Word Game “Odd One Out”

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. And we’re joined once again by our quiz guy, Greg Pliska. Hiya, Greg.

Howdy, Greg.

Hello, Martha. Hello, Grant.

Greg, what do you have for us?

I have a puzzle, one of my favorite puzzle types, the odd one out puzzle.

The title itself is an example of the kind of puzzle it is because one word in that title doesn’t belong.

Odd one out puzzle.

Okay, so this is like the Sesame Street song.

Yes. One of these things is not like the others. Which one doesn’t belong?

So is that something to do with the spelling or the meaning of pronunciation or any of those?

It could be any of those. I think in today’s puzzles, I have no meaning-based ones.

So it’s all going to be about spelling or lexicography in some way, something.

Some kind of structure, syntax.

Yeah.

Morphology.

Morphology would be the word I was looking for.

So in that title, odd one out puzzle, which one does not belong?

Well, puzzle, because it doesn’t begin with an O.

Puzzle is the odd one out.

It doesn’t begin with an O.

And it’s not three letters.

And it’s also six letters long.

Yes, that’s it.

Oh, okay.

It might be useful to write these down so you can look at them while you’re working.

So everybody grab a pencil.

And in most cases, the odd one out will have the opposite property of the ones that are in.

Okay.

Or as close to opposite as I can get.

All right.

Here’s your first one.

Dove.

Job.

Polish and some.

How are you spelling some?

S-O-M-E.

Good question, though.

Dove, job.

I would say, whoa.

There’s…

Go ahead.

Dove could be dove.

Job could be joe.

Polish could be Polish.

And some can’t be pronounced differently.

Exactly.

It can only be som, S-U-M.

Right.

It could be it’s a homophone of another word spelled differently.

Right.

But you can’t change the O sound to a long O and get another word.

Som, it doesn’t really work.

Okay.

How about this one?

Almost, biopsy, chintz, C-H-I-N-T-Z, and sponge.

Good gracious.

Almost, biopsy, chintz, and sponge.

Look at the first three words.

What letters do they start with?

A, B, C.

I see.

So sponge is not in the alphabetical order?

Well, specifically, look at the alphabetical.

What’s going on with alphabetical order here?

So sponge is the odd one out.

Is that what you’re saying?

Sponge is the odd one out.

But why?

Because it should be dung.

No, there’s something.

There’s a property about the words that has to do with alphabetical order.

If you spell them, A-L-M-O-S-T.

Oh, I see.

All the letters in the word are in alphabetical order.

Are in alphabetical order, except in sponge, in which case they’re in reverse alphabetical order.

I see.

So they’re not necessarily one right after the other, but they are alphabetical.

But they are alphabetical.

Yeah, very good.

Oh, wow.

Well, you gave me the answer.

So congratulations, Greg.

You’re doing very well.

I’ve got to keep you guys on your toes.

This one’s tough.

Here’s another set for you.

Decade, dismay, margin, and novice.

Am I seeing something about Latin here?

I hope not.

Okay.

Decade.

I see that three of these contain either the word for a month or abbreviation for a month.

May and dismay.

M-A-R in margin and N-O-V in novice.

Oh, actually, decade.

Yeah.

Oh, I see.

Three of them contain the abbreviations for a month and one contains the full name for a month.

Correct.

And the abbreviations are at the beginning of the word.

All right.

And the full name is at the end.

There we go.

Okay.

That makes sense.

I tried to put April, A-P-R, at the end, but that’s just so much harder.

Yeah, not a lot of words in there.

It’s an April.

Yeah.

How about one more, Greg?

Okay.

I’ll give you one more.

Here you go.

Attorney General, City State, Court Martial, and Passerby.

That’s a lot of writing, I realize.

It’s the way you pluralize these.

Yes.

Attorney General, Court Martial, and Passerby are all pluralized on the first part of the compound.

So it’s Attorneys General, Courts Martial, and Passersby.

But City State is pluralized on the last part of the compound, so it’s City State.

Exactly. Very well. Well sussed out.

Nice work. Wow, Greg.

This was a tough one, but I have to say I like the tough ones.

You know, I’m trying to keep you happy.

You are. Believe me, we’re ecstatic, Greg.

Yeah, yeah. A little mind-bending.

It was really hard.

These are always tough. I think they’re much easier when you look at them than they are when you hear them, but you guys do a great job.

Oh, Greg, that was fun. Thank you.

Thanks again for having me.

Well, if you’d like to talk about grammar, slang, punctuation, or words and how we use them, this is the place.

And the number to call is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD.

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.