Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a puzzle in which participants try to guess a word that could logically go before or after each of a trio of words. For example, if the three words are “nest,” “calories,” and “suit,” the answer is “empty,” as in “empty nest,” “empty calories,” and “empty suit.” So, can you guess why Greg calls this puzzle “Crown Play Time”? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Crown Play Time Quiz”
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 puzzle man, Greg Pliska.
Hello, Grant. Hello, Martha.
Hi, Greg. What’s cooking?
Hello, puzzle man.
I’ve got puzzles cooking for you. I’m going to hold your feet to the fire and make you sweat.
Well, what kind of puzzle do you have today?
Well, I call this one crown play time.
Crown play time.
Crown play time. Can you figure out why?
I need to know all the crown heads of Europe over the last 250 years.
Yes, exactly.
Isn’t that great?
Not again.
There’s one word that can be added to each of those three to make a new word or a new phrase.
So it’s, what is it, crown what?
Crown play time.
Crown play time.
How about triple crown play?
Triple, you know what I’m trying to say.
Triple crown, triple play, and triple time.
Absolutely.
Okay.
Absolutely.
Because this puzzle is all about triples.
Sometimes you’ll add the word before, sometimes after.
Does that make sense?
Yes.
Yes, sir.
All right, then.
Here we go.
Here are your first three words.
Blue, six, throat.
Deep.
Yes.
Without even inhaling.
Wow.
Boom.
Deep blue, deep six, and deep throat.
Awesome.
Absolutely.
All right.
Here’s another one.
Bending game reader.
Bending game reader.
I was going to say weekly bending, but that’s not it.
Mind.
Mind bending, mind game, and mind reader.
Nice.
Very good.
Here’s another one.
Bullet gravy toilet.
Bullet gravy toilet.
What a terrible experience they had in that restaurant.
That’s beating gravy.
Well, I was thinking gravy is good gravy or…
Toilet boat?
Good toilet?
Yeah, bullet boat, gravy boat, toilet boat.
Train.
Yes, very good.
Bullet train, gravy train, and toilet train.
All right, here’s one.
Actor, flaw, witness.
Character.
Yes.
Nice.
Very quick.
Character actor, character flaw, and character witness.
Mm—
Yes, very good.
All right, here’s one.
Office, spring, turtle.
Box.
Oh, nice.
Box, very good.
Box office, box spring, and the famous box turtle.
Oh, and spring box.
And spring box.
Very nice, very nice.
Extra points if you get them both ways.
Extra points if it goes on both sides of the word.
And it’s spelled differently.
Right.
How about C, S-E-A, center, and weight, W-E-I-G-H-T?
And center, C-E-N-T-E-R.
Dead.
Very good, yes.
Dead C, dead center, dead weight.
Dead weight.
Very nice.
Yes.
And another one of my favorites, guest Lincoln master.
Bedroom.
Bedroom.
The Lincoln was kind of the giveaway.
Yeah, just kind of peg it for you.
Well, I have a bonus for you.
Oh, there’s four in this one.
No, here’s how the bonus works.
All of the answer words in the sets we did today can be combined with one other word to make a new word or phrase.
What?
So they form a big set.
Let me read them to you.
These are the answers.
These are the answers of the puzzles we’ve done today.
All right.
Let me read all of them, and then you can guess.
And they all will combine with one other.
Combine with one other word.
Here you go.
Deep, mind, train, character, box, dead, and bedroom.
Really?
Deep, mind, train, character, box, dead, and bedroom.
What’s the one word that can be added to them?
Oh, man.
To make new words and phrases.
Set.
Absolutely.
S-E-T.
S-E-T, set.
So bedroom set, dead set, deep set.
I can’t read that one.
Train set, character set, box set, and mind set.
Grant, that’s so impressive.
Did you say that because it has the most entries in the dictionary?
Well, no.
That actually is not a bad path to take.
That’s why I picked it.
That’s not a bad one.
Bedroom was the odd one out here because bedroom is not going to be in a lot of combining.
Forms.
Right, right, right.
Yeah.
So I worked on Bedroom First.
I worked on Bedroom First.
Very smart.
Very smart.
And there are actually seven or eight more I had available for us to play with.
I mean, there’s quite a few things that can be paired with SAT to make a…
Oh, I bet.
Yeah, I bet.
Greg, thanks.
You’re welcome.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you, Greg.
This was tremendous.
Well, if you have a question about wordplay, language, grammar, slang, regional expressions,
Or some strange old sayings, call us.
The number’s 1-877-929-9673.
That’s 1-877-W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.
Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.
