.enabled and ._alpha help please?

Hey people,
i am creating this matching game thing where ppl have to click an item and its corresponding name Eg. i will place buttons of a circle, square and a triangle with the buttons namecircle, namesquare and nametriangle…
so if a user clicks on circle i do a
var target = “circle”; (where target will help me decide if its wrong or not)
then the user gets an option to click on the 3 words.
the actionscript for my namecircle is as such :

on(release){
if (target == “circle”){
score++;
circle._alpha=0;
circle.enabled=false
wordcircle._alpha=0;
wordcircle.enabled=false;
}
//the above just made the correct answers disappear and add a point.
else{
???._alpha=0;
???.enabled=false;
wordcircle._alpha=0;
wordcircle.enabled=false
}
}

Ok this is where the problem comes in, i have set the name of the picture same as the target variable. so how do i replace the ??? with the variable, cos normally you place the itemname._alpha …but can i use a variable(since it shares the same name as the itemname) there instead?

Thanks in advance