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Thanks, DickZ, for your opinion. I'll wait to see if anyone wants to weigh in with their preferences about the quizzies. If enough LitNutters say they like them, I'll keep doing them, and if no one else replies, I'll have my answer.Quote:
Originally Posted by DickZ
Auntie, I have great fun doing your weekly quizzes. I'd be sad to see them go, but I understand can only imagine how much time you put into them. Like Dick, I'll understand if you decide to nix 'em. But perhaps you'd consider doing some for special occasions, like holidays? I rather like the holiday-themed ones. :)
I'll be back to look at this last quiz.
So I'll bump this latest one while movies are in the news today. If there are a sufficient number of hits, I'll decide whether to revive it, put it on "hiatus" (a euphemism in the TV industry) or put it out of its misery.
Aw, what the hell. . .
Now that it’s March and the Luck o’ the Irish is just around the corner, here’s a quickie in which each of the answers contain the word “seven,” which is also a number that’s supposedly lucky (or so I'm told.) Without further blarney, shake your rabbit’s foot, look for that 4-leafed shamrock and take a chance on this week’s snorefest, which we like to call
Lucky Sevens
1. What is the title of the autobiographical work by T. E. Lawrence, better known as “Lawrence of Arabia”?
2. Kurosawa’s masterpiece of 1954, a highly-influential movie about a septet of warriors who attempt to save a farming village under siege, was Americanized and remade as The Magnificent Seven. What was the original title of this film?
3. What is the common term for the potentially “lethal” vices and human failings discussed at length by, among others, St. Thomas Aquinas?
4. Which majestic city of antiquity – still a thriving metropolis – was built on seven hills?
5. You can bet that the characters in a play by Aeschylus were far from lucky, but what is the title of this Greek tragedy about a war waged by brothers in order to regain the throne of an ancient city-state?
6. Name the collective phrase describing tourist attractions noted by Hellenistic travelers in a list that included the Pyramids in Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Colossus of Rhodes, and four others.
7. Finally, Nicholas Meyer adapted his own novel about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and their encounter with Sigmund Freud as way to cure a secret addiction. Name this critically acclaimed movie of 1976.
BONUS!– Not a question, but an added attraction just for those hardy LitNutters kind enough to click on this thread. Here’s a cute little video that might help us get our minds off this seemingly endless winter.
Answers
1. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
2. The Seven Samurai
3. The Seven Deadly Sins
4. Rome
5. Seven Against Thebes
6. The Seven Wonders of the (Ancient) World
7. The Seven Per Cent Solution
I got 4 out of 7 correct. :blush:
:drool5: <--- Me.
Heh, thanks for that video.Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
Among the myriad products of Einstein’s celebrated brain comes the oft-quoted description of insanity as doing the same thing the same way while expecting a different result. Here we have an illustration of that famous definition with yet another quizzical equation. Following the previous quiz with the sevens, this one features questions and/or answers all concerned with the number
“8.” So at the risk of the M.P. seizing yours fooly to be drummed out via a “Section 8,” here’s this week’s derangement which we like to call
“Crazy Eights”
1. Originating in the game of pool, what’s the common phrase for a perilous situation in which the affected person can’t extricate himself?
2. In his early years, he was the author of a tract defending a religion which he later denounced both in his official policy and in his private life which was marked by serial monogamy. Name this monarch.
3. What is the “timely” title of the following 1922 poem by A. E. Housman?:
He stood, and heard the steeple
Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town.
One, two, three, four, to market-place and people
It tossed them down.
Strapped, noosed nighing his hour,
He stood and counted them and cursed his luck;
And then the clock collected in the tower
Its strength, and struck.
4. Legends and lore tell about buried pirate treasure which allegedly included large quantities of old Spanish silver dollars called by which colloquial term?
5. What was the title of Fellini’s 1963 semi-autobiographical masterpiece, rich with both realistic and hallucinogenic scenes?
6. The terms octave, octet, and ottava rima all pretty much mean the same thing, which is what?
7. What is the term for a particular book size formed by folding a sheet of printer’s paper three times to make 8 leaves or 16 pages?
8. Finally, name the 1988 John Sayles work about the World Series of 1919, “thrown” by the infamous Chicago “Black Sox” and starred an ensemble cast including, among others, John Cusack, D.B. Sweeney, the director himself as Ring Lardner, and a very young and much subdued Charlie Sheen.
