Any Questions?
Friday at 6:25 p.m. on Northeast Report Late Edition
- Hosted by Ian Pickus
- Local Host Mike Nothnagel and Ian Pickus
About Any Questions?
WAMC's Friday quiz segment, Any Questions?, puts news director Ian Pickus in the hot seat, as he and listeners field questions from resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel. Nothnagel is Associate Professor of mathematics at The Culinary Institute of America, and a crossword constructor for the New York Times and Games Magazine, among other outlets. Often, Mike and Ian switch seats or feature guest answerers, such as Will Shortz, Liane Hansen, John Flansburgh and Mike Doughty. Any Questions? airs Friday during Northeast Report Late Edition on WAMC.
Last week's challenge: Start with the phrase FOX TERRIER. Change one letter to a D and you can rearrange the result to spell a two- word phrase (five letters in each word) that might be displayed on a screen after a problem is resolved. What is the phrase?
Answer: If you change the T to a D, you can spell ERROR FIXED.
THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY: "A" In Geography
On-air questions: On December 14, 1819, Alabama was admitted to the union as the 22nd U.S. state. Originally part of land settled in 1798 and annexed in 1804 and 1812, the Alabama Territory was formed in 1817 when the western half of the region became the state of Mississippi. In January of 1861, Alabama was the fourth state to secede from the Union and its capital of Montgomery was chosen as the first capital of the Confederate States of America, and Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as its president on the steps of the state capitol building. To mark Alabama's joining the union, this week our questions are about places whose names have A as the only vowel.
1. What city has some 70 roads with the word "Peachtree" in their names, including Peachtree Street, which begins in the Five Points neighborhood in downtown and continues north through midtown into the suburb of Buckhead, where its name changes to Peachtree Road?
2. The state flag of Alaska is a blue field with eight yellow stars. In the upper right is a star representing Polaris, the North Star. In the lower left are the seven stars that form what familiar pattern, which is actually part of the larger constellation Ursa Major?
3. What city's original name comes from the Portuguese for "white house" (the current name is the Spanish version of that original name), and is also both the setting for a 1946 Marx Brothers movie and the title of the 1943 winner for Best Picture?
4. On a particular list, Greenland is first, New Guinea is second, and Borneo is third. What's fourth?
5. What began as a construction project headed by France in the 1880s which was taken over by the U.S. in 1904, opened some 10 years later, and was handed over to its namesake country in 1977 when the commander of its National Guard co-signed a treaty with then-president Jimmy Carter?
Extra credit
1. What was founded in 1632 by George Calvert, who was granted a charter by Charles I of England, who named the new colony after his wife?
2. What Asian country is the world's largest landlocked country, bordering Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan?
This week's challenge: Start with the phrase BIG DIPPER. Add a letter and you can rearrange the result to spell a six letter word form something built above ground and a four-letter word for something that is often built below ground. What are the words?
About Any Questions?
WAMC's Friday quiz segment, Any Questions?, puts news director Ian Pickus in the hot seat, as he and listeners field questions from resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel. Nothnagel is Associate Professor of mathematics at The Culinary Institute of America, and a crossword constructor for the New York Times and Games Magazine, among other outlets. Often, Mike and Ian switch seats or feature guest answerers, such as Will Shortz, Liane Hansen, John Flansburgh and Mike Doughty.
Any Questions? airs Friday during Northeast Report Late Edition on WAMC.
