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I've found a book of quiz questions, many of which are word-related. Here's a selection. They're tough, but if folks enjoy, I can put up more quizes from time to time. 1. Can you think of a figure of speech which has its origins in sprinting? [There are at least two of them.] 2. How did the word goodbye originate? 3. What are polders in the Netherlands? 4. What name is given to a charge made by a restaurant for serving wine brought by the customer? 5. If you ordered stifado in a Greek restaurant what would you expect to receive? 6. Is a chiminea a wood-burning clay oven, an Indian peace pipe, a mythical bird or a reed pipe wind chime? 7. What’s unusual about the word queueing? 8. Explain the origin of the phrase “to hang fire”. 9. Is angelica something you’d see in an aquarium, a church, a hospital or a garden? 10. The Spanish word for war gives its name to what kind of soldier? | ||
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I assume we are meant to do this quiz without resorting to Google or dictionaries, etc. I can't answer every question, but here's my shot: 1. Can you think of a figure of speech which has its origins in sprinting? [There are at least two of them.] "From the get-go", "breasting the tape", "on your marks", "dead-heat", and "false start" are all used figuratively. I expect there are plenty of others. 2. How did the word goodbye originate? "God be with ye" 3. What are polders in the Netherlands? Land reclaimed from the sea by a series of dykes 4. What name is given to a charge made by a restaurant for serving wine brought by the customer? Corkage 5. If you ordered stifado in a Greek restaurant what would you expect to receive? A sort of stew 6. Is a chiminea a wood-burning clay oven, an Indian peace pipe, a mythical bird or a reed pipe wind chime? No idea 7. What’s unusual about the word queueing? It contains a succession of five vowels 8. Explain the origin of the phrase “to hang fire”. In the early days of firearms, if the gunpowder was damp, it would not catch properly and was said to hang fire. It was dangerous, as the gun might go off at any time. 9. Is angelica something you’d see in an aquarium, a church, a hospital or a garden? A garden 10. The Spanish word for war gives its name to what kind of soldier? Guerrilla Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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To Arnie's #1 I would add "to win by a nose" and "winning hands down," both of which, yes, are horse racing terms but the horses are, after all, sprinting. Also, in reference to #4, "corkage" was always the term we used to describe the "cork-ettes" that floated in your bottle of wine when, after not being able to remove a rapidly deteriorating cork from the bottle, you did the next best thing and just rammed the remnants down into the wine and drank around them. | |||
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Quote "...corkage" was always the term we used to describe the "cork-ettes" that floated in your bottle ..." We have no name for those in UK English - but we certainly couldn't use corkage as that has the well-established meaning already given. We have another wine-related word - corked - which means wine that has been spoilt through cork failure. A corked wine can vary from poor to completely undrinkable but the presence or absence of cork fragments has no bearing on the matter. Richard English | |||
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