Quizzer Guesser

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 striding to the mic and settling into his chair and putting on his headphones, why, it’s our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hey, Martha.

Hi, Grant.

How are you guys today?

All right, John.

How about you?

Terrific.

You know, a lot of times I like to make the centerpiece of my quizzes some sort of thing that has to do with words that’s out there in the culture.

And this is something that I just thought about recently that I had forgotten about, which is I used to be a member of Toastmasters.

Are you guys familiar with Toastmasters?

Yeah, sure.

They help you be comfortable speaking in public.

That’s exactly it, right.

When I attended the meetings, I recall they did their best to help you unlearn certain speech habits.

For example, if you would frequently use fillers to pad your speech, like or you’d be encouraged to not do that.

Right.

So let’s focus on today, E-R.

I’ll give you a hint to a common two-word phrase or name in which both words end in E-R.

You tell me what I’m looking for, but please leave out the E-R.

For example, if I said, engineer Lonnie Johnson invented this item, which can pretty much be described as an overachieving water gun, you would say, soup soak.

Yeah, instead of super soaker.

Instead of soup soak, we don’t want to use the ‘s.

Let’s try a few more.

Now, remember, if I hear you say at all, it’s a fail.

Okay?

Cool.

All right.

Okay.

Okay, here’s the first one.

It’s flat and it’s brown, and you typically find it wrapped around raw meat, like a few lamb chops or a couple of skirt steaks.

Flat and brown, wrapped around raw meat, like skirt steaks?

Yeah.

Butch pape?

Yes, butch pape.

Nicely done, Martha.

Instead of butcher paper.

Okay, got it.

Yes, instead of butcher paper, right.

Now, this is a slangy way of referring to your accountant, specifically one who’s good at math.

Num crunch.

He’s a num crunch, yeah.

I would also have accepted pape push.

Right.

But for the math, it is num crunch, number cruncher, or paper pusher.

Here we go.

It’s typically found in an office, though little work gets done around it.

Instead, it’s the centerpiece for relaxing and sharing gossip.

What cool.

What cool.

What cool.

Yes, the water cooler.

Honk, if you love words, is definitely a version of this I would definitely buy.

Bump stick.

Bump stick.

Bump stick.

Yes, a bump stick or bumper sticker.

Now, my dad was one of these for over 40 years, though when he did it, they called him a mailman.

Oh,

Let carry.

Yes, let carry.

He was a letter carrier.

Very good.

Now, careful.

This is a triple.

There’s only two words, but it’s still a triple.

A person who lives a lifestyle in which most of all of their food is obtained by trapping or shooting and maybe some foraging is described this way.

A hunt gav.

A hunt-gath, yes, instead of hunter-gatherer.

Hunter-gatherer.

I was trying to figure out the triple part.

That’s the triple part.

Three errs in there, and just hunt-gath is correct, for hunter-gatherer.

Well, that’s my quiz called Blanker Blanker for today, and you guys were fantastic.

You guys get to move to the next level of Toastmasters, whatever it is.

John, it’s been great fun.

Give our best to the family.

We’ll talk to you next week.

Will do.

You too.

All right, be well.

Bye, John.

Wherever you go, you’re saying language, you’re hearing language, and you’re coming up with questions.

This is the place to get them answered.

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And no matter where you are in the world or what language you speak, try us out.

Send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.