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Quiz about A Rose City By Any Other Name
Quiz about A Rose City By Any Other Name

A Rose City By Any Other Name... Quiz


I will give you ten large United States cities by their nicknames, and some additional information to help you identify them. Just pick the city. Oh, and my apologies to Bardolators for the Shakespeare rip-off title.

A multiple-choice quiz by Jdeanflpa. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
Jdeanflpa
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
393,272
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Very Easy
Avg Score
9 / 10
Plays
678
Awards
Top 35% Quiz
Last 3 plays: Guest 174 (10/10), Adams31813 (9/10), Guest 136 (10/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. "The Rose City" is located in the Pacific Northwest, where the Willamette River flows into the mighty Columbia. Volcanic Mt. Hood dominates the view to the east, and is quite the sight when you fly into PDX on a clear day. What city is "the Rose City"? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. This wonderful city shares its name with the great bay off the Pacific Ocean where it resides. In 1967, the city's Haight-Ashbury district was the center of the "Summer of Love". Coincidentally (or not), it was about the same time that the sobriquet "Baghdad by the Bay" took hold. The city has been an artistic and cultural center since the 1890s. Now if the ground will just be still. What city is "Baghdad by the Bay"? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. This city attracts nicknames the way spilled sugar attracts ants. Carl Sandburg, in a gloriously tendentious 1914 poem bearing the city's name, added several. To Sandburg, the city was "Hog butcher to the world, tool maker, stacker of wheat...stormy,husky, brawling City of the Big Shoulders", and that's just the first stanza! Others have called it the "Windy City" meaning to insult, but the "husky, brawling" locals made the name their own, for their home on the South shore of Lake Michigan. Where is the "Windy City"? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. The "Gateway City" sports a 630 foot/192 meter stainless steel arch to symbolize the "Gateway to the American West"on its Mississippi riverfront. Lewis and Clark provisioned here and thousands of settlers on the way west did the same. Ragtime King Scott Joplin lived here, and W.C. Handy composed a famous blues tune bearing the city's name. Anheuser-Busch is headquartered here, too, if you're thirsty. Which city is the "Gateway City"? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. "Beantown" might partially owe its name to a toast. In addition to beans, the city shares its name with a dessert and a terrier breed, and is known for a reckless disregard for tea, an alarming silversmith, and a 19th and early 20th Century tendency to ban "indecent" artworks. What is the proper, very proper, name of "Beantown"? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. Locals still call it "the Crescent City" from the curving shape the city took by hugging a bend in the Mississippi River. Notoriously, this is the only city in the US that is largely below sea, and river, level. In the 1970s, to contrast the unhurried southern local style with the bustle of New York, some began calling it "the Big Easy". Home to voodoo, two different styles of French-inspired cooking, and Dixieland Jazz, where is the "Crescent City"? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. "Music City" is the capital of Tennessee, nestled in the western Appalachian Mountains, on the banks of the Cumberland River. "Music City" earned its nickname with "Music Row" where Country, Gospel, and Christian Music recording companies are concentrated. Landmarks include the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Ryman Auditorium, and the Grand Ole Opry House. More citified folks may prefer the local symphony or the opera (quite distinct from the Opry). What is "Music City" called on the map? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. "Space City" is more often called "the Bayou City" by locals. Both sobriquets are appropriate. The first word spoken from the surface of the moon was the city's name. It is drained by ten meandering, usually mild mannered streams locally called bayous. The city is named for the Texas patriot who secured independence by winning a battle called San Jacinto, about 30 minutes by automobile from where downtown came to be. The city is also big in the petroleum business. Can you identify "Space City"? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. "Magic City" could claim its moniker based on any number of factors: climate, distinctive culture, or resilience. In fact, it draws the name because a giant metropolis popped up almost overnight on Biscayne Bay, near the end of the Florida peninsula. Incorporated in 1896 with a population under 2,000, by 1980 its metropolitan population exceeded 3.2 million residents. Which Florida gateway to Latin America is "Magic City"? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. The quintessential nickname for the quintessential American city. Long the most populous city in the US, it is also the city most non-Americans instantly think of when you mention the United States. Locals have long claimed that "civilization stops at the Hudson River". Famed for towering architecture, great museums, theater, finance and a breakneck pace of life that intimidates outsiders, what is "the Big Apple"? Hint





Most Recent Scores
Oct 19 2024 : Guest 174: 10/10
Sep 24 2024 : Adams31813: 9/10
Sep 19 2024 : Guest 136: 10/10

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. "The Rose City" is located in the Pacific Northwest, where the Willamette River flows into the mighty Columbia. Volcanic Mt. Hood dominates the view to the east, and is quite the sight when you fly into PDX on a clear day. What city is "the Rose City"?

