If I Were You - Bonus Thursday: Testing Testing

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

Back on a Thursday to launch a new limited-run weekly series, "Testing Testing" in which we quiz each other on different subjects. Today's test is... a Spelling Bee.Advertise on If I Were You via Gumball.fm.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information.

This is a Head Gum Original. Alright, welcome to a special Thursday episode of If I Were You, but we're not calling it If I Were You. There's like a sub-headline now. Yeah, we're testing a new format. Yeah, nice. Thank you. So this will be a few months now.

We're going to be doing a bonus Thursday episode called Testing Testing, which is what we say when we're trying to see if the microphones work, but also it's like a double entendre. Because we're trying to see if our brains work. Yeah, so the idea being Jake and I will sort of test each other in different sort of trivia-ish style games, different theme every episode. It's actually a mental decathlon is what it is because there's 10 episodes of the show where in episode one, you testing me for some different aspect of my mind's strength. What have you chosen for me this week?

Spelling. Spelling B was just on the national spelling bee. S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G spelling. That's a good warm-up. That is a good warm-up. That's a good warm-up. Good job. Warm-up.

W-A-R-M. Did it? Space, obviously. Yeah, there are no spaces. Did he, like, win or do well in some sort of elementary school spelling bee? Do I recall that correctly? Yes, that's correct. I won my class, I believe, fourth grade or third grade spelling bee.

Wow. And then I competed for the school-wide spelling bee. And I was humiliated, knocked out in the first round. So I represented the class, went to the school. I do. I remember the word. It was original, which I spelled O-R-I-G-I-N-O-L, original. Jesus.

How did you get out of your fucking class one with that shit? I got out of my class one by spelling vanilla right in Joe's face. V-A-Ls. I-L-L-L-L for the double L that you just suffered to hold J-Witz. You're on. And dad has a seven-year-old. It's crazy. This is 30 years ago.

You don't remember anything from that year except for this exact spelling bee and what word you misspelled. I also remember losing the capital B one year later on the capital of North Dakota, which I now will never forget is Bismarck. Okay. Well, I found some- You all fucking- Nice.

Oh, the other 49. All right. Yeah, we're fucking- Stake apples could be next one, but I'm worried about this episode. We're going to try- We're going to go classic spelling bee rules. I'm going to give you a word. You can ask me to use it in a sentence.

You can ask me the origin. You can do your best, but once you start spelling, I can't help you out. And then if you hear a ding, which I'll add in post, you'll never hear it. But if you hear a ding, you spelled it wrong. If you don't hear anything, you spelled it right. Whoa. All right. Yeah.

We'll start with a kind of an easy one. Mm-hmm. The word is acquire. Acquire. That's- Yeah, that could trip a lesser person up, because you don't think about that C, though. It's A-C-Q-U. Wrong.

No, just kidding. Really? I was only 50% sure. Spelling bees are mostly confidence. Q-U-I-R-E. As in, damn, that was easy. Dab on them. Sorry.

Thank you, Proctor. No noise. You're cutting it in and out on my side. Can you spell that again? Just for my edification. Yeah, just for your slow Wi-Fi. A-N-L. No.

Q-F. Absolutely. And quill. No, A-C-Q-U-I-R-E. Acquire. Bingo, bingo, bongo. You're one for one. Yeah, that was actually pretty easy, because I looked it up.

Yeah, I should have- Yeah, I didn't think I'd have to specify don't cheat. Yeah. No, I've got too much pride. I want to win the right way. Yeah. As an entrepreneur, maybe you can figure out how to spell this next word. Entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur. Oh, the eyes are closing. Yeah, this is not a quiet level. That's hard. You're going to have to think about it. That's actually, I'm actually, I think I need to pass in a fucking weird way, which you do get five votes. Entrepreneur, like, I know this.

