BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We're playing this week with Adam Burke, Faith Salie and Tara Clancy. And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill.
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SAGAL: In just a minute, Bill reads from his favorite Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, "Love In The Rhyme Of Cholera."
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SAGAL: It's our Listener Limerick Challenge game. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAITWAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924.
Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Faith, this week we learned about a brand new font that's quite popular out there. It's called Times Newer Roman, and it was - that's what it's called, Times Newer Roman. And it was designed specifically to help students do what?
FAITH SALIE: To fill up more space on their papers, right?
SAGAL: Yes. It helps them cheat.
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SAGAL: The font looks like Times New Roman, but it takes up more space on the page so you can get away with writing less. Instead of writing, say, three whole pages on the Roman Empire, you type R-O-M, and, boom, out of space. Here you go.
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SAGAL: When you are using 12-point Times Newer Roman to write a 15-page paper, you are able to type 850 words less than if you had used regular Times New Roman.
SALIE: I know this will shock you, Peter...
SAGAL: Yes.
SALIE: ...But not writing enough was never my problem.
SAGAL: I'm so stunned.
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SAGAL: I could just imagine your class. Everybody has to hand in at least five pages. Faith, no more than 10.
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SALIE: But they're not even trying to hide it. Like, they should have given it - the font - a new name. Just - they're just like - they should've called it Times Cheater Roman, like this is so clear.
ADAM BURKE: Times Roman Catholic.
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BURKE: Oh, sorry. They're incredibly - the Roman Catholic Church is known for being incredibly honest all the time.
SAGAL: Exactly.
BURKE: I take it back.
SAGAL: Yes.
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SAGAL: Yeah. When I was a boy, we just made the margins 4 inches from the side of the paper. What's wrong with kids these days? Some of my papers were just a single vertical roll of letters.
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SAGAL: Tara, a new study out this week says that despite everything you have heard, there are really only four types of what?
TARA CLANCY: Everything. There are only four types of what?
SAGAL: Well, we've got five of them here, so at least we have one duplicate.
CLANCY: Why is this going right over my...
SALIE: There are five what on this stage?
CLANCY: I don't know. People?
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SAGAL: People, yes.
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SAGAL: It turns out that despite what you've heard, there are only four types of people. You probably thought there were a lot more kinds of people. There are happy people, depressed people, theater people, obnoxious people, people who need people, who are also, therefore, the luckiest people...
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SAGAL: ...And on and on and on. Nope. According to a new study of 1.5 million responses to personality tests, everybody is either self-centered, a role model, reserved or average. That's it.
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SAGAL: Self-centered, role model, reserved or average. That's all the people. You're one of those. And if you're wondering which one you are, you're self-centered.
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BURKE: It sounds like this study needs a little more work.
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BURKE: I'm pretty sure that when they wrote this study up, it was in Times Newer Roman 'cause there's no way.
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BURKE: They were like, ah, let's call it four.
SAGAL: Well, the way it worked, basically, was they had all these personality tests that asked people all kinds of different questions and rated them on all these different scores. And what they found out is everybody fell into one of these four groups - self-centered, role model, reserved or average.
SALIE: But what does average mean in a lineup like that?
SAGAL: Average means you're not...
SALIE: It means you're - it's you're not anything.
CLANCY: Right.
SAGAL: It means you're not self-centered, role model or reserved.
SALIE: And are most people average?
BURKE: No, that's not what that means. That's not what the word average means. It means you're a mixture of those other three.
SAGAL: Right. But you don't necessarily stand out, don't you see?
BURKE: Well, that I understand, but...
SALIE: So if you were average, you would be - this isn't funny anymore. This is just important.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: If you're average...
SAGAL: Here's the thing. Ladies and gentlemen, what's happening is Faith Salie, your friend and mine, is now in front of you struggling with the existential crisis that there's a chance she is average.
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SAGAL: (Screaming) It cannot be.
SALIE: Which clearly makes me self-centered.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.