Answers:
1. Behind the eight ball
2. Henry VIII
3. “Eight O’Clock”
4. Pieces of eight
5. 8 ½
6. Eight lines of verse, the first part of a Petrarchan sonnet, or a stanza consisting of eight lines.
7. Octavo
8. Eight Men Out
Thanks, Auntie. I enjoyed both the quizzes on SEVENS and EIGHTS, and I'm anxiously awaiting the appearance of the quiz on NINES.
I got many of the answers in both quizzes, but not all the answers in either.
All but number 3 on this last quiz. Shortening the quiz seem to give me better odds...
Thanks so much, Dick, for taking and "bumping" the quizzes, and Pen! It's great to see you back on the ol' LitNet forums!
Hi Auntie! I'm so glad you've put up a few more quizzes for us.
For the 7 quiz, I got 5/7 - missed the first and last ones.
And for the 8 quiz, I also got 5/8 - #1-3 (though three was purely a lucky guess) and #6-7. I must thank my paleography class for teaching me about #7. I can't believe I forgot the Fellini film!
The great American poet who wrote the lines: “Lifeless in appearance, sluggish/dazed spring approaches” hit the nail right on its frozen head. Certainly the lines apply to the Great Northeast of the U.S., where some folks choose to live for the “change of seasons,” the terms for which are “Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter, and Construction.” Even so, some signs of spring have already been spotted here in East Hogwash. Just the other day I saw a beer can and an old tire peeking their little heads out from the bottom of
a snowbank.
The questions and answers below all have an affinity with the word for the season which that glossy liar, the calendar, says it is. In any event, spring right down to this week’s quiz, a twisted Slinky toy we like to call
Spring, Sprang, Sprung
1. The poetic lines in the intro come from a 1923 verse called “Spring and All” which opens with: “by the road to the contagious hospital/ under the surge of the blue/ mottled clouds driven from the/ northeast–a cold wind.” Name the poet.
2. What was the title of Ernest Hemingway’s debut novel, first published in 1926?
3. What is the technical term for the first day of spring, when the number of daylight hours is, allegedly, equal to the number of hours of darkness?
4. The orchestral composition“Le Sacre du Printemps” (“The Rite of Spring”) provoked a full-scale riot after its 1913 premiere. Who was the composer?
5. The word for the forty days preceding Easter, a time reserved for penance, fasting, and spiritual renewal for Christians, is the same as the M.E. word for “spring.” Even though these days we're aware of it more in the breach than in the observance, what do we call it now?
6. The present-day version of a German play by Frank Wedekind features rock music while retaining the original plot about a bunch of teenagers whose fancy has suddenly turned to thoughts of, ahem, “love.” Name this Broadway show which won the 2007 Tony Award for Best Musical.
7. And speaking of er, “love,” theologians of centuries past attempted to reconcile their ideal of chastity with the explicit passages within a certain book of the Bible. The former interpretation of this scripture as an “allegory” about the relationship between God and His worshipers has since been abandoned, and the erotic elements have been accepted for what they are, as in these lines: “A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.” What is the title of this Old Testament text?
8. And finally, the section of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons which was earmarked to represent spring has a title which sounds like a variety of pasta sauce. What is it?
Answers
1. William Carlos Williams
2. The Torrents of Spring
3. Vernal equinox
4. Igor Stravinsky
5. Lent
6. Spring Awakening
7. “The Song of Solomon” (“The Song of Songs”)
8. “La Primavera”
I absolutely love your turn of phrase here, Auntie! And I sympathize. Here in upstate New York, we finally had a spring-like week last week. All the snow melted, the temperature got up into the 50s, and I was able for the first time in 4 months to go outside in something other than snow boots. But when I woke up this morning, it was snowing AGAIN! In a single day, we went from no snow to 5 inches, with more expected tonight and tomorrow. And I've discovered how much bad weather can completely ruin your day. Winter apparently NEVER ENDS here.Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
Anyways, for the quiz I got all but #2. For #3, I immediately got the "equinox" ("equal night") part, but was really struggling to come up with the first word. Then I saw all the green "springs" you put in, Auntie, and the word ("vernal") came to me. I don't know if you intended it that way, but thanks! As luck would have it, my eclectic knowledge of musicals, Classical music, Middle English, and Italian all came in useful here...which is about the only thing which has gone right for me all day. Thanks for making me feel better in this miserable snowbound hell. :)
To honor saints and presidents
We have days off from work and schools,
but get no rest nor holidays
From ever-present fools.
