Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Here's a curtailment I came up with. Might be too easy for readers of this forum, but I thought I'd give it a shot ...

Although scientists have been searching for evidence of water, they're probably not going to find a ___ on ___.

Any takers?

Well that didn't take long.

Galilean moons: Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Io.

So by the process of elimination, the solution to your curtailment can only be: I ... Io.

Or did I miss something obvious? Don't tell me ... let me keep guessing if I'm wrong.

Sure, that works. But you'll find plenty of ions on Io. Mostly sulfur ions. Do these curtailments have to be factually accurate? Probably not. I'm gonna wait till Emmett weighs back in.

EDIT: No ... wait ... Curiosity never went to Io, so the presence of ions (or not) is a moot point. That solution works Jackie.

EmmettRedd said
Here is another one:

Whether he lost everything in an all-night _____ game or not, _____ salad Annie's dad was lazy and no count.

I'll admit the second word is a variant spelling of the word used in the song lyrics.

Emmett

The original lyrics were polk salad annie, so the answer's gotta be poker ... poke. This one I'm sure of. The poke refers to pokeweed, and is a variant of polk.