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    | This inert gas alters your voice because sound travels more than twice as fast in it as in air | 
    helium
 
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    | To decaudate is to do this, like the farmer's wife did to the 3 blind mice | 
    cut off tails
 
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    | In this author's "Debt of Honor", Jack Ryan comes out of retirement to serve as the new National Security Advisor | 
    Tom Clancy
 
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    | Moats were crossed via this device; it was lowered & raised depending on who wanted to cross | 
    a drawbridge
 
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    | It's not shocking that in 1928, Philip Labre added a third prong, for grounding, to this | 
    an electrical plug
 
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    | In 2011 Larry David & the gang went to New York City on this uncomfortably funny HBO show | 
    Curb Your Enthusiasm
 
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    | Lignin, a substance in wood, changes when exposed to oxygen; that makes white paper turn this color as it ages | 
    yellow
 
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    | A nummular thing is shaped like one of these; if you know Latin, it makes cents | 
    (Alex: Yeah, we'll accept that.  Any [*], actually.)
  a coin (a penny accepted)
 
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    | If you haven't read this first novel in Cormac McCarthy's "Border Trilogy", say "neigh" | 
    All the Pretty Horses
 
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    | Great Britain's second largest, after Windsor, the Castle of Caerphilly, moat & all, is found in this country | 
    Wales
 
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    | Avon salesladies thank Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian, for inventing the electric this | 
    a doorbell
 
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    | The focus shifted from 40-something Courteney Cox dating men in their 20s, but the show was stuck with this title | 
    Cougar Town
 
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    | To the Pennsylvania Dutch, smearcase is this, both large & small curd varieties | 
    cottage cheese
 
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    | The title character loses 72 pounds (but gains 74) during the year recorded in this Helen Fielding novel | 
    Bridget Jones's Diary
 
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    | In the late 1100s what's now the site of this in Paris was Philip Augustus' castle, with a wide moat & not much art | 
    the Louvre
 
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    | MIT gives a prize for design named after Carl Sontheimer, who invented this food processor in the 1970s | 
    the Cuisinart
 
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    | Kyra Sedgwick stars as tough cookie interrogator Brenda Leigh Johnson on this drama | 
    The Closer
 
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    | Slow-motion video shows this bug evading a swat in 250 milliseconds; for 240 of those, it's repositioning itself to jump | 
    (Kendra: What is a mosquito?)
  a fly
 
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    | This verb can refer to making & serving sodas or to cutting meat into long strips to be dried in the sun | 
    jerking
 
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    | Anne Rice cast a spell on readers with her saga of the Mayfair family begun in this "timely" 1990 novel | 
    The Witching Hour
 
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    | A remnant of the former moat at this Copenhagen pleasure garden was turned into a lake for boating | 
    Tivoli
 
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    | John Hammes invented the food waste disposer a few blocks from the current HQ of this company that makes them | 
    InSinkErator
 
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    | Thomas Gibson & Shemar Moore star as members of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit on this drama | 
    Criminal Minds
 
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    | It's the form of glucose that rotates a plane of polarized light clockwise | 
    (Mary: I don't know.)
  dextrose
 
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    | Oneiromancy is the practice of foretelling the future by the interpretation of these | 
    dreams
 
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    | In 1991 John Updike won a Pulitzer for this fourth & final novel about Harry Angstrom | 
    Rabbit at Rest
 
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    | To keep fans off the field, a deep moat surrounds the playing area of this South American city's Maracana Stadium | 
    (Mary: What is Buenos Aires?)
  Rio de Janeiro
 
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    | Zalmon Simmons accepted a patent on a woven-wire one of these in lieu of cash, & the "rest" is history | 
    (Alex: A woven-wire [*]--Simmons?  BeautyRest?)
  mattress
 
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    | "Family Guy" Peter Griffin's African-American neighbor moved to Stoolbend, Virginia for this cartoon spin-off | 
    The Cleveland Show
 
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