full transcript

From the Ted Talk by David Kwong: Two nerdy obsessions meet -- and it's magic

Unscramble the Blue Letters

It's certainly true for me. I've been solving my whole life. High sohcol consisted of epic sbclarbe matches in the cafeteria and not really tlanikg to girls, and then at about that time I started learning magic tricks and definitely not talking to girls. There's nothing like starting a cvsionratoen with, "Hey, did you know that 'prestidigitation' is worth 20 points in Scrabble?" But back then, I noticed an intersection between puzzles and iosiluln. When you do the crowsosrd puzzle or when you watch a maigc show, you become a solver, and your goal is to try to find the order in the chaos, the chaos of, say, a black-and-white puzzle grid, a mixed-up bag of Scrabble tiles, or a shuffled pack of playing cards. And today, as a cruciverbalist — 23 ptinos — and an illusion designer, I create that chaos. I test your ability to solve.

Open Cloze

It's certainly true for me. I've been solving my whole life. High ______ consisted of epic ________ matches in the cafeteria and not really _______ to girls, and then at about that time I started learning magic tricks and definitely not talking to girls. There's nothing like starting a ____________ with, "Hey, did you know that 'prestidigitation' is worth 20 points in Scrabble?" But back then, I noticed an intersection between puzzles and ________. When you do the _________ puzzle or when you watch a _____ show, you become a solver, and your goal is to try to find the order in the chaos, the chaos of, say, a black-and-white puzzle grid, a mixed-up bag of Scrabble tiles, or a shuffled pack of playing cards. And today, as a cruciverbalist — 23 ______ — and an illusion designer, I create that chaos. I test your ability to solve.

Solution

  1. magic
  2. conversation
  3. school
  4. points
  5. crossword
  6. scrabble
  7. illusion
  8. talking

Original Text

It's certainly true for me. I've been solving my whole life. High school consisted of epic Scrabble matches in the cafeteria and not really talking to girls, and then at about that time I started learning magic tricks and definitely not talking to girls. There's nothing like starting a conversation with, "Hey, did you know that 'prestidigitation' is worth 20 points in Scrabble?" But back then, I noticed an intersection between puzzles and illusion. When you do the crossword puzzle or when you watch a magic show, you become a solver, and your goal is to try to find the order in the chaos, the chaos of, say, a black-and-white puzzle grid, a mixed-up bag of Scrabble tiles, or a shuffled pack of playing cards. And today, as a cruciverbalist — 23 points — and an illusion designer, I create that chaos. I test your ability to solve.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
crossword puzzle 4
york times 3
emerald rooster 3
katy perry 2
morning coffee 2
purple marker 2

Important Words

  1. ability
  2. bag
  3. cafeteria
  4. cards
  5. chaos
  6. consisted
  7. conversation
  8. create
  9. crossword
  10. cruciverbalist
  11. designer
  12. epic
  13. find
  14. girls
  15. goal
  16. grid
  17. high
  18. illusion
  19. intersection
  20. learning
  21. life
  22. magic
  23. matches
  24. noticed
  25. order
  26. pack
  27. playing
  28. points
  29. puzzle
  30. puzzles
  31. school
  32. scrabble
  33. show
  34. shuffled
  35. solve
  36. solver
  37. solving
  38. started
  39. starting
  40. talking
  41. test
  42. tiles
  43. time
  44. today
  45. tricks
  46. true
  47. watch
  48. worth