Aged Worm Word Game

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 Grant, who’s that other guy over there sitting there sort of elbowing closer and closer? I don’t know, but every time I move, he moves the same way. It’s kind of a giant mime character. And he’s trapped in a trivia booth? Weird. It’s John Chaneski, our trivia guy.

I’m just trying to get close to this microphone. I did it finally. Terrific. Hi, guys. It’s me, John Chaneski. Good to see you guys again for a quiz. Listen, you know, we don’t do a lot of anagramming here because it’s more of a visual thing, but I thought we could certainly do it if we constrain ourselves to teeny tiny itsy bitsy little anagrams. We’re going to start with three letter ones. If I said, for example, I must choose a cooking vessel, that sentence clues two short words that are anagrams, opt and pot. Choose and cooking vessel. Let’s try this. If it’s too hard, I’ll sit down and make something easier. Okay. Tis going to be easy. There you go. Very good. Now, break out a pencil and a piece of paper. That might help for this. Okay, here we go.

That is an appropriate amount of butter.

Apt and pat. Yes, an apt amount of, an apt pat. Yes, an apt pat. Apt is appropriate and pat is an amount of butter. Very good.

Before we have lunch, I want to hear all the latest gossip.

Before we eat, spill the tea. Yes, spill the tea, please, before we eat.

I had to duck down when that bird flew toward me in the barn.

Duck?

Oh, let’s see.

The owl made me go down low?

Yes, owl and low.

Oh, goodness.

If we create underwater cities, how will we handle mass transit?

Sub buses.

Yes, a bus that is a sub or a sub that is a bus, either way.

It looks like pop has put two and two together.

Dad can add.

Dad can add, yes.

D-A-D and A-D-D.

Very good.

What’s that?

Too challenging for you guys?

Okay, let’s drop a letter and do some two-letter anagrams.

Whoa.

These are all Scrabble tournament legal words.

That guy seems unimpressed.

He said, eh.

Yeah.

Kind of like as impressed you are with this clue.

It’s all right.

Finally, you may like a short dash, but I prefer a long one.

Me? I prefer an M dash.

Yes, very good at M dash.

You guys were great.

You did fantastic with those tiny, teeny, itsy-bitsy little anagrams. Congratulations.

Oh, thank you so much, John.

Ta-John, you’re really good at that.

Yes, thank you.

Very good.

I’ll see you next time.

All right, take care.

Give our best to the family.

Bye, John.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

We have a quiz with John every week on this program, but we also like to talk to you, and there are a ton of ways to reach us.

You can find them all on our website at waywordradio.org.