Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a puzzle about heteronyms, words that have the same spelling, but different meanings, like “moped” as in “acted glum” and “moped” as in a motorized bike. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Heteronym Word Quiz”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette, and we’re joined now by our quiz guy, Greg Pliska.
Greg, howdy-doody.
Howdy-doody. It’s howdy-doody time.
All right. Nice freckles. What’s going on?
Where’s Bob Smith?
Well, what did you bring us this week, Greg?
Well, in addition to, you know, all the music I’ve been doing, I’ve also been playing around this week with heteronyms, which are words that are spelled the same as each other, but differ in their pronunciation and their meaning.
Moped and moped, for example. So what I’ve done here is put pairs of them together to form one unusual, fanciful phrase. For example, I might give you the definition, a bean from Peru.
Lima Lima? Lima Lima.
A Lima Lima or a Lima Lima would be the right way to put it, right? Lima, the capital, and Lima, the bean. So here we go. There’s not a lot of trickery here. I just wanted to make sure that everybody was content with the content.
Okay.
All right, here’s your first one.
The fish with the lowest voice.
Bass bass.
Or the bass bass, actually.
Sorry, it’s the Spanish kicking in, you know, those post-positive adjectives.
All right, here’s another one.
The food spread at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting.
Oh, the Buffett buffet.
The Buffett buffet.
Hey, Grant.
Right, Warren Buffett.
Well, Grant’s got his Berkshire Hathaway style, right?
No.
If only Dad had bought one in 1967.
Here’s another one for you.
An apartment house for many families of chickens.
Coop co-op.
That’s great.
Yes.
Or a co-op coop.
I’m sorry.
Or a co-op coop.
That can work either way, I think.
As long as you pay your maintenance, you can stay there.
The person who displays bathroom fixtures.
Yeah, the…
The shower shower.
Oh, good.
The shower shower.
That’s good.
Exactly.
When you go to buy a new, you know, appliances, you got to visit the shower shower.
Too many teenagers at the 12 and under party.
Underage, no.
The opposite of that.
Overage overage.
Oh, very good.
Exactly.
You’ve got an overage overage.
How about to get back to work on your CV?
Resume resume.
Resume resume.
Nice.
Resume resume.
Exactly.
It’s like a command.
Grant, resume resume.
That’s how I talk to my computer.
Exactly.
Exactly.
If we could speak to our computers, we could just have them do that for us.
Here’s one.
These are the people you probably hire all the time.
People who sketch underpants.
Draw drawers.
Oh, good.
Drawers drawers.
Good.
This next one is one of my favorites because I had never – I actually discovered this heteronym and I thought, God, I’d never even seen this one.
This is the casino employee with a worse cough.
A croupier croupier croupier.
Exactly.
Nice.
Croupier croupier.
What you might shed if your pants get ripped?
Tear – no.
What you might shed?
A tear.
A tear tear.
Yeah, a tear tear.
Okay, one more.
One more.
To provide like an acrobat would.
To provide like an acrobat would.
Wow.
Provide?
Provide?
Yeah.
Yeah, like a business has.
Supply?
Yes.
Supply supply?
Supply supply.
Oh, supply supply.
Supply supply or supply supply.
If you said contortionist, we would have been there.
Yes, exactly.
Well, I’m doing a backbend.
As I talk to you.
That’s incredible.
Thanks, Greg, for the quiz.
This was a fun one.
Oh, I’m glad.
It’s always good to be with you guys.
And if you’d like to talk about grammar, slang, punctuation, or words and how we use them, number to call is 1-877-929-9673.
Oh, sorry.
I was just doing my back then.
1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.
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