Mar 03, 2001
RAY: I'm going to read a list of words. Your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to tell me what these words have in common. Here they are: "Deft"; like, he made a deft move. "First"; he came in first. "Calmness"; he was overcome by calmness. "Canopy"; he opened a can of peas and carrots for dinner.
TOM: Wait a minute. Shouldn't you be using the plural, "canopies"?
RAY: Right. Let's try that again. "Canopy"; a canopy covered the boat so he wouldn't get wet. "Laughing"; it was no laughing matter. "Stupid"; needs no further explanation. "Crab cake," as in, "My brother made me crab cakes for dinner, and I ate a bottle of antacid when I got home." And "hijack"; I was hoping that our producer's flight would be hijacked to Bora Bora.
Got any idea what these words have in common?
RAY: Well, you could actually solve it by just using the first two words.
TOM: Really?
RAY: Yeah.
TOM: Deft and first.
RAY: What all of these words have in common is they all contain three consecutive letters of the alphabet.
TOM: Oh.
RAY: Is that sneaky?
TOM: So they do.
RAY: D-E-F-R-S-T-L-M-N, N-O-P in canopy.
TOM: O-P?
RAY: G-H-I in laughing, et cetera, et cetera, S-T-U in stupid.
TOM: Very, very good.
RAY: A-B-C in crab cake. Do we have a winner?
TOM: H-I-J. Yeah, yeah we do.
RAY: You didn't trust me did you?
TOM: No I didn't. Yeah, we have a winner. It's John Leete, L-E-E-T-E from Arlington, Virginia.
