美国国家公共电台 NPR The N-th Degree

The N-th Degree

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0004:40repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser 1 to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST: 

Kaiya and JJ, we've got a word game for you called The N-th Degree. In this game, you'll add the letter N to a common name or expression to turn it into something else. So for an example, let's go to our puzzle guru Art Chung.

ART CHUNG: So if I said add N to a glum 2 person and he becomes a bag you might use for flood protection, you would say sand sack, adding the letter N to sad sack.

EISENBERG: Yeah.

KAIYA LYONS: OK.

J J MAXWELL: OK.

EISENBERG: See? Are you comfortable with the premise 3?

MAXWELL: Game on.

EISENBERG: Very good. So, JJ, you won the last game, so you win this and you're going to the final round. Kaiya, you need to win this or you'll have to go home and write a think piece for Medium about what went wrong today.

(LAUGHTER)

LYONS: OK.

EISENBERG: Add N to an awkward dinner with two couples and it becomes an even more awkward reading of two works by the author of "The Divine Comedy." You can ring in and talk it out.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Kaiya.

LYONS: So I think the first part is double date.

EISENBERG: Right.

LYONS: So maybe something like Dublin date?

EISENBERG: "Divine Comedy," does that ring a bell to you?

LYONS: Not at all.

EISENBERG: OK.

LYONS: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: JJ, can you steal?

MAXWELL: Double Dayton...

EISENBERG: I don't...

(GROANS)

MAXWELL: I'm sorry.

LYONS: At least we're both awful.

EISENBERG: This is the 10th circle of hell.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: OK. "Dante's Inferno 4," the inferno. Dante we were looking for, so then it would become double Dante 'cause you add an N to the...

LYONS: Oh.

MAXWELL: Oh.

LYONS: Got you.

EISENBERG: Yep.

LYONS: OK, OK, OK.

MAXWELL: All right, all right. At least...

EISENBERG: Not an easy game. Here's your next one. Add N to a place where you talked to friends back when you had an AOL account and it becomes a place where Monk's drone on in unison 5.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Kaiya...

LYONS: Chantroom.

EISENBERG: Yes.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Yeah.

LYONS: I did it.

MAXWELL: That was good. That was good.

EISENBERG: And N to the face covering you'd wear to hit the slopes or rob a bank and it becomes a face covering worn by Hannibal Lecter.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

LYONS: Kaiya.

LYONS: Skin mask.

EISENBERG: Yeah, that's right.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Blech...

JONATHAN COULTON: Yeah, ugh, not my favorite kind of mask.

EISENBERG: (Laughter) Add N to one of the Golden Girls actresses and she becomes a magical fruit, the more you eat the more you toot.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Kaiya.

LYONS: Bean Arthur - I'm sorry.

EISENBERG: Yeah, you got it.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: I can't believe we've come to our final clue. Doesn't it - we've all come a long way. Add N to a venomous spider and it becomes a glass-wall opening that's hard to see through.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: JJ

MAXWELL: Black window.

EISENBERG: Black window is correct.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Puzzle guru Art Chung, how did our contestants 7 do?

CHUNG: Well, we made it.

(LAUGHTER)

CHUNG: Congratulations, Kaiya, you've tied it up one game apiece. So I'm going to give you a quick tiebreaker round. I'm going to give you a category and you're going to go back and forth 8 naming things that fall into that category. The first contestant 6 to mess up, either by guessing incorrectly, repeating an answer or taking too long, will be eliminated. Buzz in to answer first.

Here's your category - name the 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

CHUNG: JJ, you go first.

MAXWELL: Pig.

CHUNG: Pig is correct. Kaiya.

LYONS: Dog.

CHUNG: Dog is also correct. JJ

MAXWELL: Rat.

CHUNG: That's right. Kaiya.

LYONS: Rabbit.

CHUNG: Rabbit is correct. JJ.

MAXWELL: Bull.

CHUNG: We'll accept bull. We're looking for ox...

(CROSSTALK)

LYONS: Is sheep one?

CHUNG: I'm sorry, Kaiya. Sheep was wrong. The other possible answers were dragon, goat, horse, monkey, rooster, snake and tiger. So that means JJ, you're moving on to the final round.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: It's settled, our finalists are Angeline and JJ, and they'll face off in the final round at the end of the show. And if you hear the word contestant and immediately anagram it to not ten cats, then you should be not ten cats on our show. Go to amatickets.org.

Coming up, we've got Dennis Quaid and Christian 9 Cooke from "The Art Of More." And they'll find out which item is worth more, Pharrell's hat or Gary Coleman's sweatpants. I'm Ophira Eisenberg, and you're listening to ASK ME ANOTHER from NPR.