License-Plate Bingo

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. And we’re joined right now by our quiz guy, John Chaneski. Hello, John.

Hi, Martha. Hi, Grant. How are you guys?

Hi, John. What’s up over there?

You guys want to do a puzzle?

Yeah.

Oh, sure.

You know anybody who has puzzles?

Yeah, I got one. It’s more like a game.

Oh.

Okay, this week. Now, there are lots of car games, but one that I play all the time is the license plate word game.

Maybe you know this game.

Oh, we do this all the time here in California.

Great. Some license plates have three letters and three numbers.

Now, the way the game works, you spot a license plate, you ignore the numbers, and try to think of a word that contains the three letters in order.

They don’t have to be consecutive at all, but they have to be in order.

Okay.

For example, if I saw a car with a license plate ABC123, I might think of the word…

Absedarian.

Absedarian.

Jackson 5.

That’s not bad.

Jackson 5, right.

ABC123.

Abacus is exactly the word I was going to use in my example.

Abses.

Very good.

Abscess is good.

Halfback is fine.

It contains A, B, and C in order.

They’re not together, but like I said, they don’t have to be, right?

We’re going to play a version of the license plate game, but it’s very simple.

I’ll give you three letters, and you each have to give me a word that contains those letters.

Each of us.

Yeah, why not?

I’ve been leaning on Martha this whole time.

Now I actually have to perform.

You’re on your own.

Do you have to take turns, or is this a race?

And do we go for the longer one or the shorter one, or what?

It’s sort of a race.

We’re going to go for short ones, if you can.

The shortest you can.

The shortest?

See what you can do.

That isn’t the way I play it.

Well, I mean, kind of challenging.

That’s how we roll over here, Martha.

You’ll have 15 seconds after I give the letters.

The shortest word, quote-unquote, wins, though we’re friendly here.

Here we go.

Let’s start with a couple that I think are easy ones, okay?

Here’s the first one.

The first letters are C-B-L.

So cable is a good one, but maybe we can do shorter than that, right?

Cabal is short, shorter.

Yeah, very good.

I’ll call time on that.

Cable and Cabal actually both have five letters.

So they tied for shortest.

That’s a good word.

Cable and Cabal.

Here’s the next one.

E-X-N.

E-X-N.

Oh man.

Extenuate.

Exiting.

Why not?

Don’t let the man hold you down.

Just do the long ones.

We’ll be fine.

I don’t mind the long ones.

Dang, that’s 15 seconds.

I was going to say Texan, but…

Texan, a proper noun, comes in at five.

That’s very good.

It’s a proper noun, though, so…

Yeah.

But I think the shortest I could find common words for six letters,

Expend, extent, and extern.

I like the word extern.

Good one.

Is it a former intern?

What is an extern?

Somebody who works for you but outside the office, I believe.

Oh.

You’re fired.

Okay.

It’s an intern on a chain gang, apparently.

It’s an extern.

Okay, here’s the next one.

The letters are R-Y-T.

Trist.

Ooh.

Ooh, Trist is good at five letters.

Very good.

How do we do better than that?

Sure, maybe.

Yeah, try it.

Martha, you could probably match it.

Riot.

Riot.

Right?

R-Y-T?

No, right in the 15th century.

Oh.

Fair.

They’re all attacked.

That’s good.

Okay.

That’s time.

I hear a ding.

I like the word.

That was a ding, but the word for that I like is crypt.

Oh, good one.

Let’s see.

The next one is D-S-U.

D-S-U.

Disuse?

Oh, nice.

Nice, nice.

D-S-U.

Dissuade.

Well, that’s time.

Disuse, fantastic disuse.

We’ll give you that one at six letters.

I also had discus.

Oh, nice.

Let’s try this one.

Ready?

D-U-T.

Duck.

Dust.

Duck and dust.

Those are two I have there.

Very good.

Two four-letter words, and I’ll throw in duet.

Oh, nice.

Very good.

This is tough.

Let’s try this one again.

Eight letters was the minimum I found.

F-D-C.

Fiduciary.

Fiduciary is nine.

Can you do a little better?

F-D-C.

Feducate.

Refugiate, no.

Fiduco?

Fiducial?

Yeah, fiducial.

That’s another one I found, very good.

And I’ll call time on that.

I also found the word feedback.

Oh, that’s a much easier one.

Oh, my goodness.

That was a really tough one, John.

But I like that because this is an incredibly portable game.

I can take this and do stuff with this, right?

Yeah.

Very good.

Well, we’ll do it again sometime.

Yeah, let’s do it again sometime.

I got to drive.

I got to bolt.

Well, thanks, John, for that workout.

Thanks, Martha.

Thanks, Grant.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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