Four-Letter Anagrams

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And joining us now from New York City is our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hi, John.

Hi, Martha.

Hi, Grant.

Hey, buddy.

The game I have for you today, you know, back in the day we tried to do some anagrams here, but, you know, let’s face facts. Anagrams, they’re not that easy. All the really good ones like Presbyterian for Britney Spears.

Whoa.

Really?

That’s good.

Oh, yeah. I know those are interesting, but then you have to sit with them for a while. You know, we don’t have that time here. So why not do easy anagrams? Four letters, that’s all we’re going to do. Four-letter anagrams. Heck, with some of these, you may not even have to move more than a single letter.

Okay.

No heavy lifting.

All right.

That sounds more R-speed, although I like Presbyterian and Britney Spears.

That’s pretty good, isn’t it?

Yeah.

Now, for example, a word that means cruel and a designation, what two anagrammatic words are those?

You said cruel and a designation?

And designation, yeah.

Name and mean.

Yes, exactly. Name and mean. What I’ll do, though, is I’ll put the definitions together so there’s at least a small challenge. Cruel designation for mean name. Those are our anagrams. So here we go.

Here’s the first one.

Look after a competition between runners.

Race and care.

Yeah, race, care.

Very good. Nicely done.

Here’s the next.

Unskilled worker slangy negative.

I was going to say nope and open, but that doesn’t work.

Well, you got one of them.

I did?

Peon and nope.

Yeah, peon nope.

How about catch sight of slangy affirmatives?

Yeps and spy?

Yeps and…

Espy?

Espy.

Espy.

Yes, very good.

You get this one easy.

A colorless poet.

Colorless poet.

Colorless, boring poet.

Singing poet.

Bard.

Drab.

Drab.

Drab bard.

Excellent.

I love it.

I love when you guys work as a team.

I know, right?

Nicely done.

Crude and offensive joining of metals.

I was going to say Weld, but…

Oh, Meld.

Meld or Weld?

No, yeah, it’s Weld.

Lude Weld.

Yes, Lude Weld, nice.

That should be the name of something.

It’s probably, it’s going to be the name of my new band, Lude Weld.

Okay, Lude Weld.

Completely fascinated British idiot.

Wrapped in Pratt.

Yes, a wrapped prat.

Completely tired Aleph follower.

A beat beta.

Beat beta, right.

How about a very dry sortie?

A very dry sortie, arid raid.

Yes, arid raid.

That was great.

I told you, every once in a while, just doing the four-letter anagrams is a nice little way to just…

You did great there.

Well, thank you.

You guys are fantastic.

It’s all those years of eating alphabet soup as a child.

That’ll do it.

And alphabets.

And alphabets, sure.

You know, pop up and mixing them around.

John, thank you for another great quiz.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you, Grant.

Thank you, Martha.

And if you’d like to talk with us about any aspect of language whatsoever, call us at 877-929-9673 or send us an email. The address is words@waywordradio.org.