Quiz Question
How often have you seen a pile of food and remarked, “There is enough there to feed Cox’s army?” So maybe you haven’t, but it is an expression that makes the rounds. And here is the Quiz Question for this week. What is remarkable about the expression, “Cox’s army?”
The interesting thing about Cox’s Army is there was no Cox’s Army. The man’s was Coxey. So the proper spelling is Coxey’s Army, and it was a protest march on the Capitol.
So what is a geek? Everybody thinks they know what a geek is, but where did the term come from? Hint, listen to Bob Dylan.
Post your answer in the comments section below and not on Facebook. And by the way, a geek is not the same as a nerd. A nerd is a person who farts in the bathtub and bites at the bubbles.
Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages on this planet. The winner of this week’s Quiz Question is the one who can name the most countries where Spanish is the predominate language. Do not name Puerto Rico. It is not a country.
Post your list in the comments section below. I will not moderate comments until Friday, so contestants will not be able to leverage off previous answers.
Here is my list.
Here are the first five letters of the alphabet. There are four (uncapitalized) words that contain each of these five. What are those four words?
Enter your answer in the comments section below.
The Quiz Question is from a magazine. It should read, “six-letter words which can contain one letter that is not one of the first five in the alphabet.” I will start with
BACKED.
But wait! Here is what’s funny. In January she returns to Congress. All right. Maybe not so funny.
Enjoy your weekend.
Enough with mathematics for a while. Here is a Quiz Question to test your knowledge of language. There are numerous abbreviations we see and use without knowing what they mean. Translate the following. You can use the English meaning in the case of foreign phrases. I have removed punctuation and capitalization that might give a clue to the meaning.
A change of pace. No math or science this time. We slip into the world of language. See the above. This was stolen from a Facebook posting. Form at least 20 English words from the letters in the circle. Apparently you can use a letter only once in the word. Also, from the spaces provided, you cannot form the word “A.” I will get you started with FACTORY.
Post your answer in the comments section below.
Owen is from Australia, where they apparently teach the English language in the schools. See his answer below. Here is mine. I used two 2-letter words. If you eliminate those, then I found 20 words.
Test your knowledge of words. The lentil is a small bean used in a number of dishes and also eaten alone. What is a common object everybody uses derived from the bean?
Enter your answer in the comments section below.
We have a correct answer. See the comments below. When people first regarded the lens (man-made or natural) they must have thought, “Hey, this looks a lot like a lentil.” Hence the name.
Yeah, a word puzzle for this week. This is from the March 2018 American Way magazine.
Five words beginning with “MAR” are defined in the list below. Complete all five words.
An edge or border
A place to buy supplies
A sculpting material
Blemished
Pertaining to war
Enter your answer in the comments section below.
This week’s Quiz Question is a literacy question. Why is this called a “battery?”
Submit your answer in the comments section below.
See the letters below. Rearrange them and add spaces, punctuation, etc., and make a famous naval phrase.
DEEGHHIINOPPSTTUV
Submit your answer in the comments section below.
This series poses questions to test people’s knowledge relating to obscure topics. It’s time to put the spotlight on language skills.
It’s called “the clap,” but everybody knows the medical name. If you don’t know then keep your distance. How did this get the nickname?
Post your answer in the comments section. If you had to look it up, please note that in your response and subtract 10 points from your grade.
No more math questions for a while. Here are some language questions. In fact, here is a spelling exercise. See the animal pictured above. Without resorting to any references spell the name of the animal. Post your answer in the comments section below. Don’t post your answer to Facebook, because then everybody will be able to see your answer.
While you are at it, here are some more words. I can’t show you the words because then you will know how to spell them. I will give you solid hints, and you need to spell the word.
First unscramble the following to obtain the five disguised words.
Then tell which of the five is least like the others. It’s semantics only, not form.
Submit your answer in the comments section below
Obviously the five words are
Nicko comments (see below) that the odd word out is “house,” because all the others contain letters spelling an animal:
My answer is the odd word is “scatter,” because it’s a verb and all the others are nouns.
These letters can be arranged (adding spaces) to form a famous five-word naval slogan. What is the slogan?
DEEGHHIINOPSTTUV
I will provide a hint later this week. Post your answer in the comments section.
I may never run out of these, and I’m piling airline miles in the process. Here is another Mensa puzzle from American Way magazine. The word for today is NEOTROPICAL.
Rearrange the letters in NEOTROPICAL to form another English word. Mensa believes there is only one such word. It took me less than two minutes to find the word, using the method I described in a previous Quiz Question post. Don’t use an anagram finder to solve this one. Submit your answer as a comment below.
Here’s another one for you frequent fliers. It’s from a copy of American Way and contributed by Mensa:
Here are six words:
Which of the six is least like the others. The difference has nothing to do with letters or syllables. Post your answer as a comment below.
If you have ridden on an airplane recently, then you possibly already know this one. It’s from the Mensa quiz in American Way magazine.
Rearrange the letters in the word DOMINATION to form another English word. Post your answer as a comment below.
This might look difficult at first, and you do need to apply a healthy vocabulary. However, you can use an approach that gets the process going. Look at the clue word. It ends in “tion.” which a lot of English words do. A good start is to presume the solution also ends in “tion.” Then solve using the remaining letters, and soon you come to “ADMONITION.”
More fun with word games…
37 years ago I was taking a course in database design, and the professor got onto the subject of data security. He discussed how contents of a file could be encrypted to protect your information from prying eyes. To illustrate, he wrote two lines of text on the board:
ABTAESBAD
FRSRXRMG
Then he turned to the class, pointed to the board, and asked, “What is this?”
I had been watching as he was writing and had started running some stuff through my head.
“Anybody?” the professor inquired.
I raised my hand.
He said, “Yes?”
I said, “Well the top one is a …,” and here I inserted an encryption technique. “And the second one is …,” and I mentioned another method.
The professor looked a little unsettled. “But what do these mean?”
So I told him.
Today’s question (problem) is, translate the two lines of text. Post your answer as a comment below. I will post a hint tomorrow if nobody has the solution by then.
Greg got it right. I was looking at the words. What had about that many letters? What course was I sitting in? Database Design. Bingo. Then my cruel nature emerged. The professor asked how I did that. I told him I had experience with that sort of thing, and I didn’t say any more.
Mike has pointed out the obvious. The top line of text has an extra B. My bad. I scanned this line not enough times to spot the error. I apologize for posing a Quiz Question with no answer. Here are the two lines of text that make sense.
ABTAESAD
FRSRXRMG
American Airline frequent fliers already know this one. Here are the letters:
BBELRU
List the common English words that can be formed using all of the letters once in the word? Post your answer as a comment below.
Skeptical Analysis 