Rhyming Dance Names Quiz

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

And I’m Martha Barnette. And joining us now is our quiz guy, Sir John Chaneski.

Oh, I’m a sir now. That’s great.

You are.

Arthur, Grant, how are you? Good to see you. Good to see you.

All right. That’s your surname.

My surname. Ouch.

Today’s quiz is all about names they give to dancers in different places.

What kind of dance might you do at a country house in Russia?

A, oh.

Dacha something.

Right.

I think a dacha cha cha cha.

Sure, you might do some sort of Russian dance, but I think it would be more appropriate to do a dance that has the rhythm, you know, one, two, one, two, three, because it would be a dacha cha cha cha.

Now, each of the following will have a rhyming answer, all describing types of dances.

Okay, here’s the first one.

If Carmen Miranda limited her fruity headdress to certain large ovoid tropical fruits, what kind of dance would be most appropriate for her?

She’d do it in Mangogo boots?

Mangogo boots.

That’s a nice alternate answer.

That’s for a different puzzle, though.

What kind of rhyme with mango?

Oh, tango.

Tango.

Mango tango.

Yes, very good.

Oh, she’d do a mango tango.

She would do a mango tango, yes.

Okay.

I got it.

Okay.

Now, speaking of dancing with the stars, I see a lot of this next rhyme.

That is to say, many missteps while dancing to the music of Johann Strauss.

False waltz?

Say again?

Clutz waltz is what I said, and she said false waltz.

False is close.

Waltz is right, but the word I’m looking for rhymes more precisely than false.

Oh,

Haltz waltz?

False.

False.

Waltz false.

We see a lot of waltz false on Dancing with the Stars.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Gotcha, gotcha.

Now, here’s another one.

You know, I recently hired an assistant.

He’s sort of a gentleman’s gentleman.

Well, at least one of us is a gentleman.

Anyway, he’s a colorful character.

While he works, he indulges himself in dancing about, performing plies and pirouettes.

Yeah.

So he does a valet ballet?

He does a valet ballet.

Yeah, it’s very good.

Thank you.

Okay.

Now, do you think lumberjacks would be caught dead performing a traditional Appalachian social dance in which the dancer’s footwear beats a percussive rhythm?

The clogging something.

Something clogging.

Logging, clogging.

Logging, clogging.

Good teamwork there.

Good work, guys.

Good work.

A friend of mine works at one of the biggest communications and technology companies.

Now, I suggest that their lunchtime to be taken up with moving and grooving to the Bee Gees, Donna Summer and such.

Okay, so Cisco Disco?

Cisco Disco, yes.

Cisco Systems.

Disco Systems.

Cisco Disco.

Okay.

Now, you have to be careful at those things, by the way.

I once got into quite a Donnybrook over my Tony Manero impersonation.

Do you know what that was called?

Let’s see.

Not a Saturday Night Fight.

No.

Nice.

Think of a certain disco dance that rhymes with a Donnybrook.

Oh, a certain…

A hustle tussle.

A hustle tussle, yes.

Oh, nice.

I got into a hustle tussle.

It may not have been the dance.

It may have been my use of the word Donnybrook that got me into the fight.

Now, this is not very green, but hey, you know, if you’re going to ignore trash cans and just toss your garbage on the street, you may as well be entertaining while doing it.

Try this wild type of swing dance popular in the 1930s.

The litterbug jitterbug?

The litterbug jitterbug, yes.

Very good.

And here’s the last.

You know, a funky but easy-to-do dance from the 50s and 60s might not seem appropriate for Hungarian Rhapsody No. 1, but I think the composer might find it fun.

Funky dance?

What is it?

Funky…

Is it the twist?

Oh, yeah.

The list twist?

Is that what you said?

The list twist.

Beautiful.

Martha, nice work.

Nice going, guys.

Good teamwork once again.

No, I think I was carried through that one.

I see Martha’s footsteps in the sand.

Oh, so you’re doing that kind of dance where she carries you and stuff like that?

I don’t even want to see that.

There are two left feet there in the sand.

But that’s the quiz, guys.

You were great.

Thanks very much.

All right.

Well, thank you, John.

We’ll talk to you again real soon, I hope.

Good.

Save a dance for me.

And when are we going to get the ones that I can do easily?

They’re coming right up.

Next one.

Okay.

Bye, John.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

If you want to talk about language, call us 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.