Weekend Favorite: "The Bill of Wrongs" w/ Peter Sagal

Published May 2, 2024, 8:17 PM

From time to time on the weekends, we’ll be bringing you some of our recent favorite episodes. Enjoy your weekend, and we’ll be back with a brand new puzzle on Monday!

Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: host of NPR's "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" Peter Sagal.

Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask Chat GPT” and audio rebuses.

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"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas. 

Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.

The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions. 

Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.

Hello Puzzlers, and welcome to the Puzzler Weekend, where we bring you some of our favorite episodes from the vaults for your weekend listening. Today, we finish up our special ye old Constitution week with a classic episode featuring Peter Sagal. Peter Sagal, as you might know, hosts Wait Don't Tell Me, but he also hosted a PBS series called Constitution USA. And I have a new book called The Year of Living Constitutionally. So in this episode we get nerdy in an entertaining way. I hope about America's founding document. Please enjoy. Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast. The roasted red pepper dressing on your daily puzzle Christini. I am your host, A J. Jacobs, and I am here with our guest, the chief Rabbi of audio quiz shows. So we are super honored to have the host of NPR's Wait Wait Don't tell Me, mister Peter Segel. Welcome, Peter, bless you.

My son I could do that voice. My brother is a rabbi and when he when he does rabbi stuff, he talks like a rabbi.

So interesting do they teach that at rabbinical school?

They do they Actually, my joke for years is that they have a class where it's like how to talk like a Rabbi, because they all do.

All right, let me start with a trivia question for you. How do you spell Pennsylvania? Is it with one N or two n's?

Two? Well, two ens obviously, just like William Penn Well, no, no, no, damn you, damn you Jacobs, three n's, damn it SYLVAINI.

Absolutely right, that was Chris.

But you see, I see that's the problem with being smug. You think, you know, you'd have to stop and think.

But actually, I guess my question should have been do you spell it with three ends or two ends? Because in the Constitution, as you might remember, they spelled it both ways. They spelled it first to pe n n and then they spelled it pe n And that's not the only eighteenth century typo. They had the classic it apostrophe s instead of its. Like they get roasted on Twitter. And I bring this up because our puzzle today is all about mistakes in the Constitution, and I thought it would be appropriate because you hosted a wonderful mini series on PBS called Constitution USA. People should check it out. It's still available, Thank you.

It is. I'm very proud of it, and it sort of launched my now slowly dying career as a fake constitutional scholar, which I enjoyed a lot walking around and pretending new stuff and turns out everything I thought was wrong. But that's another story for another podcast.

Well, I am actually also a fake constitutional scholar or trying to get into the business. I'm in the middle of writing a book called The Year of Living Constitutionally Yes, so that is where I came up with these. So this puzzle is based on a character I'm working on it. The puzzle is called the Bill of Wrongs, the Bill of Wrongs, and this character is very specific character. It's a guy who has heard the Bill of Rights read out loud, but he's not so sharp, so he has deeply misunderstood pretty much every amendment. So, for instance, this guy thinks there's an amendment that says your right to wear a tank top shall not be infringed, that you have a right to wear a tank so, which is in fact what he meant was bare arms exactly the rights to bear arms. So he thinks bare arms meant leaveless garments, when it's actually of course about out the limbs of grizzlies and pandas, et cetera.

Right, of course, did the Constitutional Convention know about the existence of pandas, which are a Chinese animal? Right?

Oh that's a great question.

I mean if if you had if you had said bare arms like a panda, would James Madison have gone ha ha, smart ass? Or would he have said, what's a panda? Just wondering?

It's a good question. I know certainly George Washington would not have laughed. That guy did not mean to laugh.

Well, you didn't like jung his teeth, right, which were not made of which were not made of?

Would good? Point? Exactly?

They were like mad That's what they were.

Yeah, that was unfortunate. Some also some like ivory from animals. Yes, not that it makes it any better. All right, So are you ready for a couple more. This guy thinks that there's an amendment that says you will never be forced to carve military personnel into four equal parts without your consent.

Oh, my favorite amendment the third You want you want to quarter in troops without your consent?

Exactly? And by the way, for my book, I am quartering troops with my consent.

I felt what troops though, I mean, I think it makes a difference.

Right, I have a bunch of different troops coming. I've got a British soldier, I've got some Americans. All right, you ready for the next one?

Yes?

All right? This guy he thinks there's an amendment that guarantees the right of priests, rabbis, and emams to join a gym and work out without ever paying a membership fee, so they can work out at no cost.

You mean they could exercise freely in the free exercise of religion in a first amendments exactly.

Okay, all right, these are no challenge for you. These are obviously no challenge. But maybe you'll get I'll get you on this one. Uh, this bill of wrong. This guy thinks there's an amendment that says that ensures you will never have to appear on any trivia game show more than once.

Wow. Okay, so my guess is I see this is the one that that that that guarantees you, all right, fifth Amendment? Uh it is the fifth the fifth Amendment, Yes, fifth Amendment. Yes, but I'm I can't the Fifth Amendment concerns. It's most famously, you're not compelled to be a witness against yourself. But it also oh you can and never. That's also one that says it can't be in double jeopard although I don't know if he uses the phrase double jeopardy.

Does it? No double jeopardy, no double really one specific of course game show.

Yes there, you should have picked that up.

Quicker all right, last one, you are too good. It is this guy thinks there's an amendment that is about your rights to put together Ikia furniture, Lego kits, model airplanes, jakesaw puzzles, et cetera.

You mean the freedom to assemble, the freedom to assemble, which is also the first right, the first I mean they j jimda a lot of that. I mean, it's weird how they look put like freedom of religion, separatrition, stay, freedom of the press, freedom to his assembly, protests, etc. All in one, and then they head quartering foreign troops. That got its own, I got its own.

They you know, Madison did break it up into many more different and someone edited him badly.

Here you are, that's the problem. AJ. As a fellow author, you and I can agree that the real problem here is editors exactly. They're responsible for all the flaws in our works.

Well, great job. Where can we hear more of you talking about constitutional freedoms or anything else?

Well, my documentary, or should say our documentary. I made it with a bunch of really wonderful people. We're having a ten to three union. Can you believe that this month? That is available on many platforms, including PBS. I think it's on Amazon, Amazon Prime. You want to watch it, and I'm very proud of it. So if you want to hear me talking about the Constitution, that's where to go. If you want to hear me talking about people trying to smuggle small animals in their pants, that would be wait, wait, don't tell me. Every weekend on your local public radio station.

And by the way, you will be quoted in my Constitution book.

I'm so excited. I'm really thrilled. It'll be the first time I'll be cited as I'm just going to assume here unimpeachable authority on customs.

Those are the words I used.

There, You go, all right?

So before we wrap up, as always, for you puzzlers at home, here is an extra credit puzzle. This guy thinks there's an amendment that means you will never be required to deal with oversized bundles of hay or cotton. No oversized bundles at all. Puzzlers, please don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler Podcast and I'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.

The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs

Finally, your daily puzzle fix—in audio form! Every day, New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jaco 
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