Word Game, Word Quiz, Word Puzzle: Common Bonds

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 striding up to the microphone with his astronaut helmet in his hand, about to tell us something, is our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Can you, can you, I guess I should, I should take this off, should I?

Yeah.

Listen, guys, it’s great to be back.

I have for you a quiz we’ve done before. This is called Common Bonds. And I give you three things. You tell me what they have in common.

Now, there’s lots of names for these. When they were in a board game format, they were called Tribond, and people still call it that. And if you’re a fan of the UK game show Only Connect, it’s like the connecting wall. And when I host pub trivia, though, I call it Common Bonds.

So, for example, if I said a report card, USDA inspected beef, and incline, you would say grades. A report card has grades, USDA inspected beef. Grades and an incline has a grade. Got it? Good. All right. Let’s do the first. Road, horror, Balboa. Rocky. Rocky road, rocky horror, and rocky Balboa. Yes. Very good. Right out of the gate. Well done.

This one’s a little similar. Wild, cold, tom. Tom turkey. Yeah. Wild turkey, cold turkey. Yes, very good. Lightning bolt has hit you. Very good. Well done.

You notice sometimes it’ll be like, this can follow a word or this can precede a word. Those are pretty common.

All right, this one. Row, rattle, valley. R-O-W? Right. Death. Death row? It is. Death rattle, death valley. Oh. Death row, death rattle, death valley. It’s the feel-good question of the night. Yes. Okay. All right.

Again, this is phrase-related. Roof, ruckus, rent. Raise the. Yes. Things you can raise. All right.

This is more trivia-based. Alfredo DiLelio, Cesar Cardini, Ruben Kulikovsky. Are these all magicians? No, they’re not magicians. That’s a great guess. But they’re associated with food. Fettuccine Alfredo, Cesar Salad, and what was the last one? Ruben Kulikovsky. Oh, the Ruben Sandwich? The Ruben Sandwich. They all have dishes named for them. Yes, very good.

Let’s do this one. A trombone, a playground, a microscope. Slide. Yes, they all have slides. Oh, nice, Martha. Nailed it. Very good. On a roll now.

Chromium Damascus Stainless. Steel. Types of steel. Yes, very good. Or blank steel.

Okay, down to the wire now. Arcade, Lane, Dreadful. Penny. Yeah, Penny Arcade, Penny Lane, Penny Dreadful. Okay.

John, those are some toughies, but I always like the toughies. Good, good. Thank you. And we’ll see you next week, bro. I’ll talk to you then. Thank you, guys.

John, thank you so much for those push-ups for our brains. And we’d love for you to give us a workout as well. So call us with any question whatsoever about language, word origins, grammar, slang, you name it. 877-929-9673 or send them to us an email words@waywordradio.org.