Mixed Up Shakespeare Characters
These 2 crazy kids from Verona were the O.G. star-crossed lovers:
UNREAD TILE MOJO
Romeo and Juliet
This Founding Father received zero patents, content to freely give the world the lightning rod, a variety of stove & bifocals
Ben Franklin
Nuclear physicists tack this suffix, meaning "tool" in Greek, onto beta- and cyclo-; kiss cam victims know it as a suffix for "jumbo"
-tron
It's a cucumber preserved in brine that has an irritating tendency to change its mind
fickle pickle
He landed his 4th No. 1 hit in 2024 with "Not Like Us", a diss track aimed at Drake--oh, and he also has a Pulitzer Prize
Kendrick Lamar
The ides of march were extremely unlucky for this salad namesake:
CASUAL JURIES
Julius Caesar
A boy in Maine sold "Greenwood's champion ear protectors" after patenting this type of winter headgear in 1877
earmuffs
An ending to phyto- and proto-, it's a 3-letter suffix meaning "animals"
-zoa
It's a small pool of rainwater on the ground, with a closely gathered group of people standing in it
a puddle huddle
By 2022, it was tough to recall "Un Verano Sin" this guy; he'd been the most streamed artist on Spotify for 3 straight years
Bad Bunny
This queen of Egypt was permanently dethroned by poisonous snakes hidden in a fig basket:
TACO PEARL
Cleopatra
Nearly 50 years after the metal can was invented, Ezra Warner patented the first one of these kitchen gadgets (finally!)
can opener
Part of a condition that appears to affect high school seniors, it's a medical suffix, meaning "inflammation"
-itis
It's a flat cooking surface that's positioned exactly in between 2 other flat cooking surfaces
the middle griddle
On a 2023 soundtrack, this red-curled rapper with a rhyming name gave us the lyric, "Yeah, they know who lit, me & Barbie"
Hamlet is her ex-boyfriend & the other men in her life are no picnic either:
PEA HI LO
Ophelia
DAILY DOUBLE
Originally marketed under the name "Chemgrass", it was patented in 1967 & pro athletes have been playing on it ever since
ANSWER:astroturf
Affix this suffix to the prefixes cyto-, ecto-, and nucleo- and you have 3 elements of the human cell
-plasm
It's an inflatable mylar party decoration that's shaped like a type of large monkey
baboon balloon
Olivia Rodrigo broke our hearts with her first No. 1 hit, a ballad named for--of all things--this government-issued form of I.D.
Driver's License
"Out, damned spot" sounds like a laundry detergent ad but it's actually this Scotswoman losing her marbles:
CYMBAL DEATH
Lady Macbeth
In 1989, AMC theatres patented a design that combined a chair's armrest with this amenity
cupholders
Meaning "foot", it's a suffix many entomologists use in their line of work studying insect species
-pede
It's a premium motorcycle that's very, very cool, dude--or perhaps really, really gross, bro
gnarly Harley
This "Say So" artist's stage name derives from a slang term for marijuana & her love of felines
Doja Cat