Limericks

Transcript

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Coming up, it's Lightning Fill In The Blank, but first it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT, that's 1-888-924-8924, or click the contact us link at our website, which is waitwait.npr.org. There you can find out about attending our weekly live shows back at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our first ever show in New Jersey. We will be at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on December 4. And be sure to check out this week's How To Do Everything. Ian and Mike now tell you how to tell people they're dumb without making them feel dumb. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.

CARINNE PARK: Hi, Peter, this is Carrine. How the heck are you?

SAGAL: I'm pretty good. How the heck are you, Carrine?

PARK: I'm doing so well. I am so nervous.

SAGAL: Where are you calling from, Carinne?

PARK: Well, I've been driving my family and friends crazy with practicing rhymes this week. So I wrote a limerick. Can I read it?

SAGAL: You may. Go ahead.

PARK: OK, great. OK, so it goes like this - it's in this land we say yins, so many bridges you might get the spins. We have all the hills and the sports, it's often too cold for jorts. I'm from Pittsburgh, where we have all the wins.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Hey, Pittsburgh. We're in Pittsburgh. Are you at home right now? Can we all come over after the show?

PARK: Yes. Of course.

SAGAL: Hey guys, we're going to Carinne's house.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: All right. Well, welcome to the show, Carinne. Nice to have you. Bill Kurtis is going to read you three news-related limericks with the last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly on two of the limericks, you'll be a big winner. Ready to play?

PARK: I'm ready.

SAGAL: Here is your first limerick.

BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: We hunters feel both light and dark. Our eyes are not flat, there's a spark. Our three rows of teeth hide a soul underneath. Personality lurks in a...

PARK: Shark.

SAGAL: Yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: A shark.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Contrary to popular belief, sharks are not just mindless, killing machines. They're killing machines with feelings and personalities like hungry or mad or hungry and mad.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This is exciting news for biologists. They consider any shark study where they don't get eaten to be a success. According to this new study published in the journal AHHH! Sharks.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Some sharks are gregarious, some are shy, some are show sociable, and some are sexy according to this one scientist who really weirds out the other guys.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: OK, Carrine, here's your next limerick.

KURTIS: At the patent Bureau, I struck no cord. They said snurf is the name you got? Oh, Lord. White powder is won at the plank, then you're done. Just call your invention a snow...

PARK: Board.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

KURTIS: Yes. My goodness.

SAGAL: Snowboard. This week, we learned that snowboarding was originally called snurfing. Snow surfing - snurfing. It only became known as snowboarding after the founder of the Burton company couldn't get the rights to the name snurfboards. Snowboarding isn't the only winter sport originally called something else. Skiing was once known as white people going down hills on sticks.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Here is your last limerick.

KURTIS: It can tell when I'm coming unglued or when I just sit here and brewed. This new software see how I'm striking the keys, and so it determines my...

PARK: Mood.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Yes. Whoa, you got that. You were ready for that.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: An engineering team has designed a program that able to determine your mood while typing on your keyboard, you know, when you're on the Internet. This is easy 'cause the only two moods it has to choose from when you go on the Internet are bored or horny.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The program was able to predict, with 70 percent accuracy, whether test subjects were, for instance, sad. Probably how they figured it out is someone types I am - space - S-A-D.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Bill, how did Carrine do on our quiz?

KURTIS: Well, Carrine is from Pittsburgh so she's perfect.

PARK: Yes.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Well, done, Carinne.

PARK: Thank you.

SAGAL: You did Pittsburgh proud. Thanks for playing. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.