False Plurals Quiz: Words That Sound Like Plurals but Aren’t

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, and here once again is Puzzle Man Greg Pliska. Hello, Greg.

Hello, Grant. Hello, Martha.

Well, Greg, what do you have behind your back? Is that a puzzle?

It is a puzzle, in fact.

That’s an axe handle.

I actually wonder if you remember this old riddle, which goes like this.

What plural word becomes singular when you add an S?

No. What’s the answer?

Well, when I was a kid, the answer I remember is princes.

When you add an S, it becomes princess.

Oh, nice.

So today’s puzzles look at a similar kind of wordplay, which I call false plurals.

For our purposes, all our false plurals will be phonetic,

Which means that the second word will sound like the plural of the first word,

But will in fact be a completely new word.

So you’ll have to guess two answers for each puzzle.

Make sense so far?

Are you going to give us an example?

Of course I will.

And also, just to keep things lively today, I’m going to give you clues in verse form with blanks where the answers go.

So here’s your example.

Welcome to Hawaii, where this blank.

Enjoy your stay.

You can surf or dive or simply blank around all day.

So lay and lay.

Lay is the first word, and the second word sounds like the plural of lay.

Lay.

Lay’s.

Lay’s.

There you go.

Lay’s.

You put that S or Z sound in there.

Never mind the lie and lay confusion.

Yes.

I wasn’t going that direction.

This is plural.

So you can wear this lay, and then you can lay’s around all day.

I get it.

Yeah, I was going to say you can’t moo-moo around all day.

Well, if you’re a cow, you can.

Just remember as we go through these that the word in the second blank will sound like the plural of the word in the first.

Okay, great.

Okay.

All right.

So here we go.

I love blank.

I love his fugues.

I hear them every day.

I have a wind-up music blank on which they always play.

Oh, very good.

Bach and box.

Bach and box.

Exactly.

Grant’s over there writing down Mozart, Vivaldi, Handel.

Handel and handles, right?

Tchaikovsky.

What’s the plural of Prokofiev?

I love Bach, exactly, in a wind-up music box.

All righty.

Here’s another.

In clothing store, in changing room, a blank is often heard,

Because finding outfits in your blank can be sometimes absurd.

Gee, Grant, I was going to say zip, but that’s zip.

I was thinking the first word was curse, but curses doesn’t make any sense.

No, but you’re on the right track.

It’s a less angry sound.

A more resigned sound.

A sigh and sigh.

A sigh is often heard

Because finding outfits in your sighs

Can sometimes be absurd.

I was thinking there might be

Thigh and thighs,

But that doesn’t make sense either.

You never hear my thighs

In a clothing changing room.

I hope not.

All right, here’s a New York one for you.

Security at Katz’s Deli

Is tighter than expected.

The pastrami’s under blank and key.

The blank’s password protected.

So it’s lock and locks.

L-O-C-K and L-O-X.

Exactly.

That’s very nice.

Pastrami’s under lock and key.

The locks password protected.

But who goes to Katz’s for the locks?

I don’t know.

I haven’t been to Katz’s in years.

You go for the pastrami if you go.

I was going to say, do you have a San Diego one now?

I have one that’s a little Southern California-ish.

All right.

It’s about as close as I can get.

It’s not even that Southern California-ish, but it references a famous Southern Californian.

Barnette and Barnette?

Yes.

It’s all about you, Martha.

Disney’s Fantasia has no works by Strauss because blank said no blank would be danced by his mouse.

Very good.

Very nice.

Walt and Walt.

Walt and Waltz because Walt said no waltz would be danced by his mouse.

And Strauss, of course, the famous Southern California composer of waltzes.

And going much further afield with the next one.

This one is going to be a little homage.

Homage?

Homage?

We did that two weeks ago.

Yeah, we’ve done that gag over and over again.

All right.

Here you are.

When you’re blank and old, will the stories be told of the two lexographical studs?

Will you blank in the pastures of Way With Words Masters chewing etymological cuds?

Will we graze?

Oh.

Gray and grays.

When you’re gray and old, will the stories be told of the two lexographical studs?

Will you graze in the pastures of Way With Words Masters chewing etymological cuds?

Yes.

Gray and grays.

Gray and grays.

That’s beautiful.

Very nice.

That’s really beautiful.

It kind of brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it?

It does.

That’s better than gather ye rosebuds.

Well, Greg, thanks a bunch.

You’re very welcome.

I wanted to mention that if you like these puzzles,

The National Puzzlers League has a magazine called The Enigma

That is filled with burst puzzles like this,

And you can find the NPL at puzzlers.org.

I just had to put that plug in.

We’ll put another link on the website in the discussion forum.

There you go. Fantastic.

Thanks for coming by today, Greg.

Thank you both.

Great, Greg. We’ll see you next week, okay?

Okay, you got it.

All right.

And if you’re puzzling over some aspect of language,

Call us at 1-877-929-9673.

Or shoot us an email to words@waywordradio.org.