Saturday, April 26, 2008

Word puzzle

What do the following words have in common?

IBM, Omar, Alma, AM, Abba, Bomb, Boom, Burma, Amy, BMW, Emma, eBay

I'll post the answer in the comments tomorrow. Until then, guess away. Extra credit for the first person to come close.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

They all have either an M or an A in them.

-Chicago Reader

teacherman said...

In a way, Chicago Reader is on the right track. What's another word that has an M and A in it, a word that spell check wouldn't recognize? These words are all suggestions to replace the original word.

Anonymous said...

imma? as in, imma do my homework this time, I swear.

teacherman said...

Final hint: It's actually a name.

Anonymous said...

It *must* be "Obama"... do I really get extra credit?!

teacherman said...

Congratulations! Yes, the answer is Obama!

It's weird how his name gets all sorts of different suggestions to change. Right here in the comment box (using Firefox), the suggestions all deal with "Alabama" or "Mamba."

In Microsoft Word (at least my Mac version) I get "Bam," "Boatman," and "Ocala."

In Yahoo! mail, I got that long list in my post.

In gmail, the suggestions include "ABM," "IBM," "AMA," and "Abeam."

So, his name is obviously wrong, and no one knows how it make it right.

And, yes, Mr. J gets five extra-credit points that he can apply towards any grading category at the end of the quarter!

Plus, my friend Debi gets 10 points for bringing it up in an email when she wrote that when "spellcheck sees Obama, it offers Ob-Gyn." (That's the funniest suggestion, but I never found that one.)