MAKING GRAMMAR GREAT AGAIN

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Thank you to listener T.O. for tickling our fancies with these grammatical A&Q’s:

In my opinion, all six of the song lyrics quoted in “Grammar Goes to the Grammies” are perfectly grammatical. You just have to realize that the singer is responding to a question we never hear. (Picture a man in a turban, holding an envelope to his forehead):

ANSWER: “I must be sure from the very start that you would love me more than her.”
QUESTION: “I suppose I could love you almost as much as I love my mother, but — hey, why are you pouting?”

ANSWER: “Is it me?”
QUESTION: “I’m stuck on 6 Across: ‘Two-letter word meaning “myself.”‘ Any ideas?”

ANSWER: “I can’t get no satisfaction.”
QUESTION: “Sometimes, if I try, I find that I’m able to get no satisfaction whatsoever out of life. How about you?”

ANSWER: “You know she’s uncommonly rare, very unique.”
QUESTION: “I forget: in the collected writings of Mgogg the Caveman, is the word ‘she’ considered unique, while ‘very’ is only uncommonly rare, or is it the other way around?”

ANSWER: “No more lonely nights.”
QUESTION: “Whatever happened to that loser husband of yours — the one we all called ‘Mr. Lonely Nights’?”

ANSWER: “Lay, lady, lay.”
PRECEDING: “Jerry Lewis, what does a hen do to make more hens?”

PALINDROME PATTER

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Listener Jeffrey gave us this delightful tidbit on musical palindromes:
Since I am a musician and music teacher, “Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle” was easy for me. But did you know that the sentence works backwards as well? “Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles’ Father.” First way is for the order of key signatures using #’s – the second for the order of keys using flats.

FIELDER’S CHOICE

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Listener B.J. from Jamestown, RI gave us this graphic history:

One of your panelists mentioned (on 10/15/16) that the MLB logo was based on the silhouette of Al Kaline — not! It was widely thought that the model was Twins’ slugger Harmon Killebrew (who never sought to dispel the idea.) It turns out, according to many sources, including the logo designer, Jerry Dior, that logo is not representative of any specific player. According to ESPN, this factoid was corroborated by MLB in 2009.

A little birdie told me…

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From dedicated listener Ed from Cotuit, MA:

In last season’s show, SY-2023, one guessing round word was “lek” which ended up being a mating area for sage grouse. I just discovered that your definition was a bit too specific because a show on hummingbirds which aired on PBS TV last night showed hermit hummingbirds displaying and vocalizing in a lek in central/south? America. So . . . to the RHUD which defines lek as “a traditional place where males assemble during the mating season and engage in competitive displays that attract females.” It’s not just for sage grouses.

BTW, cruciverbalists know that lek is also a unit of Albanian currency but that wasn’t given as an option.

“Ambushed” once again!

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Our thanks go out to Leroy for continuing the discourse and the paper trail.

On the show that aired on Wisconsin Public Radio’s WHAD-FM today, Sunday, September 25, you had a question involving the game, “Dungeons and Dragons.” Almost as an aside, you mentioned that Gary Gygax was an insurance underwriter. I don’t believe that this is the case as is explained in the article “The Ambush at Sheridan Springs” by Jon Peterson.

Share the Spotlight

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Listener Erica from the Boston would like to hear…

I have a suggestion for a spotlight round. It was from episode #1218 and it was a round involving movies within movies. Tony was desperately grasping for the name of the movie (“that guy was in it” and “there were trees”) and Richard let the whole thing go on for two and a half minutes. Yes, we timed it. My husband and I found it very funny.

Love the show.

We welcome your suggestions for spotlight rounds. Send in your request and we will do our best!

Wit for Brits

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We moved to Wales UK and purchased the app to keep in touch with the show which we love. But no new shows have been posted since we bought it. What’s up? We are getting frantic.

Cheers, Robin Glover.
Sent from a benevolent iPad

 

Robin,

So glad to hear from you – and hope you are loving your new experience! You should know that one of the biggest inspirations for the show was the British show “My Word” – and in all the years of hearing from media companies that we should “dumb down” the show – it was the notion of “My Word” that kept us steadfast. The only little secret we can share is that in the My Word “shaggy dog stories” (which were brilliant) the panelists were given a week or more to craft their response. Nothing, absolutely nothing, on Says You! is rehearsed or shared ahead of time with the panelists.

So, back to the app – we take a summer hiatus – as such, there are no new shows currently, but the new shows will begin again in late September following the NPR calendar. Again, thank you for reaching out – most of all, thank you for listening! Stay in touch.

Nonce Upon a Time

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Listener Michael Zarky dished up some thoughts on our round of nonce words from Palo Alto (SY-2028):

Of course as a child I wouldn’t have noticed that a word in The Owl and the Pussycat had no real meaning. But, looking it up now, I discover that it really has none. All the other meanings that have been tacked on to it after Lear used it several times are not consistent with the drawing he made. So it wasn’t really fair to ask for a meaning of it – anything goes, they are all a posteriori.

Says You online availability

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Listener Bill has a question for us:

I usually love your show, but I was ecstatic over the “Previous Line of a Song” episode that I heard on your April 14, 2016 show.
My sister teaches choral music in a high school and I think that she would really enjoy that episode. How can I get an audio copy to share with her?

The answer? Our current season of Says You! is a podcast. We have an app available in the iTunes App Store a mere .99 cents and then each week a new show is aired, you will receive it for free!  We are currently in the process of finalizing an Android version as well. Thank you, Bill!

Birds of a feather…

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Special thanks to listener Caroline for expanding our knowledge:

We have always suspected in the mountain west that national media doesn’t even know about any other part of the nation than the east coast.  As soon as you announced “lek” as a word to define listeners in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho knew it.  Those of us who have had the opportunity to see sage grouse on display on a lek had a marvelous show as a gathering of many male grouse strut and display.  Tails are fanned out and up, breasts expanded and puffed up into two huge, white pillows, and a distinctive wup, wup sound they make – to attract hens, who are typically dull colored birds off at the side.  Leks are certainly not set aside by government game and fish folks, but are sites that go back in time and returned to yearly by these birds. If you know where to go to see the display that is one of your special secrets.