Family Secrets Word Game

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 that giant among men, our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hey, Grant. Hi, Martha. How are you guys doing today?

All right. How about you?

Fabulous.

Just great. Just great. You know, you guys talk about a lot of things in this show, but I think it’s time to talk about what we don’t talk about.

Now, I don’t care who you are, every family has its secrets. I mean, look at the seemingly perfect Madrigal family in Disney’s movie Encanto. They sing and they dance and they laugh, but the one thing they don’t talk about? Bruno.

Talk about Bruno, no, no.

Let’s look at other family secrets and the things they don’t talk about. For example, in Roman mythology, their chief god had a wife who was quite jealous of his affairs, so according to Jupiter, we don’t talk about… Juno?

Juno, no, no.

Give me the no, no, no part.

Oh, I do?

Do I have to sing it?

Well, if you feel you’re up to.

And dance around?

Sure, why not?

No one’s watching, sure.

Now, one family thought they’d make a killing in the fertilizer business, so they opened a bat farm, but they just couldn’t take, you know, the smell, so they don’t talk about… Guano?

No, no, no.

Yeah, really sell it for me, if you would.

Guano, no, no?

Very good. Guano, no, no, no. Right. We don’t talk about guano, no, no, no.

All right. I had a friend in high school who was very popular and very handsome, but, you know, he gave everybody the kissing disease, so now they don’t talk about… We don’t talk about mono, no, no.

No, no. That’s right. Very good. No mono.

Now, at one family reunion, everyone was enjoying the cousin’s homemade wine until they find out he learned how to make it in prison. So now they don’t talk about… They don’t talk about Pruno, no, no.

I was going to say Vino.

I would have taken either one of those, but Pruno.

Yeah, Vino’s good.

Yeah, Pruno. We don’t talk about Pruno.

I know more than one family that are very competitive, and all it takes is one accusation of cheating during a friendly card game, and, well, now they don’t talk about… Pruno, no.

Yes, we don’t talk about Uno, no, no, no, no.

And even fictional families have their secrets. The Rubbles complained about the Flintstones’ noisy pet, and now they yabba-dabba don’t talk about… Dino, no, no, no, the dinosaur.

Exactly, they don’t talk about Dino, no, no, no.

Now this last one is three syllables. My mom’s a pretty good cook, but after a thing happened involving a whole mess of Italian herbs accidentally dumped into a sauce pot. Well, we don’t talk about… Oregano, no.

No, no, no.

We don’t talk about mom and her oregano, no, no.

We do not.

Oh, I’ve just got something here. I’ve got a cease and desist from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s people. There we go.

I was waiting on that.

Well, it looks like we can’t talk about it anymore, so I guess it’s time to end the quiz.

Thank you, John. That was, yes, yes, yes, very fun.

Thank you.

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