Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a word quiz about words and phrases that have two sets of a double letter. Here’s an example with a one-word answer: “The place where you learn ‘the three R’s.'” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Word Quiz Double Letters”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. And we’re joined now by our quiz guy, Greg Pliska. Hiya, Greg.
Hello, Grant. Hello, Martha.
Hi.
Hello, buddy. What’s going on there?
You know, I’m coming out of my obsession with the Olympics.
Yeah.
Trying to recover.
Yeah.
It’s like being in the 12-step program.
I have it all on DVR so I can watch it over and over and over again.
Oh, that’s scary.
We have a quiz there for us, a puzzle, something amusing?
This week we’re going to have twice as much fun because the quiz is all about words with two sets of the same double letter.
Okay.
Basically, I’ll give you a clue for a word or a phrase that has two sets of double letters in it, and you guess the answer.
Okay.
For example, I might say the place where you learned the three R’s.
Wait, are the letters next to each other, right?
No, the pairs of letters are next to each other.
So a pair of letters in one place and a pair of letters in the other.
Okay, very good.
Right, right.
Okay, well, school has one L.
Oh, no, maybe it’s school something.
You’re right, school something.
It’s not the new school.
School door.
No, that’s spelled N-E-W.
School door.
School room.
Oh, school room.
School room.
Okay, okay, school room.
Oh.
It’s going to be tough, man.
It’s going to be good.
All right, so let’s try some of these.
Okay.
All right, here’s your first one.
A flighty person.
The letter is B as in boy.
A flighty person is a…
Jabber, jibber, jibber-jabber.
That’s another good one.
I almost used jibber-jabber.
Jibber-jabber.
Jibber-jabber—
Flighty.
Fliberty-jibbit?
Fliberty-jibbit.
Oh, crazy.
All right.
Here’s one that’s a hyphenated word, meaning spontaneous or informal.
I can tell you that the letter that’s doubled twice is F.
Boy, this is tough.
You mean spontaneous or what?
Or informal.
It’s not riffraff.
Like you go, you know, you have a conversation with a reporter and there’s on the record.
Off the cuff.
Off the cuff.
Whoa.
Oh, there we go.
Off the cuff.
All right, here’s one you’ll get quickly.
It’s the name of a Rossini opera whose overture was used for the Lone Ranger theme song.
Well, Tell, but…
William Tell.
William Tell.
There you go.
Two double L’s in his name.
How about this 1960s expression of approval used in response to an attractive man or woman?
Hippie dippy.
No, that’s not right.
No?
Cool.
Cool daddy-o.
Oh, that’s nice.
No, that doesn’t work.
That’s nice.
It doesn’t have doubles.
It has three Ds and three Os, but not four of any of them.
Hubba hubba.
Hubba hubba.
There you go.
It brings you back, doesn’t it, Martha?
That’s from the 1960s?
Yeah.
All right, here’s a couple more.
Here’s one with a double double P in it.
And the clue is fen-fen and similar drugs.
Okay, fen-fen is a weight loss drug.
But it’s also illegal.
And how does it help you lose weight?
Pee-pee.
It makes you pee.
Yeah.
Pee-pee a lot.
It’s a diuretic, right?
I don’t know if it does that.
It does something else that involves lots of peas.
Really?
Four Ps.
If you want to lose weight, one way to do it is to stop eating so much.
Right.
So in order to stop eating so much, you need to do what?
Suppress your desire to eat.
Suppress appetite.
Appetite suppressant.
Appetite suppressant.
Oh, there we go.
There you go.
Wow.
Here’s a proper noun.
It’s the name of a certain hairless bear.
A hairless bear?
No, grizzly isn’t hairless.
It’s a proper noun.
It’s the name of a certain hairless bear.
Who has a hairless bear?
Fuzzy Wuzzy.
Fuzzy Wuzzy, of course.
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
Oh, of course.
I knew you’d finally be on a roll if we went back to children’s rhymes.
I’ve got another set of these that I call double-double-doubles.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
This sounds like the Olympics.
Exactly.
Speaking of the Olympics, there are two answers to each clue, two possible answers.
Okay.
And each of them has the same double pair of double letters.
Oh, Lord have mercy.
Let’s have it then.
How about two answers for this one, a word meaning gossip that has two pairs of double T’s?
Scuttlebutt.
Oh, good.
One.
Prattle.
No.
Scuttlebutt.
Very good.
The other one is a little less common.
Might also mean someone who tells on somebody.
Tattletale.
Yeah, like that.
Tattletelling.
Tattler.
I’m looking for tittle tattle.
Tittle tattle.
Okay, very good.
Another word for gossip.
All right, and let’s finish off, if we may, with some triple doubles.
These are phrases, actually in one case a word, but also phrases that have three pairs of the same double letter.
Wow.
Never before attempted on the radio.
Yeah, exactly.
This is the Sean White of puzzling right here.
This is going to be massive.
Yeah.
Epic.
Epic, dude.
Epic.
Here’s your clue.
Pardon me, but have you seen this?
The Chattanooga Choo Choo.
Chattanooga Choo Choo.
Wow.
Three double O’s in that phrase.
Wow, that was massive, Grant.
Epic.
And this one, I’ll give you one more.
This is a single word, three pairs of double S’s, what poker players try to exhibit facially.
Poker players?
You want to have a poker face?
You don’t want to give any tells, any clues?
You want to look clueless-ness?
Oh, you’re on the right track.
Really?
Yeah.
Less-ness at the end is really good.
Oh.
A smile is an example of a facial blank.
Expression-less-ness.
Expression-less-ness.
There we go.
Yeah.
Woo!
Wow, this was a hard one.
We’re just going to change this to the come-up-it section of the show.
I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue.
Everyone thought you were experts until now.
Totally destroyed that illusion.
Oh, man.
Yeah, but I’m sure some of our listeners did really well on this.
Greg, this was huge.
This was hard, but it was fun.
It was massive and epic.
You guys are good sports.
Thank you.
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