WAMC's Ian Pickus and resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel switch seats for a show about acronyms.
Last week's challenge
Start with the phrase HEADS OR TAILS. Change one letter to an I and you can rearrange the result to spell an eight-letter word and a four-letter word that each name something that falls from the sky. What are the words?
Answer: If you change an S to and I, you can spell ASTEROID and HAIL.
THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY: Acronyms
On-air questions: On this date in 1986, The Beastie Boys released the first of their four studio albums to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, “Licensed to Ill” — the first rap album to reach such heights. The album included such Beastie Boys classics as “Fight for Your Right,” “Brass Monkey,” “No Sleep till Brooklyn,” and “Girls.” It turns out that Beastie is actually an acronym, with group members confirming that it stands for “Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Inner Excellence.” In honor of the Beastie Boys, today’s quiz is about other acronyms.
1. What is the name of the Peabody Award-winning website that is published by an American University Washington College of Law graduate whose recent entries include “Petitions of the Week” and “Argument preview: Justices to consider reach of Clean Water Act’s permitting requirement?”
2. What is the term coined in 2003 for a process by which a user, usually online, types in a series of letters or selects specific frames of a photo based on specific criteria?
3. Remembered today for its role in a pivotal 1972 burglary, what derisive acronym included members like G. Gordon Liddy, Charles Colson, E. Howard Hunt and Roger Stone?
4. What is the title of the legal drama that aired on NBC for one season before running for another nine on CBS between 1997 and 2005?
5. Dispelling a rumor that has circulated for decades, Gene Simmons writes in his autobiography that the name of his rock band is NOT an acronym. What was KISS supposedly an acronym for, which Simmons dates to an interview he gave after the band’s debut album in which he discussed eating human flesh?
Extra credit
1. There are more than 1,100 World Heritage Sites — including, in the U.S., the Statue of Liberty, Yellowstone National Park, Carlsbad Caverns National Park and Independence Hall. What is the name of the group that oversees the World Heritage Sites “to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage…considered to be of outstanding value to humanity.”?
2. The USMCA was drafted and signed in the fall of 2018, although it has only been ratified by one of three principals to date. What 1994 deal is the USMCA replacing?
This week's challenge
Start with the name of the CEO of a world famous Fortune 500 company. Change one letter in his first name and one letter in his last name and you can spell the name of a famous American folk band. What are the names?
ANSWERS
On-air questions
1. SCOTUSBlog (the site claims its biggest user is the Supreme Court itself)
2. CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart; another system known as reCAPTCHA was acquired by Google in 2009 and was used to digitize the New York Times archive)
3. CREEP (The Committee To Reelect the President, Richard Nixon)
4. JAG (Judge Advocate General)
5. Knights In Satan’s Service
Extra credit
1. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)
2. NAFTA