Tomorrow is the first day of April. (Don’t let that foot o’ snow on the ground fool you.) Watch out for pranks and practical jokes, neither of which were imbedded-- at least consciously so--in this week’s raspberry. I know, I hear ya: yours fooly had better quit foolin’ around and trip right over to the foolish banana peel, hot foot, and open manhole which we like to call
No Foolin’
1. Which Shakespearean character cried, “Lord, what fools these mortals be?”
2. Name the English poet who observed that “[f]ools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
3. With what does the analogy in Proverbs 26:11 compare a fool returning to his folly?
4. A classic of world literature opens with a celebration called “The Festival of Fools,” which in medieval times occurred not on April Fool’s Day but on January 1, or in this case, January 6, the Feast of Epiphany. What is the title of this 1831 work?
5. Known for her technically brilliant short fiction, Katherine Anne Porter produced only one full-length novel. Name this work which has been praised as “a major achievement of allegorical writing.”
6. What did an athlete named Foolish Pleasure achieve in 1975?
7. Name the work by contemporary American novelist Richard Russo which formed the basis for a 1994 theatrical movie starring Paul Newman.
8. We’ll wrap this up with a musical question. Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Ketty Lester et al. provide the answer. Maybe you can answer it as well: Why am I a fool?
Answers
1. Puck
2. Alexander Pope
3. “As a dog returneth to his vomit.” (Don’t look at me– I didn’t write it!)
4. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
5. Ship of Fools
6. Won the Kentucky Derby
7. Nobody’s Fool
8. Click here.
What d’ya know –it’s May already! If you want to take a break from smelling the blossoms, here’s a little quiz in which the questions ask you to ID authors who were born in this Merry Month. This week’s snorefest is a relatively short one, so that you can get right back to the flowerbed before that pesky woodchuck devours every last one of the tulips. So let’s tiptoe over to the quiz, which we like to call
May-be Baby
1. There’s no “catch” in this question: which twentieth century American novelist was born on the first of May, not in ‘22 but a year later?
2. Born on May 6, 1856, this baby boy grew up to be one of the most significant figures in modern history. Name this person who, for all we know, might have driven his mother crazy. That, of course, means he was perfectly normal. (Hey, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.)
3. In a sense, all was “right with the world” on May 7, 1819 when a poetic virtuoso was born in London. Who was he?
4. If a rainbow appeared over Glen Cove, L.I. New York on May 8, 1937, its gravity didn’t interfere with the birth of which reclusive contemporary novelist? Who is he?
5. Speaking of rainbows, an “iconic” song about one appeared in the 1939 movie version of a classic children’s book. Who was the original author, born on May 15, 1856 in Chittenango, New York (nowhere near Kansas)?
6. Name the author born on May 20, 1799 who was famous for writing a compendious tome. (What’s so funny? Sacre bleu!)
7. If you want to flirt with the danger of a little learning, remember this date: May 21, 1688. That’s when hope sprang eternal, thanks to the birth of which prominent Neoclassical poet?
8. You don't have to be a detective to figure this one out, because, of course, it’s elementary. Which universally popular British writer was born on May 22, 1859?
9. It takes only self-reliance to answer this next question: which influential American essayist and poet was born on May 25, 1803?
10. And finally, lilacs were no doubt blooming in the dooryard when which beloved American poet came into the world on May 31, 1819?
Answers
1. Joseph Heller
2. Sigmund Freud
3. Robert Browning
4. Thomas Pynchon
5. L. Frank Baum
6. Honoré de Balzac
7. Alexander Pope
8. Arthur Conan Doyle
9. Ralph Waldo Emerson
10. Walt Whitman
I only got 3, 4, 5, and 10 on that one, Aunty.
D'oh, and I only got number 5 of the April quiz.
Things are tough all over. Every industry is struggling through this sputtering economy, except maybe the liquor companies. Printed newspapers are especially suffering, with the double-whammy of the bad financial landscape as well as the fact that increasing numbers of readers prefer getting their news from electronic sources. As a result American publishers are cutting labor costs the same way other corporations do, by “outsourcing.” It sounds like a joke, but it’s true: the reporter who is covering your local school board meeting may be filing his story from India.