I know that, like, this is one of those words that I just, like, spell wrongly on my phone and I press the space bar for it to get autocorrected. Yeah. I'm trying to picture what the autocorrect goes to. Spelling is, yeah, becoming less of a skill now because everything is autocorrecting. You don't need to know how to spell or memorize phone numbers. That's why this podcast is so important. Let's go ahead and use it in a sentence if you're so fucking smart.

You as a businessman are an entrepreneur. You, like, start a lot of, you know, enterprises. Enterprising, that's right. It's a French word. So it has French origins, obviously. Entre entrepreneur. Slam together to make this awesome, sick ass word. It's a really tight word.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Wait, actually, don't. This is, since it's a kind of a fucking cliffhanger, let's go to a break. We'll come back and then we'll see if you can spell it. And do not cheat. I love that.

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Oh, wow. We got one for Jill's grandma. Holy smokes. We got one for my parents. So there are three of these bad boys in our family right now, but they're great. Really easy way to like stay in touch with your family. You can upload as many photos as you want directly into my parents kitchen. It's really nice.

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Really nice asshole. This was actually a really sweet moment for me and my wife. And you're trying to make a joke of it. I was just being goofy a little bit like, this is how I told my grandma she was pregnant. Yeah. Like she misheard it or something like that. Or the way you said it was kind of like, could go either way. By the way, Jill's grandma is pregnant.

Oh my God. Jill's grandma is 90 and pregnant. It's pretty cool. And you told me with a digital photo frame. Holy smokes. And we let her know with an aura. Yeah. Thank you.

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Right on. Thank you, aura. And now back to the HEDGUM podcast you were listening to. All right, we're back. Testing, testing. Act two. Act two. The part where I...

Entrepreneur is the word. Take a swing at entrepreneur. It is French origin. It's been used in a sense. How many P's are in it? That's actually a really interesting question. I'll give it to you because it's so obvious. There's just one P, obviously.

That's entrepreneur. Yeah. No other... You can't ask for any other hints, though. I'm going to give you that one, though. All right. Entrepreneur, E-N-T-R-E-P-N-E-U-E-R. Entrepreneur.

That is incorrect. You... Fuck! I think you lost... You should write it down. You lost some of the letters in your head. You got the E-N-T-R-E-P right, but then you went straight to the N-E-U-R. Entrepreneur.

P-R-E-N-E-U-R. I said entrepreneur. Entrepreneur. I didn't get that second R. Yeah. I think you went straight from P to N. And then I added an extra E. E-U-E-R.

Wow. That's... Entrepreneur. Yeah. That was a tough one. That's hard. That's a hard one. That's hard.

How about... I'll give you kind of a short one. But that can still be a little tricky. All right. Yeah. The word is occurred. Occurred. O-C-C-U-R-R-E-D.

Occurred. That is correct. Wow. He went right for... A lot of people don't know about the double R. I had to... Yeah. I had to rebuild my confidence after the entrepreneur fiasco.

F-I-A-S-O. Let's keep it kind of short, but moving right along. Here's a word that always gets me. And I... For whatever reason, can't commit it to memory. I can never spell this word correctly. Maybe you can. The word is privilege.

As in, I have the privilege of using spell check, but you don't right now. The word is privilege. Yeah. What do you got? So, you know, on the spelling thing, they're allowed to, like, write it on a board, aren't they? I think they have...

I think you... The best way to do it is to close your eyes and, like, imagine typing it. I don't know if you can actually spell it out, but that's, like, the best way to visualize word by word. Like, yeah, if I had a little chalkboard, that's really what I need. You need to see it.

You need to see it. If I could use my phone, notepad spell. So, you can see the options. You can see the options. And which one? Yeah, which one looks and is bad. The privilege has a sneaky eye, but the way that the eye sneaks up on you

is you think that it's... And there's a sneaky eye that's in the end of the word, but it's actually a sneaky E that makes an appearance. So, let's say P... It's privilege. P-R-I-V-I-L-E-G-E. That is correct. Wow.

