Folkloric, historic and occasionally sophomoric
Folkloric, historic and occasionally sophomoric
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This Week's Puzzler

The Judges of Sleaze

This is the part of the program we usually give the answer to the puzzler.
And I have a couple actually. 

Well, I got some here. They're not winners. I'll tell you that right now.

Several weeks ago we received a letter which my brother lost. What it had on it was a list of multitudes or collective nouns.

A gaggle of geese. A rafter of turkeys. An exultation of larks...

I started a contest that uses these in relation to some of the sleazier occupations that we've mentioned on the show from time to time.

Are we the judges of sleaze? We are the ultimate judges of sleazy. It's lawyers, judges, people who drive salt trucks, automobile mechanics, used car salesmen, new car salesmen, maybe. Financial Analysts. Stockbrokers. Anyone who doesn't really produce anything worthwhile, and makes a living at it. 

From these, we would choose a winner. A multitude of winners. Most of the puzzles we have, we don't really have to spend much time on because we just take a whole pile of them, we tell producers what the right answer is. They put all the right answers in a big box. And they come out with one and that's the winner. But now, we have to read all the answers. Yes, because this is a matter of quality here.

So over the next several weeks, not only are we going to pick the best of quality and quantity, but we're also going to pick the worst.

Here are a few. A corral of Mustangs. A squad of Isuzu troopers. A quantum of pulsars. I like this one, a universe of Galaxies. A refraction of Geo Prizms.

These are all quite cute but they do not attack the basic issue here. Which is the sleazy. 

The one that I liked the best. A huevos of rancheros. That's good. These are all from listener Lee in his whole brood of people.

Anyway, if you want to participate in this endeavor, it certainly isn't a real puzzle contest. It isn't a puzzler, certainly.
Answer the Puzzler »
Remember last week's puzzler?

The Collective Endeavor

It's time for a new puzzler. If you'd like to repeat my brother's favorite not-so-silent prayer, we can take a minute for that now. "Please let it be better than please let it be better than the last one!"

Moving on! We received a letter a few weeks or months or years ago, I can't remember, which, which my brother promptly lost. And it had in it a bunch of what I call multitudes or collective nouns.

You are probably familiar with many of these. A gaggle of geese, a host of angels, etc.

Anyway, we would like to initiate a contest, to come up with some of these that are related to some of the sleazier occupations that we've mentioned on the show like automobile mechanics, talk show hosts, lawyers, judges, people who drive salt trucks.

And we thought that this might be a puzzle that we could milk--I mean we could use--for a few weeks, months, years, whatever. And we would invite you to submit.

Here are the rules now. We want clever, clever, like, like a shortage of jockeys. A compact of bimbos, a lot of car salesman, a shrug of mechanics!

And do we want quality or quantity? Both.

The decision of the judges will be final. They may be stupid but  they will be final

And we may develop multiple categories, for example, best, worst, and most!

Well, anyway, if you would like to participate in this endeavor, I can only say certainly not a puzzle, but like a puzzle. It's a sort of contest. We'll just call it a collective endeavor.

Listen now! »
We will have many answers during this ongoing initiative of the Collective Noun Saga!
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