Crossword-puzzle constructors often employ words with a vowel-consonant-consonant-vowel pattern, or VCCV. That’s the cruciverbal inspiration Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s VCCV puzzle. For example, if the clue is teen woe, what’s the four-letter answer...
Our Puzzle Man John Chaneski’s been working at the Museum of Math in New York City and it’s got him thinking about number words. For this game, each clue leads to a certain number spelled out. For example, can you guess which number between one and...
Oh no you di-int! The linguistic term for what happens when someone pronounces didn’t as “di-int,” or Martin as Mar-in without the t sound, is called glottalization. Instead of making a t sound with the tongue behind the teeth, a different sound is...
There’s a rule for the pronunciation of the word “the.” If it’s followed by a word whose first letter is a vowel, sticklers say it should be pronounced like “/thee/,” as in, the end. If followed by a consonant, it rhymes with “duh,” as in “the dog”...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a quiz called “Scronsonants.” The object is to guess two-word phrases containing a pair of words starting with the same three consonants. Here’s one: “I get a particular joy from the pain of others, but I had to learn how...