Answer: Portland, Oregon

It all started when a lady named Georgiana Burton Pittock invited some of her rose growing friends to show off their blooms in her yard in 1889. People took to planting roses by the curb. By the time of the Lewis and Clark Centennial in 1905, Portland had more than 200 miles (320km) of rose-lined streets.

Helena, Montana is hundreds of miles from the Pacific, San Francisco has no resident volcano, and Seattle's nearby thunder mountain is Mt. Rainier. PDX is, of course, Portland's airport abbreviation.
2. This wonderful city shares its name with the great bay off the Pacific Ocean where it resides. In 1967, the city's Haight-Ashbury district was the center of the "Summer of Love". Coincidentally (or not), it was about the same time that the sobriquet "Baghdad by the Bay" took hold. The city has been an artistic and cultural center since the 1890s. Now if the ground will just be still. What city is "Baghdad by the Bay"?

Answer: San Francisco

Originally called Yerba Buena, after a local mint plant, San Francisco was already a growing city by the time of the 1849 Gold Rush, then it exploded into a major city. The aura of magic, faintly reminiscent of "1001 Arabian Nights", has hung around the city since the gold rush, lingering even today.

It's just a different place. Part of it may be the city's seeming insouciance in the face of destruction. The city has been repeatedly rattled by earthquakes, nearly destroyed at least once, but arises from ashes and goes on. Like the other Baghdad, this city will last. Galveston,Texas and Mobile, Alabama have nice bays...off the Gulf of Mexico. Los Angeles has no bay.
3. This city attracts nicknames the way spilled sugar attracts ants. Carl Sandburg, in a gloriously tendentious 1914 poem bearing the city's name, added several. To Sandburg, the city was "Hog butcher to the world, tool maker, stacker of wheat...stormy,husky, brawling City of the Big Shoulders", and that's just the first stanza! Others have called it the "Windy City" meaning to insult, but the "husky, brawling" locals made the name their own, for their home on the South shore of Lake Michigan. Where is the "Windy City"?

Answer: Chicago

Four "stand up" cities, where you insult the local polity at considerable peril. Only Chicago was lucky enough to be Carl Sandburg's town. An industrial and transportation hub since its 19th Century beginnings, it is the heart of the heartland. It's a flawed city, as all great cities are, and witnessing Sandburg address those is worth the price of admission. Written in free verse, "Chicago" is a unique mixture of a love letter to home, and a snarling, clenched fist punch in the figurative nose for those eastern US and European cities which dared look down their bruised probosces at Sandburg's city.

It should be required reading for those who think poetry is "sissy stuff".
4. The "Gateway City" sports a 630 foot/192 meter stainless steel arch to symbolize the "Gateway to the American West"on its Mississippi riverfront. Lewis and Clark provisioned here and thousands of settlers on the way west did the same. Ragtime King Scott Joplin lived here, and W.C. Handy composed a famous blues tune bearing the city's name. Anheuser-Busch is headquartered here, too, if you're thirsty. Which city is the "Gateway City"?

Answer: St. Louis

The way west was through St. Louis; the trailheads for the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails were in Independence, MO about 200 miles/320 km further west, where the wagon trains formed. St. Louis was part of the Mississippi Magic that gave birth to so much distinctly American music - Memphis and New Orleans share this, but only St. Louis received Handy's masterwork "St. Louis Blues". Cairo (kay-roh), Illinois is a comparatively sleepy river town up against the other three.
Anheuser-Busch has been based in St. Louis for a century. They are the largest beer brewer in the United States.
5. "Beantown" might partially owe its name to a toast. In addition to beans, the city shares its name with a dessert and a terrier breed, and is known for a reckless disregard for tea, an alarming silversmith, and a 19th and early 20th Century tendency to ban "indecent" artworks. What is the proper, very proper, name of "Beantown"?

