Take Off H

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 that international man of many mysteries, John Chaneski. Hello, baby. How are you? Hi, Martha. Hi, Grant. How are you guys doing?

Hi, darling. Yes. You have a quiz for us? I do. You know, this week it’s one of our staples, the takeoff. Now, it’s a variation on a National Puzzlers League puzzle type, but it’s very simple. You take a word, take its first letter off, hence the takeoff, and a new word is left behind. Now, I’ll read a sentence that contains clues to both the original word and the resulting word, and you tell me both of them. This week, we’re taking off the letter H from the beginning of all these words. If you have a pencil nearby, maybe this could help you, okay? For example, I crept down the passage from room to room, and the entire house was empty.

Now, the word passage clues the word beginning with H. Hall, right?

And the word entire clues the word all. All, right.

That’s all there is to it. I mean, that’s all there is to it. Yeah, here we go.

Put a flame under that chicken and get ready for lunch. Put a flame under that chicken and get ready for lunch. Right.

It’s not fire and ire. Now, remember, all these will begin with H. Yeah.

Oh, eight, okay. Heat and eat. Heat and eat, yes.

Now you’ve got it. Just keep following the row of shrubs around the boundary of the property. The hedge and the edge. Hedge and the edge, yes. Nicely done.

From where the ship was anchored, we could see the house and the green shelter of shrubs and vines beside it. The harbor and arbor. Yes, very nice. Good.

From bottom to top, the doorway is a little more than seven feet. Tricky. Height and eight. Yes.

Very good. From bottom to top is height and a little more than seven is eight. Remembering Back to the Future 2 when Marty and his levitating transporter made those guys crash into manure? That was a little too much. It was his skateboard hoverboard. Right.

Hoverboard and overboard. Yeah, they went a little overboard with the manure on that one. Right. Hoverboard and overboard. Nice.

Finally, often as I sit in front of the fire, I feel like the luckiest men on the planet. These are tricky because they’re pronounced differently. Yes, they are.

So in this case, it’s sitting by the hearth, and you’re the luckiest man on earth. Yes, terrific. Nicely done. You guys did really good on that takeoffs quiz. Takeoffs H is done.

Well, thank you, John. Great talking with you. And we’d love to talk with you about any aspect of language whatsoever. So call us, 877-929-9673, or send us an email. That address is words@waywordradio.org.