Quiz: Find the Links Between Three Words

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 here he is, the fabulous quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hi, John.

Hey, Martha.

Hey, Grant.

Hey.

Hi, buddy.

What’s up?

Well, you know, I host Pub Trivia every week at a place here in New York, and it’s a lot of fun.

One of our rounds that we do as part of our five round night is called Name Three, and it’s sort of a tri-bond thing.

And I give you three words. You tell me what they have in common.

There’s lots of names for these. They call it, you know, triple threat or whatever.

I call it the missing link here today because we need our own thing.

So a missing link. I’m going to name three things, and you tell me the link that those three things share.

Okay.

And is it going to be a word or an idea? What are we talking about here?

Yeah, it’ll be mostly word-related, but there’s some trivia involved.

Okay.

Like, for instance, if I said, well, this is not word-related, but if I said, you know, Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, and you said, you know, dead white guys, not specific enough.

You have to go a little more, you know, founding fathers, things like that.

Okay, gotcha.

Here’s the first one.

Numbers, acts, judges.

Oh, books of the Bible.

Books of the Bible, which also are things, which is good.

How about samosa, pierogi, creploc?

Oh, all little kind of closed, meat-filled hand food.

Right.

Closed, meat-filled. It’s almost exactly what I have written here.

Closed meat-filled hand food.

What’s the official name?

Some kind of dumpling almost, right?

Dumpling is the word I was waiting for, yes.

Very nice.

Well, I’ll argue later about what a dumpling is.

Oh, no.

That’s all right.

It’s all good.

It counts in the plus column.

Here we go.

Bandstand buffalo pie.

American.

American what?

American blank.

American bandstand.

Yes, American bandstand.

American buffalo and American pie.

Very good.

How about Bible box, roll top, secretary?

Types of desks.

Types of desks is right.

Bible box. Can you describe a Bible box for me?

I don’t know it. I just knew the other two.

Okay.

Me too.

It’s sort of like a lap desk. It’s like a box with a lid, but like a big heavy wooden one that you put in front of you.

How about this? This one’s very simple.

K-G-M.

Letters.

Letters is a good start.

Consonants.

Are they letters or are we spelling these out as words?

Yes, they are letters.

No, they’re letters, yeah.

Let’s put it this way. Letters that all stand for the same thing.

Oh, thousands?

Yes, thousands.

All three of those stand for a thousand.

What does E stand for a thousand?

Oh, no, it wasn’t E. It was M, sorry.

M, right, right.

Gotcha.

There we go, yeah.

Finally, raspberry, answer, kneel.

How are you spelling kneel?

K-N-E-E-L.

Neil.

Raspberry.

Answer.

Silent letters.

Yes, silent letters.

Raspberry is? The silent S.

P.

Well, P.

Silent P, right?

Answer.

W.

W.

And Neil.

K.

The K, which was silent until I spelled it earlier.

And that’s your missing links for today, guys.

You were fantastic.

Nice work.

Thanks, John.

Thank you so much, John.

This is a show about language and how we use it.

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