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
- magic
- conversation
- school
- points
- crossword
- scrabble
- illusion
- 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
- ability
- bag
- cafeteria
- cards
- chaos
- consisted
- conversation
- create
- crossword
- cruciverbalist
- designer
- epic
- find
- girls
- goal
- grid
- high
- illusion
- intersection
- learning
- life
- magic
- matches
- noticed
- order
- pack
- playing
- points
- puzzle
- puzzles
- school
- scrabble
- show
- shuffled
- solve
- solver
- solving
- started
- starting
- talking
- test
- tiles
- time
- today
- tricks
- true
- watch
- worth