Word Olympics Game

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 on the line from New York City is John Chaneski.

Hi, Martha.

Hi, Grant.

Hey, buddy.

What’s up?

Good to hear your voices again.

It’s great.

Yeah, what’s happening?

Today’s quiz is sort of a hodgepodge, which I call the word Olympics.

-huh.

Wait, have we done this one before?

Something like this?

Something like this, yeah.

You know, this is just an excuse for me to just throw a bunch of things together.

Oh, okay.

A little mulligan stew for us.

These events are just a bunch of different questions about words, but let’s see if you get the gold.

Okay.

Here we go.

What two two-letter Scrabble legal words use the same two letters and express a sound of surprise?

O and ho?

And ha?

And ha is the one I’m looking for.

Yes, very good.

Gold.

What ho?

What, ho?

You know gargoyles are the stone rain spouts carved into grotesque shapes on medieval churches and buildings.

Yeah.

But what is the name for the grotesque shapes on those buildings that are the decorative and don’t channel water?

Oh, boy, art history.

You got your crockets.

You got your finials.

You got your flying buttresses.

Oh, you go.

Come on.

Bring it on.

But go give us a hint.

I gave you a hint in the clue.

Grotesque monsters?

Well, can you hit that word a little bit?

The answer is grotesques.

That’s very good.

Nice.

I did not know that there was a different name.

I know.

That makes my day.

I think most people actually call them…

They call them gargoyles.

No matter whether there’s water coming out or not.

Right.

Yeah, but the gargoyle is related to throat.

But if you’re a middle-aged pedant.

Yeah.

I’m working on being a middle-aged pedant, so it’s coming up soon.

You’re just about there, yeah.

Now, a mazurka is a Polish table, a Polish dance, or a Polish casserole?

It is all three.

No, it’s not.

It’s a Greek.

It’s a food dish.

Oh, yeah, it’s a dance.

It is a dance, yes.

Very good.

I don’t know.

So you get to stand slightly higher than Grant on that.

I had a 33% chance of getting an answer right.

And of course, I chose the fourth option for a 0% chance.

You still got it wrong, yeah.

What six-letter word, when uncapitalized, means to make shiny or clean?

Polish.

And when capitalized is the name of a country.

Polish.

Polish and Polish.

As in the previous question.

Maybe not the name of a country, but.

Oh, right.

I’m sorry.

The demonym of a country, right?

Finish this quote by Mark Twain.

If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed.

If you do read the newspaper, you are.

Out a nickel.

I don’t know.

It’s something about still uninformed, but.

Uniform.

Uneducated or miseducated or something.

Misinformed?

Misinformed.

Misinformed is correct.

Oh, good.

So the proper parallelism would have to be another form of informed.

Oh, okay.

If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed.

If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.

Thank you, Mark Twain.

Yes.

Silver on that.

Congratulations.

Not being invited back in four years is how I feel about my performance,

But thank you for the compliments anyway.

Can we play the A Way with Words anthem, please?

Where is it?

We don’t have it?

I’m sorry.

Yeah, right.

I’m tearing up.

John, it’s always a delight to have you on the show.

And these were super fun.

Thanks so much, buddy.

It’s always a pleasure for me too.

Thank you.

If you’ve got something puzzling

That you want to share with us,

Please do, 877-929-9673

And email us, words@waywordradio.org.