You nailed it. Yeah. I often throw in the D-G-E at the end. Like, that style. Yeah. But that's not true. Yeah, there's also... And there's like privilege or privilege.

Yeah, so many different ways to fuck it up. Yeah, privy, ledge. Good job, you. All right. It's because I have it. A few other... A few other toughies. Maintenance.

Maintenance. M-A-I-N-T-E-N-A-N-C-E. Maintenance. That's correct. The maintenance. Spelled fully out. Nailed that one. My maint and my ants.

Yeah. All right. Here's another shorty but tricky. Mm-hmm. Fulfill. Fulfill is F-U-L-F-I-L-L. Fulfill. Nailed it.

Absolutely nailed it. Thank you. I feel like me fucking up entrepreneur as the second word, like, ruined me for anyone listening. But the way I have, you know, followed through since then, I just hope that... I've been giving you easy ones after that one because I saw your soul leave your body and I felt so bad for you that I'm now on, like, easy words for fourth graders. Just sort of built your confidence back up. All right.

If entrepreneur was the hardest word, do you want your second hardest word? Yeah. Conscientious. Conscientious. I can't even say it. Yeah. It's important to be conscientious while thinking of how to spell this word. This is a tough one.

No way I could get this one, right? I can barely read it. Give me the origin. No, no. Just fucking go. Give me the origin. Give me the origin. It's not going to help.

Yeah. It's nice for me. I'm trying to buy time. Yes, the origin is the word conscious, so it's like an equivalent of being conscientious. It's making your conscious aware of this thing. Okay. So, I think that it's C-O-N-S-C-I-N-C-I-O-U-S. That's not true.

That's incorrect. I'm sorry. Again, these long words, you get lost in the sauce. Do you want to try spelling it out, like writing it out? Because I think that might help you out. Well, I already looked it up. Okay. Yeah.

It's con-C-O-N and then scientist-S-C-I-E-N-T-I-O-U-S. I definitely thought it would be C-I-O-U-S. Isn't that what I did? C-I-O-U-S? Yeah, but you also forgot that E in there. You said C-I-N-C-I-O-U-S. Oh, that's funny because I knew that the E was in there. Yeah.

That was not the part that I was worried about the end. Yeah, it's the long words. I mean, there was no relief. I forgot to visualize. Yeah. They are. You get lost in the sauce. You're absolutely correct.

Here's another commonly misspelled one that I didn't realize it was commonly misspelled. Interesting. But at the end of a book, there's often an acknowledgement. The word is acknowledgement. Kind of a long one. Interesting. It's going to be hard to visualize it. Let's see if you can figure out how to spell acknowledgement.

A-C-K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-M-E-N-T. That is correct. There's no E after the G. Yeah. It's the sneaky E. Yeah. Sneaky. A word with D-G-M in it in a row.

Very rare. How'd you know? I didn't. I got there and I was like, do I add this E or not? And I was like, I think that's got to be the part that's misspelled. I just took a yes. That was your, I think, best spelling example right there. The fact that you nailed acknowledgement.

I bet eight out of 10 people would not get that one. Really? How many words have I spelled so far? I think you're like, you got three wrong and seven or so right. Three? I got two wrong. I got two wrong, you little fuck. Yeah.

I was asking how many I got right and wrong. I was asking how many, how many we've done. Okay. I know how many I got wrong. I remember that. I'll leave with that fucking shame. For another 30 years. It goes on with original.

Okay. You want another commonly misspelled one? Sure. All right. But you really have to think this one out. Okay. Yeah. And it's not just going to come to you easily either.

It's going to be hard. The proctors don't do this. They're not so antagonistic. Yeah. All right. Here we go. And I'm not just scanning a list right now if that's what you're worried about. Yes.

Well, you clearly are. How's the lighting in that room over there? Would you say it's fluorescent? Fluorescent. F-L-U-O-R-E-S-C-E-N-T. That's correct. F-L-U-O. Not O-U.