I knew our local newspaper, The East Hogwash Penny Pincher, was in trouble when the size of the daily edition kept shrinking faster than Posada’s batting average. The paperboy used to place the morning paper under the doormat, but lately he’s been able to stuff it through the keyhole. But the monthly subscription rate kept going up! You might say it’s a case of being a buck short, and --since the Penny Pincher seldom prints MLB box scores in a timely fashion – a day late.
Despite all that, today’s quiz is dedicated to the hard-boiled reporter with ink in his veins, a cigarette hanging out of his lips, and a little card with the word “Press” stuck into the band of his fedora (or whatever headgear is fashionable in Bangalore.) Now for a few column inches of all the snooze that’s unfit to print in this little birdcage liner which we like to call
Stop the Presses!
1. A hilarious Broadway hit about newspaper reporters spawned several movie adaptations, the best of which was His Girl Friday (1940) starring Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, and the ever-versatile Ralph Bellamy. What is the original title of the 1928 play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur?
2. Between 1709 and 1712 Joesph Addison and Richard Steele edited early prototypes that could be considered the earliest newspapers in England. Name these two periodicals.
3. May 5, 1895 marked the first appearance of a comic in an American newspaper: asingle-panel cartoon drawn by Richard F. Outcault for the New York World. What was the
name of the recurrent character?
4. These days members of the media are often demonized for their intrusive insensitivity,but at one time they were ranked with institutions that were highly-respected in an even earlier era: the Church, the Nobility, and the Townspeople. What is the antonomastic term or collective synonym for The Press, first coined by Thomas Carlyle?
5. The annual American journalism prizes named for illustrious publisher Joseph Pulitzer began in 1917 as a way to honor exemplary editorial writing, reporting, and public service. Just a year later the number of categories swelled, including prizes for fiction, poetry, and drama. Name the playwright who received the prize for four of his plays, in the years 1920, 1922, 1928, and 1957.
6. Newspapers with a small-sized format first appeared in Great Britain, but as early as 1919 they were extremely popular with New York City patrons of commuter trains and subways. The term for this kind of daily was “originally complimentary,” but through the years they began to get a bad rep as the term began “to denote journalism which is unashamedly sensationalist and profits by appealing to the lowest instincts.” Yet today it accounts for 60% of the British newspaper market.* The term for this type of newspaper derives from the brand name for a condensed medicine. What is it?
7. He started his writing career in 1863 as a reporter for the local newspaper in Virginia City, Nevada. One could say that this is where he “made a name for himself” which was what?
8. Until the 1980s, this was the collective noun for the British Press, originally the name of an underground river in central London. What was this term?
9. A classic movie from 1941 invariably lands near the top of lists of the best films ever made. The reason for this is its masterful, ground-breaking technique, but the story itself– the rise and fall of a newspaper magnate based on the life of William Randolph Hearst–is certainly no deadbeat. What is the title?
10. And finally, in journalistic circles, what does “30" mean?
Answers
1. The Front Page
2. The Tatler and The Spectator
3. “The Yellow Kid”
4. The Fourth Estate
5. Eugene O’Neill
6. Tabloid
7. Samuel L. Clemens aka “Mark Twain”
8. Fleet Street
9. Citizen Kane
10. “The End”
*Quoted from The Oxford Companion to the English Language, edited by Tom McArthur. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, page 1019.
My degree is in journalism, Auntie, even so I only got 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10 correct.
Excellent quiz, as usual! Thank you so much for doing these.
Thank you, qimissung, for taking these quizzes and commenting. Hope you're not the only one!
Up next, a quiz inspired in part by Dark Muse's blog:
This time of year is an exciting one for fans the Sport of Kings, as it’s the season for outstanding three-year-old colts to vie for the Triple Crown, even though there isn't going to be a Triple Crown champion this year. The last time we had one? Don't ask. Even so, the winner of the Kentucky Derby, “Animal Kingdom,” will try to beat “Shackleford,” the Preakness Champ, in the last jewel in the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in Elmont, on Long Island, NY.
