Totally False Eponyms

Transcript

OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:

Let's say hello to our next contestants, Stefie Kan and Puck Malamud.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Both of you are word nerds in your own right. Stefie, you are a crossword solver.

STEFIE KAN: Yeah, I've made it through Wednesday, but that's...

EISENBERG: Really?

KAN: ...That's OK (laughter).

EISENBERG: Wednesday in The New York Times.

KAN: Yeah.

EISENBERG: Some people never get past Monday ever in their entire lives. Do you understand that? That person's me.

KAN: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: And, Puck, you - this might be above me, but you specialize in bilingual puns.

PUCK MALAMUD: Yeah, so I'm a Ukrainian immigrant. My family and I speak Russian at home and we just in daily conversation frequently pun between Russian and English.

EISENBERG: Oh, my goodness.

MALAMUD: So my sister used to have this little ceramic owl that was in a pot, like, on a spring and it - you would, like, push it down and it would bounce back up. There's a certain species of owl that in Russian is called (speaking Russian) so my sister would say I have a (speaking Russian) I can't hide.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Totally worth it - that was totally worth it. So this game is called Totally False Eponyms and whenever I deal with a word ending with N-Y-M, I bring it over to our puzzle guru, Art Chung.

ART CHUNG, BYLINE: Well, Ophira, as you should remember from that R.E.M. greatest hits collection "Eponymous," an eponym is something named after a person. So, for example, the bacteria known as salmonella was named by its discoverer after his boss, Dr. Daniel Salmon, and then he got fired.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: So in this game, we're going to make up origin stories for eponymous items. I'm going to give you clues about something that contains the name of a well-known person as if that person was the inventor or creator of that thing. So if I said bored with their stairway to heaven tour bus, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page created this hydrogen-filled airship to travel to future gigs, you would say zeppelin. Here we go. When Conan O'Brien's sidekick isn't sitting on the couch, he's out in the field measuring earthquakes using this magnitude number system.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Stefie.

KAN: Richter - scale.

EISENBERG: Yes, exactly.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: A musician created this bladed fighting tool in his 1970s glam rock days to help him open up those makeup kits that transformed him into Ziggy Stardust.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Puck.

MALAMUD: A bowie knife.

EISENBERG: Yes, a bowie knife.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: I have to admit, not being familiar immediately with a bowie knife - I guess because I've never had to cut large things - I was like, David Bowie has merchandise. That is so sad. And then I thought about it - some great opportunities.

JONATHAN COULTON, BYLINE: (Laughter) You thought it was like an As Seen On TV product.

EISENBERG: (Laughter) Yeah.

COULTON: It's the Bowie knife.

EISENBERG: Like, the Bowie, like, steak knives...

COULTON: Yeah, yeah, right.

EISENBERG: And the Ziggy Stardust devil or something like that. Under pressure cooker - I feel like...

COULTON: Oh, that's nice.

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: (Laughter) The baldheaded star of the "Fast And Furious" franchise really gets into his work doing thermal efficiency experiments in his trailer and creating this type of fuel.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Stefie.

KAN: Diesel.

EISENBERG: Yeah, diesel. This time period known for its ornamental style of art and furniture takes its name from David Beckham's wife, a Time Lord who transported her posh design skills back to 19 century England.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Stefie.

KAN: Victorian.

EISENBERG: Victorian, yes, exactly.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: After the newspaper incorrectly announced his defeat of Harry Truman, a former New York governor gave up politics and created a numerically-based method for organizing his local library.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Puck.

MALAMUD: The Dewey Decimal System.

EISENBERG: That is correct.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: I love you guys 'cause no other crowd would laugh at a clue like that. You're like, oh, my gosh. This is pretty good. This is pretty good.

(LAUGHTER)

CHUNG: Former New York governors - oh, my God.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Tired of being laughed at, a comic strip boy proposed this doctrine to his stuffed tiger, emphasizing the inherent moral corruption of humankind and predestination.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Stefie.

KAN: Calvinism.

EISENBERG: Yes, you are correct.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Hobbes, of course, was more into social contract theory.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Let's go to our puzzle guru, Art Chung. How did our contestants do?

CHUNG: Both contestants were fantastic, but, Stefie, you're moving on to our final round at the end of the show.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Coming up, our first very important puzzler - who's a sir - on his new Stars television show, "Blunt Talk," he takes on the role of a hard-drinking, coke-sniffing, sanctimonious talk show host. So we'll talk to Sir Patrick Stewart about classing up this scoundrel into a role worthy of knighthood. So stick around, you're not going to want to miss it. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.