OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:
Say hello to our next contestants, Chelsea Schuler and Stephanie Goldberg.
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EISENBERG: Stephanie - fellow Canadian.
STEPHANIE GOLDBERG: Yeah.
EISENBERG: Are you visiting from B.C.?
GOLDBERG: Visiting, yeah, got in this morning.
EISENBERG: You got in this morning?
GOLDBERG: Yeah.
EISENBERG: Where do you live in British Columbia?
GOLDBERG: Vancouver.
EISENBERG: You do live in Vancouver...
GOLDBERG: Yeah.
EISENBERG: ...Lovely place - oh, yes because you work at the University of British Columbia, doing social media for the School of Law.
GOLDBERG: Yeah.
EISENBERG: And Chelsea, you just moved to New York as well.
CHELSEA SCHULER: No...
EISENBERG: Sorry, she was visiting. You - did you not just move to New York?
SCHULER: I've been here about three and a half years.
EISENBERG: Oh, three and a half years.
SCHULER: Yeah.
EISENBERG: What brought you here?
SCHULER: It was pretty impulsive. I came out for a job interview and they offered me the job on Wednesday, wanted me to start Monday, so I just canceled my return ticket and kind of stayed. So...
EISENBERG: Wow.
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EISENBERG: All right, well, now I have a question for our puzzle guru. Art, what do these words have in common - champagne, sandwich and bohemian - other than the ingredients for the perfect first date?
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ART CHUNG, BYLINE: Well, Ophira, as you know, those are all toponyms, which are words that are derived from place names. Champagne, Sandwich and Bohemia are all places in Europe.
JONATHAN COULTON, BYLINE: And in this game, we're going to explain the origins of some words that you may never have realized were toponyms, and you just tell us the word we're talking about. Make sense?
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SCHULER: Sure.
COULTON: Just stare at me blankly if the answer is yes.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: OK, here we go. According to legend, in ancient Greece, a messenger ran some 25 miles to Athens to announce victory over the Persians. The town he started from gives its name to what modern sporting event?
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COULTON: Chelsea.
SCHULER: Marathon?
COULTON: That's right.
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EISENBERG: There was a messenger that only went halfway, and that town is called Half Marathon.
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COULTON: Yeah, right next to Marathon, there's the town Hundred-Meter Dash. It's very - it's very close, very close by.
This type of men's formal wear originated in the 1860s with the Prince of Wales, but soon became fashionable in a wealthy enclave for New York social elite, the village from which it gets its name.
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COULTON: Chelsea.
SCHULER: Tuxedo?
COULTON: Yeah, you got it.
EISENBERG: Yeah.
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EISENBERG: Have either of you been to Tuxedo, N.Y.?
GOLDBERG: I did not know that was a place.
EISENBERG: Yeah, I know, it's real. It's a cool place, but...
SCHULER: It sounds fancy.
EISENBERG: ...To live there, you have to rent.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: The story goes that William Webb Ellis broke the rules of soccer by catching the ball and running with it, thus inventing this sport, named for the school and town where Ellis was at the time.
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COULTON: Chelsea.
SCHULER: Football?
COULTON: No. I'm sorry, that is not - it is not football. That was a good guess, though. Stephanie, do you know the answer?
GOLDBERG: California kickball.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: I don't even know what that is.
EISENBERG: Yeah, what is that?
COULTON: Is that...
CHUNG: What is that?
COULTON: Is that kickball while you're high? Is that what that is?
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COULTON: California kickball - how is it different from other-state kickball?
GOLDBERG: It's, I guess, also soccer-baseball. You - like, you have a baseball setup with a diamond. And then instead of, like, pitching it, you roll it. And then you kick the ball.
COULTON: But you call it California kickball. We always just called it kickball.
CHUNG: It's just kickball.
GOLDBERG: Oh really?
(LAUGHTER)
CHUNG: It's like Canadian bacon is just bacon.
EISENBERG: Just bacon.
COULTON: Just bacon, yeah.
GOLDBERG: Yeah, just bacon.
COULTON: That's the thing, Canadians are so overly specific.
(LAUGHTER)
GOLDBERG: We're an accurate people.
COULTON: You are. You're very accurate. This term for dividing or...
EISENBERG: Wait a second - you've got to tell them what the answer is.
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COULTON: Oh, sorry. I didn't say what the answer was. This...
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COULTON: This lady here very much wants to tell me what the answer is. What's the answer?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I think it's rugby.
COULTON: It's rugby.
EISENBERG: It is rugby.
COULTON: You're correct.
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COULTON: This term for dividing a region into smaller, often antagonistic units comes from the area in southeastern Europe where such a thing was done in the 19th and 20th centuries.
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COULTON: Stephanie.
GOLDBERG: Feudal system?
COULTON: No. I'm sorry, that's incorrect. Chelsea, do you know the answer?
SCHULER: No.
COULTON: No. How about a hint from our puzzle guru?
CHUNG: Sure. It's named after a peninsula where Albania, Bulgaria and Greece are located. Just think about where those countries are on the map.
COULTON: Chelsea's like, that does not help me in any way.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHULER: I have an American education...
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COULTON: Are those countries? Who knows? Maybe. No guesses?
SCHULER: Balkan?
COULTON: Yeah. Yeah, so what's the...
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: Can you be more - same word syllables?
SCHULER: I...
COULTON: Balkan something.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHULER: Balkan. Balkan division.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHULER: Balkanizing?
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COULTON: Sure, sure. Sure, yes. Yes, the answer is yes. Balkanization is what we were looking for, but yeah.
SCHULER: All right.
EISENBERG: I was about to accept Balkaning.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: I was like good enough, yeah, it's possible.
COULTON: You had me at Balkan.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: After mozzarella, it's the second most popular type of cheese in the United States, but it's actually named after a village in Somerset County, England, where it's been produced since the 12th century.
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COULTON: Stephanie.
GOLDBERG: Cheddar?
COULTON: Cheddar is right.
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COULTON: Name a cheese, I could have said.
EISENBERG: Yeah, exactly, the town of Velveeta?
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: Something not real about that place.
GOLDBERG: It's from the county of Whiz.
COULTON: (Laughter) County of Whiz.
EISENBERG: (Laughter) The county of Whiz.
COULTON: Introduced on July 5, 1946, this two-piece swimwear was named after the Pacific Ocean location where the U.S. had performed an atomic test earlier that week.
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COULTON: Chelsea.
SCHULER: Bikini.
COULTON: Bikini is right.
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COULTON: OK, Art Chung, any idea how our contestants did in this game?
(LAUGHTER)
CHUNG: It was a tough game. But Chelsea, congratulations, you're moving on to the final round.
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EISENBERG: Coming up, our VIP, the Emmy-nominated actress from "Orange Is The New Black," Uzo Aduba will be brought out for questioning, so stick around. I'm Ophira Eisenberg, and this is ASK ME ANOTHER from NPR.
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