Apart from fast-running steeds, a somewhat less speedy member of the animal kingdom made news this week. “Tex,” of Knoxville, Tennessee who hasn't had female companionship for over twenty years, is finally going to have a date–no mean feat for a 550-lb tortoise who is 130 years “young.” Since Tex is not all that Internet savvy, he couldn't access online dating services, so his handlers sprayed him with some after-shave and hooked him up with an Atlanta belle named “Corky.” Now comes the hard part–when Tex has to pin a corsage on Corky’s shell. Hmmm–wonder what their first date will be. Maybe Tex will take her to the Belmont.
If you haven't already guessed, this week’s bungle in the jungle features our fellow creatures as they relate to literature and pop culture. Let’s try to learn something from our betters as we zoom in on the zoo which we like to call
Critters, Litters, and Letters
1. What does the mnemonic sentence: “King Phillip Came Over From Germany Saturday” help us remember?
2. Although born in the Midwest, this distinctive American poet (1887-1972) relocated to NYC, home of the Bronx Zoo, which inspired works such as “The Fish,” “The Monkeys,” and “The Pangolin.” Who was this poet?
3. At a special event in Oxford, an undergraduate approached the guest of honor and asked him what he meant when he wrote the line: “Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper tree.” He responded, “I mean ‘Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper tree.’ “ Who was this poet, born in the same place as the poet in question #2?
4. Name the specific type of allegory which features real or fabulous creatures such as the phoenix or the unicorn, used to illustrate human flaws and virtues, for example, the medieval Reynard the Fox, Chanticleer in Chaucer’s “Nun’s Priest’s Tale,” and the talking animals in Kipling’s Just So Stories.
5. What is the creature from the Old Testament whose name roughly translates as “That which gathers itself together in folds,” interpreted through the centuries as a sea serpent, a whale, or a crocodile, and, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, symbolizes envy?
6. Who was the naturalist (1809-1882) whose painstaking research unwittingly caused controversy even to this day, with his innocuous descriptions such as “A hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits?”
7. A New York newspaper man, Don Marquis, created a humorous character who committed his philosophical observations to paper when the office was empty and the world was asleep. Funny thing, though, “archy” typed all of his musings in lower-case letters. Why?
8. Name the Yorkshire county veterinarian (1916-1995) who wrote a series of best-selling non-fiction books about his practice all with titles culled from an English hymn?
9. “The Hind and the Panther” is a 1687 poem which, including the two creatures in the title, uses a bear, a wolf, an ape, a boar, and a fox to represent various contentious religious sects. Who is the author of this politically-charged work designed to promote reconciliation?
10. And finally, an original science fiction novel by French author Pierre Boulle formed the basis for a highly-popular 1968 movie and its numerous sequels. What was the title of the first film version?
Answers:
1. Classification system for living things:
Kingdom,
Phylum,
Class,
Order,
Family,
Genus,
Species.
2. Marianne Moore
3. T. S. Eliot
4. Bestiary (or beast fable)
5. Leviathan
6. Charles Darwin
7. archy was a cockroach, so he couldn't reach the shift key to make upper case letters.
8. James Alfred Wight (“James Herriot”)
9. Click here for answer.
10. Planet of the Apes
Oh, I only got 6, 7, and 8. I Always think I'm fairly smart until I take these, Aunty. :)
I got 3,4, 6, and 9 correct. A poor score! :(
Ouch. Have these quizzes gotten this much harder since I've stopped taking them? Maybe my brain has atrophied; maybe there is some financial incentive involved now and easy answers just won't do. I only got 5, 6, 8, and 10.
I guessed "fable" (after Aesop) for number 4, but I'm glad to now know the term "bestiary." I know Leviathan well, and I like the interpretation of him as a whale, and all the musings and Biblical quotations on that topic in "Moby Dick."
I knew Darwin was the answer for number 6 because I've actually heard this quote in a lecture before, which described the skirmish of words between Matthew Arnold ("that levite of culture") and Huxley (Darwin's bulldog). Arnold is famous for saying (after directly quoting the Darwin line you printed above), of that hairy quadruped, "there must have been something in him that inclined him to Greek." I've taken a lot of care in trying to understand the profundity of that notion. :)
I only knew James Herriot because I've seen that name on the spines of books countless times in bookstores everywhere! I also gave "All Creatures Great and Small" to an animal loving girlfriend once.
I guessed Blake for number 9 and was disappointed.
Thanks again for the quiz Auntie.