Yeah. Right. Absolutely nailed it. Fluorescent. That's the guy that just bought fluorescent lights for his basement. Yeah, but usually you just flip the words. I would just read it as what I wanted to see, which is F-L-O-U. Yeah.

Like those sneaky E's and I's, I'm actually pretty sneaky smart for college dropout for someone that barely graduated high school. Yeah. I think you're actually a miniscule. I think you should actually spell miniscule because that's one of the words. Miniscule. M-I-N-I-S-C-U-L-E as in miniscule. You're a small man with a miniscule package.

I'm sorry. Jake, it's M-I-N-U-S-C-U-L-E. That's right. A minus-cule, not a mini-scule. I would have never ever had a million years. And I am so happy to know that you didn't get that one. Oh, I'm really elated. Because I made it into an insult that time.

Yes. Yes. A minus-scule. So if you leave anything, if you leave with one lesson today, it's that a miniscule is a minus-scule. You know what I mean? It's actually a minus-cule because there's only one S. Okay, well, I was kind of like trying to figure out a way to be nice and friendly.

You keep being like attacking. Nice and friendly. You got it wrong. You got it wrong. You called me miniscule. You called me miniscule. All right. Give me one.

Give me one to go out on. I'm curious how I do. I'm not a very good speller as you can tell her. All right. But I think I want to be able to prove my worth a little bit. Okay. Yeah. What was your search term?

Commonly misspelled words. Oh, okay. Interesting. I'm looking at, mine was eighth grade spelling words. So why don't we take one final break? We'll come back and you're going to spell some words on the other side of this. I can do this. I can fucking do this.

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Let's launch it. Just use that offer code if I were you to save 10% off that first purchase. Thank you. Squarespace. Okay, we're back. Let's see if you can spell this eighth grade spelling word or if it will be a grotesque misrepresentation of your knowledge. The word is grotesque.

Grotesque, G-R-O-T-E-S-Q-U-E. Grotesque. Grotesque. That is correct way. Yes. Very nice. Yes. And let's give you one to try to trip you up on the dismount show for dismount easy.

D-I-S-N chauffeur, a driver, your chauffeur. Fuck, I should know this. I just fucking bought a limo. I just fired my chauffeur. It's tough with the French words because I'm not a fucking French ass. You're like trying to give me up by giving me some fucking non-English. Entrepreneur was hardly French. French in origin.

It was French, Canadian. No, it wasn't. Shover. Shover. C-H-A-U-F-F-E-U-R? That's correct. Yeah. I'm so confident too.

They all end in question marks to me, but that's why I know I'm right. Let's go me. I need you. Let's go me. I need you to fucking. All right. Give me a Hebrew one. I need you to miss one now.

No, all right. I'm looking up commonly misspelled words now too, but you just looked. Oh, here we go. Let's blame the proctor. Okay. Your proctor gambled. So I took some pretty big risks out there. I gave you a choir.

That was a fucking softball. We all know it. That was easy. That was easy. Okay. Oh, this is pretty good. Idiosyncrasy. Oh, Jesus.

Idiosyncrasy. Synchrosy. This is going to be a guess. Idio is obviously I-D-I-O-S-Y-N-C-R-A-C-Y. Idiosyncrasy. So close, man. You got that first sneaky Y. It's C-R-A-S-Y.

Wow. Damn. I got all the way to the fucking last, second-to-last letter before I blew it. Yeah, Idiosyncrasy-N-C, but the rassy at the end. Yeah, it's tough. Was a rascal at the end. Sure was. All right.

Wow. That was exciting. That's it. Yeah, testing, testing. Episode one, I think kind of was a low-key hit because we were able to sort of flex on them, but also show people that were stupid as well. I had a good time, so we'll be back next week with another short bonus episode. Yeah, Thursday bonus, sir.

And it'll be my test. I will be the Game Boy. Oh. Oh. See ya.