Tricky Plural Word Quiz

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 right now from all the way in New York City is John Chaneski, our quiz guy. Yo, John.

Hey, yo, Martha. Hi, Grant.

What is up?

Well, I am preparing, believe it or not, a little soon for this, but I’m still doing it. I’m preparing for the National Puzzlers League Convention this summer. This year it’s in Boston. And I’m boning up on the NPL puzzles, what we call flats. And I thought I’d do a little puzzle about some of the puzzle types we use.

Oh, boy.

Now, I know, whenever I get the NPL in here, it’s always a little tricky. Now, I may have mentioned that among the puzzle types the NPL uses, there’s one called a false derivative. That puzzle usually applies the relationship between two words to two other words that use a different relationship. Like, for example, if the plural of mouse is mice, then the false plural of spouse is…

Spice.

Spice, right. So that’s what we call a false plural. Now, there are many, many different kinds of falsities. Let’s try a few, okay?

All right.

All right. I’ll give you an example and then a clue to the falsity. For example, if I was going to use what we just used, there’s just one mouse but many mice. I have a blank, but a bigamist has blank.

Okay.

Got it?

Gotcha.

Okay. So, if you sit and think, you will eventually have thought. Should your leaky dingy blank, you can say it has…

Sought.

Sought. Yes, sink and sought.

Sink and sought.

Yes, that’s a false past tense. Well done. You may be smart, but I am smarter. Brooklyn may be blank from here, but Montauk is even blank.

Oh, I see.

East and Easter.

Yes, Brooklyn is east of here, but Montauk is even Easter. False comparative.

Gotcha.

Very good. My right shoe is tied. My left shoe is now retied. When I commute to work, I take the blank there, and then I blank back home.

Rebus?

Yes.

Bus and rebus.

That’s nice.

Bus and rebus. A false reiterative. I’ll use this lever to get some leverage.

Oops.

I’m naked. Better put on some blank so that I’m wearing some blank.

Some clothes?

So you’re wearing clothage?

No. Think of another word.

Pants.

Pantsage.

The first one’s a four-letter word.

Jeans and jeanage?

Garb and garbage.

There we go.

Yes, very good. Garb and garbage. That acrobat is very, well, acrobatic. And check out my blank farm. Tiny and busy, these insects are certainly very blank.

Ant and antic.

Yes.

Ant and antibiotic.

In case you’re sick, yes, use those ants. False adjective. There’s no color in this photo, so I’ll colorize it. I want my electric keyboard to sound like a church blank, so I’ll touch the button that will blank it.

Organize it.

Organ and organize.

Organ and organize, right. A false verb, right. Why, that little imp is so impish. Your wordplay is somewhat like a blank. It’s very blank.

Pun and punish?

Yes.

Your pun is somewhat like a pun. It’s very punish.

Oh, punish.

Right.

So true.

So true. You guys, I really should think about joining the National Puzzlers League. You have fun like this all the time. I would love seeing my name at the bottom of the list. When the scores are posted, I’d be like, there he is. I always know where to find myself, the last position.

There you go.

So that was a flat?

These are kinds of flats, yeah. Usually a flat is a little verse. Mine didn’t rhyme, at least not all the time, but flats usually rhyme, and at the beginning of the flat you’d get what kind of wordplay is involved in the flat. These are all what we call false derivatives.

Got it.

Thank you, John. That was a great quiz. Really appreciate it.

Thank you, guys. See you soon.

Bye, John.

And if you’d like to talk with us about language, any aspect whatsoever, give us a call. 877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.