Where Would You Go to College To… Word Game

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

I’m Martha Barnette.

I’m Grant Barrett, and just back from a fabulous night at the Met Gala wearing a gown you’ll never believe, it’s John Chaneski.

Hello, everybody. Excuse me while I try to slide in here with this gigantic taffeta number on.

But here, just get it in. Careful, don’t step on that.

Okay, it’s worth very, very much.

Anyway, look, you know what, guys? It’s done.

I’m sending my second kid to college.

Wow.

That’s right, yes.

Max is in college, and now Jesse will be in college next year.

And, you know, looking at all the different choices was quite a job in and of itself.

It did, however, spur me to think of some possibilities.

For example, if you were going to study locksmithing, obviously the university you’d want to attend would be…

Yale.

Oh, Yale.

No, Yale, yes.

That’s a big lock company for those of you.

I like that.

Yeah.

That’s good.

Or if you want to be a chef and you want to make sure your French toast has a nice golden color on both sides, you could go to brown.

Yeah, so brown.

Go to brown to learn how to cook.

Go to brown, yeah.

Well, here are a few more.

You tell me the college I am very awkwardly referring to.

Here we go.

This is going to be great.

I’m sure.

You say you want to specialize in Japanese cuisine.

Good luck.

Now, first, you must study the basics.

The basic staple food grain.

You should go to Houston and go to Rice.

Rice University.

Rice University, indeed.

Now, I’m not sure U.S. College is where you want to be.

If you want to be royalty, titles of nobility aren’t usually granted at universities, but I guess you could start at…

Queen’s College?

Queens College is a good guess.

But I’m thinking of one more.

Let’s see.

Where is this one?

Somewhere in North Carolina.

Duke.

Duke, yes.

You can become a Duke at Duke.

You want to get into fashion design?

Yes, specifically making boas or jackets with faux fur collars and cuffs.

You’d probably learn to work with bunches of feathers or fur at…

Tufts.

Tufts, yes.

Yes, Tufts University.

Nice.

Go to Massachusetts and study Tufts at Tufts.

Finally, you know, you could be a great geneticist.

You’d be a great pioneer in the science of cloning, but you’d have to get your doctorate in Ireland at the University of…

Dublin.

Dublin, yes.

Study cloning at Dublin.

That’s terrible.

That’s the worst.

That is so bad.

So I don’t even have to be about universities.

You could just double.

I don’t know why I came up with that.

On that high note, I am going to go back to college is what I’m going to do.

I’m going to go study enigmatology somewhere in Indiana.

All right, you guys, this has been fun.

I’ll talk to you next time.

John, that was so painful on so many levels.

We loved it.

We’re going to miss you.

I’ll miss you.

Talk to you next week.

Bye-bye.

Bye, John.

And if you’d like to talk with us, we’d love to share a conversation with you.

So give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your thoughts about language to words@waywordradio.org.