Retro Is The New Retro

Transcript

OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:

Please welcome our next two contestants, Christopher Hermelin and Bill Rosenblatt.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: So your game is called "Retro Is The New Retro." Do either of you have retro hobbies? Bill?

BILL ROSENBLATT: Well, I collect Sherlock Holmes pastiches.

EISENBERG: OK. I didn't know that I was going to get the most amazing answer to the question possible. OK, so why - why are collecting that?

ROSENBLATT: OK, well, so Sherlock Holmes pastiches are stories - Sherlock Holmes stories that were written after Conan Doyle. And there are several times as many of them as Conan Doyle-wrote stories, and they range from really good ones to things like "Sherlock Holmes Solves The Kennedy Assassination."

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: And who was it?

ROSENBLATT: Professor Moriarty.

JONATHAN COULTON, BYLINE: What? What?

EISENBERG: Oh yeah.

ROSENBLATT: It's him every time.

EISENBERG: Yeah, I thought that. How about you, Christopher?

CHRISTOPHER HERMELIN: I have a side business where I write stories on a typewriter in a public park.

EISENBERG: Sure you do.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: And do you charge for this? Obviously, it's a business.

HERMELIN: It's whatever you want to pay.

EISENBERG: Wow, pay what you can short story of your choice. And how's business?

HERMELIN: It's booming.

EISENBERG: Booming. All right, well, I have the perfect two contestants for the game called "Retro Is The New Retro," clearly because this is a game about a little linguistic oddity called the retronym. Let's go to our puzzle guru Art Chung to tell us, what is a retronym?

ART CHUNG, BYLINE: So Ophira, a retronym is a name for something that has to be altered after new versions are created, so like, for example, the introduction of the electric guitar in 1932 resulted in the coining of the phrase acoustic guitar, which beforehand was just known as guitar.

COULTON: And here's a little bit of trivia - as far as we can tell, the word retronym was coined by Frank Mankiewicz, the former president of NPR, so that's another free thing you're getting from public radio.

(LAUGHER)

COULTON: Just remember us at pledge time. All right, are you guys ready?

ROSENBLATT: As I'll ever be.

HERMELIN: Yeah.

COULTON: This two-word retronym was needed after Penguin books introduced its softer line of cheap novels in 1935.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Christopher.

HERMELIN: The paperback novel?

COULTON: No, I'm sorry.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Bill.

ROSENBLATT: That would be the hardback novel.

COULTON: That's right, the hardcover book is what we are looking for, that's right. Nobody likes that Bill got that one right. This crowd is against you, Bill. I'm sorry to say.

EISENBERG: I think the crowd is like, there's books?

COULTON: What is a book?

EISENBERG: I've got a soft Kindle.

COULTON: We used to shop only in physical stores, but we now add what three-word hyphenated adjective to distinguish them from online retailers?

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Bill.

ROSENBLATT: Brick-and-mortar.

COULTON: You've got it.

(APPLAUSE)

COULTON: In the 1960s, the introduction of the IBM Selectric in the workplace resulted in this term for nonelectric models.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Bill?

ROSENBLATT: Manual typewriters?

COULTON: That's right.

(APPLAUSE)

ROSENBLATT: I feel bad about taking that from him.

HERMELIN: I was quick and I was ready.

COULTON: Christopher, you use a manual typewriter, I assume?

HERMELIN: I have three, yeah.

COULTON: You have three? Just in case two of them break down?

HERMELIN: They both - yeah, that's why.

EISENBERG: Because they break down.

HERMELIN: Because they break down all the time.

EISENBERG: And who are you taking them to...

HERMELIN: Typewriters are a terrible machine.

(LAUGHTER)

HERMELIN: No one buy typewriters, computers are better.

EISENBERG: You love the future, but you're making money in the past. It's hard on you. You feel like the buzzer is against you, right? And as someone with a typewriter, you're having a flashback to a broken typewriter.

HERMELIN: No, yeah, this is like when I run out of ink.

COULTON: You have a long history of buttons not quite working right, right?

HERMELIN: I don't have an exclamation point right now.

COULTON: I hear you buddy, I hear you.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: Originally this 20th-century conflict was called the Great War, but later events required the switch to what retronym?

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Christopher.

HERMELIN: The World War - I?

COULTON: Yes.

(APPLAUSE)

HERMELIN: People cheered for that. People cheered for World War I.

EISENBERG: Yeah, yeah they like the fact that it's open to so many sequels.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: In 1935, the Cincinnati Reds installed lights in their stadium, ushering in what retronym to describe baseball games played without them?

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Christopher.

HERMELIN: Oh no, day games?

COULTON: Yes.

(APPLAUSE)

COULTON: Oh no.

EISENBERG: What happened?

COULTON: Oh no, I've rung the buzzer.

HERMELIN: Yeah. I was hoping to get it and it worked.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: This is your last clue. A popular bite-sized chocolate candy got what new name in 1954 when a second version with peanuts was introduced?

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Bill.

ROSENBLATT: M&M plain?

COULTON: That's right.

(APPLAUSE)

COULTON: Art, how did our contestants do?

CHUNG: It was a close game, but Bill pulled it out and he is our winner. Congratulations, Bill. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.