

I did know that over on 10th Avenue or something, right?

Yeah, it’s actually closer to Seventh Avenue.

But it’s, we call it Bad Trivia.

But it’s through Trivia NYC.

And Trivia NYC does trivia nights all over town.

Tony Hightower, who’s the president, he and I co-host this trivia.

And one of our rounds every Saturday night we have at One Star Bar, we do something called Name Three.

And the Name Three is very similar to something you may have played called Tribond.

You remember that board game?

You get a list of three things.

And you have to figure out what those three things have in common.

Oh, interesting.

So I’ve come up with a name three round for you guys.

Okay.

For example, if I said a violinist, Cupid, and a Christmas present, all of those things have…

Bows.

Bows, right. Very good.

Now, these dozen or so name threes that I’ve come up with for you, they’re mostly word-related.

Okay.

Okay.

That would be good because we do a show about words.

You do. That’s great.

I’d like to hear about it sometime.

Okay.

We’ll talk.

Yeah, we’ll talk.

Let’s try these.

Number one, Bob, Tom, Allie.

Cat.

Cat, very good.

Oh, look at you.

Bob Cat, Tom Cat, and Allie Cat.

Allie Cat, very good, yeah.

Bread, ground, records.

Bread, ground, records.

Something you break, break bread.

Things you break.

Yeah, there we go, nice.

Break bread, break ground, break a record.

All right.

Blog, motel, Groupon.

They’re all portmanteau words.

Yeah, they’re all portmanteau words.

Okay, here’s the next one.

Water, finger, oil.

Paint.

Water paint.

Finger paint and oil paint.

Good.

Here’s another one.

Bulb, silver, month.

Oh, silver month.

Silver light, light month.

You can usually find these words in a very short list that gets passed around of words that have this similar feature.

They don’t rhyme?

No.

Yes.

Really?

Yes, that’s it.

These are three words, a handful of words that don’t really have any rhyme.

Nicely done.

How about code, proper, given?

Code, proper, name.

Name, yeah, name.

Yes, name is right.

Code name, proper name, given name.

How about ritzy, boycott, sideburns?

Oh, these are all eponyms.

Yes, those are eponyms.

All named for people.

Okay, two more.

Rain, fan, tap.

Rain, fan, tap.

I was going to say water.

But fan water.

Oh, tap shoes.

Fan shoes.

That’s a way in.

Is it?

Dance, rain dance, fan dance, tap dance.

Yes, there you go, very good Grant.

Rain dance, fan dance, and tap dance.

Finally, nails, cars, cattle.

Nails, cars, cattle.

Think about what you do with cars.

Drive.

Oh, you drive them all.

I see.

Drive cattle.

Drive cars.

Drive cattle.

Different kinds of driving, though.

That’s right.

Different kinds of driving.

That’s good brain exercises.

Those were chewy, my friend.

Yeah, that was nice.

That was like a little parlor game.

We had a little parlor game right here.

It was nice.

Thanks, John.

Thanks, John.

We’ll talk to you next week.

Talk to you then.

Bye-bye.

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