Take-off O Puzzle

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, and here he is wearing a tricorn hat and waving the flag.

It’s our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

It is so hard to play a piccolo and wave a flag at the same time, I’ve got to tell you.

But I try. I try.

So good to see you guys.

It’s another quiz that we’ve done before that I hope you like.

It’s takeoffs.

Again, we’ve done takeoffs before.

We take off the first letter of a word to get another word.

And this time we’re going to make two words by taking the letter O from the start of a word.

Only O now.

Oh.

Got it?

Yeah, O, exactly.

The letter O, not the sound O?

Not the sound O.

No, the letter O.

Well, sometimes it’s the sound O, but it’s always the letter O.

Okay.

For example, if I said, somebody has unlatched the gate of the pigsty, the answer would be open and pen.

Pen.

Oh, makes sense.

Got it.

Unlatch the gate is open.

Stye is a pen.

Open.

O-pen.

Open.

Okay.

I waited until we were married to tell her about my massive debt.

What’s the giggle?

Yeah, well.

Oh.

So we’re starting with such an up note.

So you were waiting until you were wed?

Yes.

To pay what you owed.

To tell her what I owed.

Yes, exactly.

Right.

I still bear the physical reminder of the time I dropped my acting award on my foot.

Your acne award?

No, acting.

The best spots.

It certainly wasn’t a speaking award, that’s for sure, if you thought acting was acne.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, you have a scar on your foot from when you dropped your Oscar.

That’s right.

I did, and I do.

Beyond the gate was a roughly egg-shaped portal that seemed to lead to a great nothingness.

Ooh.

Not orifice.

Oh.

I love the sound of realization.

Yeah.

Nothingness being a void.

Yes.

Oh, yes.

There we go.

Roughly egg-shaped.

Yes, it was ovoid.

It was an ovoid void.

Now, this area here is where we store our colorless, odorless, yet highly reactive gas.

Colorless, odorless.

Oh.

It’s the zone where you store your ozone.

That’s right.

It’s our ozone zone.

That’s right.

Finally, on the light spectrum, it’s somewhere between 585 and 620 nanometers.

Of course it is.

Orange is in the range of those frequencies.

Oh, nice.

Yes.

You guys are oh so good.

Yeah.

Oh, that’s very nice.

We would be overjoyed to hear from you.

Give us a call 877-929-9673 to talk about any aspect of language whatsoever, or send your thoughts to words@waywordradio.org.