A-Plus

Transcript

OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:

Our next contestant is on the line. Hi, you're on ASK ME ANOTHER.

RYAN MCCLUSKEY: Hey, Ophira. This is Ryan McCluskey calling from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

EISENBERG: Hello, Ryan.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: You teach math at community college, is that correct?

MCCLUSKEY: Yes, that's correct.

EISENBERG: Nice, what kind of student were you? Were you a good student, straight A's?

MCCLUSKEY: Yes (laughter). In fact, I got called out when I got hired because the dean actually made it a point in front of the entire faculty to say that I had only one B in my entire career, so it was pretty - pretty embarrassing.

EISENBERG: Really? You don't sound embarrassed right now. You sound happy.

MCCLUSKEY: No, no, no, I definitely was because then - because then I just had all these people coming up to me afterwards saying so, what was the B in? What was the B in?

EISENBERG: And?

MCCLUSKEY: Adolescent psychology.

EISENBERG: Oh. So this game is called "A-Plus" because everyone, much like you, loves to get top grades. And in this game we're going to see what happens when you give certain words an A. We're going to go to our puzzle guru, Mary Tobler.

MARY TOBLER: If we said give a purple fruit an A and you'll get what confident word, you'd say aplomb.

EISENBERG: Did you get it?

MCCLUSKEY: OK.

EISENBERG: All right, let's see if you get an A in this. All of the answers will start with an A and involve terrible wordplay. Here we go. Give a group of dudes an A and you'll get this word said at the end of a prayer.

MCCLUSKEY: So that'd be amen.

EISENBERG: Amen, yes. Give the wire tethering you to a landline phone an A and you'll get a functional, midsize sedan made by Honda.

MCCLUSKEY: An accord.

EISENBERG: Accord, that's right.

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EISENBERG: Give that corned beef and sauerkraut sandwich and A and you'll get a person from an island in the Dutch Antilles.

MCCLUSKEY: Would that be an arueban?

EISENBERG: Yes, it would be. Give an exhibition of farm animals and produce an A and get an intense, short-lived romantic tryst.

MCCLUSKEY: (Laughter) I can only think of afarm, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

EISENBERG: Right, as far as a tryst it doesn't make any sense, OK. Give an exhibition of farm animals and produce an A and get...

MCCLUSKEY: Oh, an affair, an affair, an affair.

EISENBERG: An affair. Yes, indeed. Ryan, you got 100 percent correct, well done.

MCCLUSKEY: Yes.

EISENBERG: You got an A.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Once again, you got an A.

MCCLUSKEY: Hooray.

EISENBERG: And we'll be sending you a limited edition ASK ME ANOTHER Rubik's Cube.

MCCLUSKEY: Excellent. Thank you so much.

EISENBERG: Yes, you're welcome Ryan. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: If you were the type of student that did extra credit assignments, then you should be a contestant on our show. Email us at askmeanother@NPR.org and we'll see if you have what it takes to clean our erasers. And if you heard an interesting bit of trivia - true or false, doesn't matter - just share it with us on Facebook or Twitter. Just look around for NPR's ASK ME ANOTHER. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.