Writer’s Math Puzzle

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

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, and we’re joined by our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hi, John.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, Martha.

Hi, John.

What’s up, bud?

Well, you know, I was thinking lately about math.

You know, sometimes we try to mix up letters and numbers here.

Now, everyone can do math.

There’s no reason to be afraid of it.

Well, I’ve come up with something I call writer’s math.

It’s similar to other puzzles we’ve done here.

I’ll give you a sentence with a number hidden in it somewhere.

That is the word, the name of a number.

All you have to do is find it and tell me that the sentence equals whatever that number is.

Okay.

Now, you’ll probably need a pencil for this just to scribble down what I’m saying.

If I say, launch yourself on every wave, you would say that that sentence equals?

One.

One, yes.

Can you tell me why?

On every O-N-E.

Yes, very good.

Between on and every, there is O-N-E.

Now, that happens to be from the journals of Thoreau, by the way.

Now, just as a hint, there’s a break between letters in every hidden number.

That is, it’s between two or more words.

Gotcha.

Just as a hint.

Good.

Here we go.

Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent.

Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent.

Right.

Oh, I know what it equals.

What is it?

What is that?

Two.

Equals two, yes.

That won’t.

Won’t.

Right.

T-W-O.

That’s a quote from Thomas Edison.

Here’s the next one.

Oh, that I could travel even though on foot and in utmost poverty.

Oh, that I could travel.

Even though on foot and in utmost poverty.

Yeah, I know what it is.

Eleven.

Eleven, yes.

That is a Baha’i prayer.

It equals eleven.

Travel even.

I like that these are famous things.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah, I happened to find a lot of really cool ones.

Let’s see.

This one, I’m not sure where I got this from, but it’s a nice one.

The hard knocks of our teen years were not as bad as they seemed back then.

The hard knocks of our teen years.

Oh, I have it.

Go ahead, then.

Fourteen.

Equals fourteen, yes, of our teen years.

Oh, nice.

Three words.

Very good.

How about this one?

A chicken in every pot, a car in every garage.

A chicken in every pot, a car in every garage.

Let’s see, chicken.

Oh, there it is.

Nine.

That’s right.

This is a Republican pamphlet for, do you remember what president that was?

It was Hoover, wasn’t it?

Herbert Hoover, yes.

In every chicken, in every.

There’s nine.

How about this one?

Speaking of politics, the reason for public distaste of Congress is politicians’ obsession with re-election.

With three?

Oh, boy, that’s a long one.

With three?

With three elections?

Three is right, Martha.

Very nice.

You got it.

Equals three.

That’s Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke.

All right.

That was fantastic.

That’s what I call writer’s math.

You guys did great.

Wow, I was thinking, like, you know, amount per word for articles submitted, but okay.

That’s what a writer would think of when he thinks of that.

And 120 days to be paid.

That’s right.

Thank you, John.

Thanks, John.

I really appreciate it, buddy.

We’ll talk to you next week.

Thank you, guys.

Talk to you then.

Take care.

We do a lot of goofing around with language on this show.

We’d love to goof around with you.

So call us with your language question or story, 877-929-9673, or send it to us in email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.