Word Quiz: Proper Names Hiding in Other Words

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 is our quiz guide, John Chaneski. Hi, John.

Oh, hi, Martha. Hi, Grant.

Hey, bud. What’s up?

You know, yeah, I don’t want, you know, I might sound a little paranoid, a little crazy or something, but I’m convinced that there are people trying to sneak into my house.

They’ve been gaining entry by hiding inside stuff that I’ve ordered online. And for example, here’s a delivery at my door right now.

Yeah.

Now, this is a nice piece of jewelry I ordered for my wife to wear around her neck. And there. There’s some guy named Dan in this pendant.

Oh.

I guess.

So Dan is in the pendant. We’re finding words in words.

Names in words?

Names in words. They can’t get past me.

I mean us. We’ll do this together. I’ll describe the item I ordered. You tell me if you can determine who is sneaking into my house.

Okay.

Don’t worry, John. Now, note, all of these sneaks trying to get into my house, they have three-letter names, and they’re always hiding inside, never at the beginning or the end, all right?

Okay.

Here’s the first one. It’s a quickly flashing light from my 70s-themed basement discotheque. Seems pretty harmless. Is anybody in there?

Rob.

Ooh, Rob’s in there.

Oh, how dare you.

Yes. Rob is in the strobe.

Oh, what a guy. I was thinking about Lynn in the blinker.

Oh, there you go. I ordered this detection system that uses electromagnetic waves to find storms or airplanes or other motor vehicles traveling near my house.

Now, is anybody in there? Is Ada in the radar?

Ada’s in the radar.

Oh, man. I think somebody is in all of these, I think. I think.

Oh, good. My lawn has been looking a little, well, frankly, crappy lately. So I ordered a big bag of a substance used to provide nutrients to my grass.

Now, is anybody in that bag? Is Anu in the manure?

Anu in the manure. Anu Garg, like the word of day guy, right? That’s pretty good, but there’s another word on the bag, a longer word.

Fertilizer. Let’s see. Who is in the fertilizer?

Liza is Liza in the fertilizer.

No, Liz is Liz in the fertilizer.

Liz.

Liz is in the fertilizer. Get out of there, Liz.

Oh, this will be fun. I saw that movie, Crazy Rich Asians, and I decided to start playing that traditional rummy style game that uses tiles. So I ordered one of those.

Is anybody in there?

Mahjong.

John? Is John in the Mahjong?

John.

John is in there.

Yeah. Sort of a Jonathan guy.

Yeah, I’m a J-O-H-N myself, but that’s, yeah. Finally, this should help.

I’ve ordered a radio to keep track of local police activity. This way, if there’s any nefarious dudes being chased out there, I can tell if they’re coming towards my house.

Unless they’re already here. Is somebody in there?

Anne’s in there. Anne’s in the scanner.

Anne is in my scanner. What is the point? How can I keep these people out of my house if there’s somebody in everything?

This is terrible. All right, you guys. I’ve got to go lie down or something. You guys are great. Take care.

Bye.

And if you’d like to talk with us about language, call us 877-929-9673 or share your stories about words. The address is words@waywordradio.org.