License Plate Word Game

You are listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett. And on the line from New York City is John Chaneski. Hello, John.

Hi, Grant. Hi, Martha. I have for you today sort of a repeat game, something we’ve done before.

We’ve talked about the license plate game. Remember that?

There are several kinds of license plate games. You could try to find different states.

But the one I like is where you take the three letters on a randomly passing car and you try to find a word that contains those three letters in order.

They don’t have to be together, but they have to be in order in the word.

For example, if you see a car with the license plate MMT, you can say mathematics.

That’s perfect.

Good.

That’s a good one.

What we’re going to do is I’m going to give you three letters off a passing car, and you have to give me the shortest answer possible.

The shortest answer possible.

Yes.

Okay.

If you come up with a longer one, that’s fine, but I think the shorter one is a little more challenging.

Okay.

Okay.

Here we go.

The shortest answer.

License plate.

Vroom.

Here comes a car.

There goes A-H-V.

A-H-V.

Achieve.

Achieve.

Very good.

Martha, you want to throw one in?

You can wait for the next car if you like.

I think I will.

Here’s one that doesn’t start with a weather vane.

That’s kind of a long one, but I also had adhesive and anchovy.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

I have a couple on my sheet here.

Let’s look for the next car.

Here comes.

M-M-X.

Oh.

M-M-X.

Oh, flummox.

Flummox, very good.

Oh, good, Grant.

That’s good.

That’s good.

I’ll take that as an answer.

The shortest one I could find was imix, I-M-M-I-X.

What is that?

To mix something in?

The word for mixing things up.

There are so many words for those.

Also comix, which is another word for mixing things up.

Oh, yeah.

And I also found temporomaxillary.

I was going to say that.

Show up.

I know.

I’m sorry.

I jumped in my head.

Let’s try another car.

Here comes NYG.

NYG.

Annoying.

Oh, nice.

Very good.

Annoying.

Anything shorter?

No, I can’t think of anything.

What did you just say?

Oh, is that it?

Anything is perfect.

I love it.

Very good.

The subconscious comes to the rescue.

Very good.

You weren’t really thinking that?

Nope.

Oh, my gosh.

I should have said, oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

No.

Oh, yeah, sure.

The shortest I found was undying.

Oh, good.

Very good.

I also found otorhinolaryngologist.

Of course, yes.

Just in case, right.

That’s a second medical word.

What are you doing?

Yeah, okay.

How are you spending your evenings?

Dental school?

Scanning textbooks is all I do.

Let’s try another car.

Here comes FSM.

FSM.

Yes.

Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Fascism.

Yeah.

Fascism works fine.

There are a couple of isms that work for this.

Fauxvism, right?

Fauxvism, right.

But I also found a word for things that you throw off a boat.

Flotsam?

Flotsam, yeah.

That’s another one I found.

How about D-Y-L?

Dasipigle?

What’s dasipigle?

D-A-S-Y-P-Y-G-A-L.

It means having a hairy butt.

Oh, yes.

Very nice.

I was just thinking of dactyl, but mine’s not as good.

Oh, dactyl.

Dactyl is mine.

But it’s shorter.

Dactyl’s good.

Dactyl I have on my list.

Yeah, it’s very nice and short.

Yeah.

I did find a four-letter word.

A four-letter word?

What’s your four-letter word?

I found idyl.

Oh, very good, of course.

Perfect.

Should have known.

Okay.

Let’s try one last one.

Let’s go with KNP.

K-N-P.

Knapsack is one.

Knapsack is good.

Or just nap.

K-N-A-P.

Just nap is good.

Very good, Grant.

And any more?

I had kidnap, kneecap.

And kingpin.

Good. Sounds like a story.

Just so you can compare your answer with me, those at home can compare their answers with mine.

Yeah, but Grant again got the shortest.

So, vroom, there go the cars. They’re gone.

So, we’re home. We’re here.

Thanks, John.

I particularly love the ones where I just know people are playing along at home.

As long as you’ve got a pen and paper, you can go to town, right?

Yeah, and if you’re in a car right now, go ahead and play your own version of the game.

Thanks, John. Talk to you next week.

Thanks, Grant. See you then.

If you’d like to talk about grammar, slang, punctuation, you name it,

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