Weight Loss Program Word Quiz

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett. And we’re joined now by our quiz guy, Greg Pliska.

Hello, Greg.

Hello, Grant. Hello, Martha.

Hiya, Greg. What do you have for us?

Well, I have a puzzle that I’m calling weight loss program.

Okay.

My sister recently had some really great success, actually, with a diet.

And in her honor, I put together this little quiz.

Here’s how it works.

Each answer is a pair of words.

And if you remove a word for a particular unit of weight from the first word in the pair, you’ll get the second word.

Oh.

Nice.

So I will give you clues to both words, and you give me the answer pair.

For example, here’s a clue to a seven-letter word, a topic for this radio program.

Now, if you remove a unit of weight from that word, you’ll get a three-letter word that means to spoil or disfigure.

So you’re looking for a seven-letter word and a three-letter word.

So like mar-etymology?

No.

Am I going in the right direction?

You got the right second word, mar, but you want to add a unit of weight.

Gram.

Grammar.

Grammar.

Oh, grammar.

Grammar or mar-etymology.

It’s about C words.

That’s right.

Exactly.

It’s nautical.

Just to make sure that’s clear, you got the first seven-letter word, topic for this radio program, grammar.

You take out gram, and that leaves you with mar.

Gotcha.

If you’re ready to go, let’s lose some weight.

Okay.

Number one, seize as an illegally parked car and a contemporary communication medium.

Oh, like impound and IM.

There you go.

Phew.

Well done, yes.

Good clue.

Grant is looking at me puzzledly.

Gotcha.

IM stands for instant messaging.

Yes.

Onto IM.

So to seize the car is to impound and you remove pound and you get IM.

Very nice.

All right.

You guys are good.

You guys are good.

Here’s another one.

Painful headaches and the first name of architect Vanderroh.

All right.

So a painful headache is a migraine.

Yeah.

And then the unit of measurement is a grain.

Right.

Which leaves M-I-E.

Actually, painful headache is headaches, plural.

Oh, headaches.

Migraines.

I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the plural.

That’s all right.

So M-I-E-S, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

That’s a Dutch name.

How do you pronounce it?

Mies, I believe.

Mies van der Rohe, famous architect.

Yes, and a grain is not as common a weight, but it’s used mostly now to measure the mass of bullets and gunpowder.

Yes, that is correct.

Here’s another one for you.

A Palm Beach County resort town whose name is Spanish for mouth of the rat.

Okay.

And a timely benefit or blessing.

So the big word is Boca Raton, right?

And…

What was the other one?

A blessing?

A timely benefit or blessing.

So the unit of weight is a carat, C-A-R-A-T, which means B-O-O-N, boon.

Absolutely.

Oh.

Very good.

I think I get the rules now.

Good, because I’ve run out of units of weight.

Oh, wait.

Let’s start.

Let’s begin.

We can play this with, we can do this with units of length as well, if you’d like.

Oh, can we?

Yeah.

It’s not a weight loss program anymore.

It’s now a length loss program.

It’s exactly the same thing, except you’re removing a unit of length in order to get a new word.

So your first clue is guaranteeing oneself a position in the playoffs.

And if you remove a unit of length, you get a word meaning to hold on too tightly.

Well, clench is in there somewhere.

Yep.

Guaranteeing oneself a position in the playoffs.

Clenching.

Clenching.

Take out inch and you get cling, C-L-I-N-G.

Which means to hold on too tightly.

Exactly.

Well done.

All right.

Here’s another one for you.

Figure of speech comparing two unlike objects.

And the Spanish word for yes.

Well, we know the last one is C, S-I, right?

It’s called S-I.

And a figure of speech comparing two unlike objects.

Often using like or as.

So a simile.

And the word is mile.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

How about one more?

Okay.

You got it.

One more.

This is a length.

It’s a piece of rope for fastening something on a ship.

And your second clue is abbreviation referring to a connected set of computers.

Oh, so the first word is lanyard.

Yep.

And the unit of measurement is a yard, which leaves us with L-A-N, which stands for local area network.

Land.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

Excellent.

Well, you see, you’ve slimmed down already.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, our own version of Wait, Wait, right here on this show.

This is good.

This is good.

This was a good one.

Oh, just because you got most of the answers.

Come on.

Actually, no.

What I like about these puzzles, Greg, is that I get inside your brain, and it’s a fairly happy place.

It’s fun, Greg.

So you think.

Well, no.

It shows your deviousness and cleverness, and this is how you – it’s like reading an author.

Yeah, yeah.

We like what you’ve done with the voice.

Little bits of your character are revealed, and I’m like, oh, okay.

This is how the man works.

Now we get you.

Okay.

Now, next quiz guy, because we’ve got him figured out.

But it was great fun.

Thanks for coming, Greg.

Thank you.

It’s my pleasure.

If you have a question about wordplay, language, grammar, slang, regional expressions, or strange old sayings, call us at 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD.

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.