Answer: Boston

At a 1910 Holy Cross College alumni dinner, John Bossidy poked fun at Boston's rigid social structure with the toast: "And this is dear old Boston, The home of the bean and the cod; Where the Lowells speak only to the Cabots, And the Cabots speak only to God." Boston Cream Pie is a fine dessert, even if it is a cake.

The Boston Terrier was the first recognized US breed. You've likely heard about the "Tea Party" down in Boston Harbor. Paul Revere was a silversmith, who famously spread an alarm. "Banned in Boston" made New York a fortune, since New Englanders had to go there to buy controversial books, etc.

The other three fine New England cities listed are simply too small to have Boston's impact.
6. Locals still call it "the Crescent City" from the curving shape the city took by hugging a bend in the Mississippi River. Notoriously, this is the only city in the US that is largely below sea, and river, level. In the 1970s, to contrast the unhurried southern local style with the bustle of New York, some began calling it "the Big Easy". Home to voodoo, two different styles of French-inspired cooking, and Dixieland Jazz, where is the "Crescent City"?

Answer: New Orleans

New Orleans continues to recover from Hurricane Katrina, which mauled little Pascagoula, Mississippi as well. Mobile, Alabama and Galveston, Texas are far too familiar with hurricanes, too. In New Orleans, the sound of Dixieland fills the air of the French Quarter again, as do the aromas of Creole and Cajun cuisines. Laissez bon temps roulez, encore une fois! Let the good times roll (the semi-official motto of New Orleans), once again!
7. "Music City" is the capital of Tennessee, nestled in the western Appalachian Mountains, on the banks of the Cumberland River. "Music City" earned its nickname with "Music Row" where Country, Gospel, and Christian Music recording companies are concentrated. Landmarks include the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Ryman Auditorium, and the Grand Ole Opry House. More citified folks may prefer the local symphony or the opera (quite distinct from the Opry). What is "Music City" called on the map?

Answer: Nashville

All the cities listed have vibrant musical lives, but only Nashville is in Tennessee, and recognized as the big time by southern musicians for almost a century. The city was founded in the 1790s, and named for Francis Nash, a hero of the recently concluded American Revolution.

The Country Music connection tends to overshadow how diverse and eclectic the city has always been. You can walk from the Country Music Hall of Fame to the Parthenon, as close a full-sized replica of the Athens original as could be supported by scholarship - it even has a replica of the famed statue of Athena inside (original lost for centuries). If you can't find a way to enjoy yourself in Nashville, you're not trying!
8. "Space City" is more often called "the Bayou City" by locals. Both sobriquets are appropriate. The first word spoken from the surface of the moon was the city's name. It is drained by ten meandering, usually mild mannered streams locally called bayous. The city is named for the Texas patriot who secured independence by winning a battle called San Jacinto, about 30 minutes by automobile from where downtown came to be. The city is also big in the petroleum business. Can you identify "Space City"?

Answer: Houston

"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." If you were born before about 1960, you almost certainly remember hearing that announcement. It rather clinches Houston's claim to the title. Huntsville AL and Cape Canaveral FL have spaceflight connections, but are not in Texas. Huntsville TX and Dallas are in the right state, but not connected to spaceflight. Sam Houston defeated Mexican generalissimo Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna on the banks of the San Jacinto (locally: san ja-sin-nuh) River, a bit south of due east of where the city grew.

In its narrower western windings, the San Jacinto is called Buffalo Bayou and passes near downtown. After Hurricane Harvey (2017) dropped a staggering four feet (1.2 meters) of rain in two days the bayous tried to swallow the city. Houston is still on the mend at the time of writing this quiz, but well worth a visit.
9. "Magic City" could claim its moniker based on any number of factors: climate, distinctive culture, or resilience. In fact, it draws the name because a giant metropolis popped up almost overnight on Biscayne Bay, near the end of the Florida peninsula. Incorporated in 1896 with a population under 2,000, by 1980 its metropolitan population exceeded 3.2 million residents. Which Florida gateway to Latin America is "Magic City"?

Answer: Miami

While none of Florida's massive conurbations is particularly old, the further south you go the younger the cities get (Key West is the sole exception). Pensacola, Tampa and Orlando are all older and less populous than the Miami miracle. Miami is the US hub for trade and banking with Latin America.

This vibrant multicultural city is tough, too. Three times in its brief history the area has been badly damaged by hurricanes (most recently Andrew in 1992), but (re)building is a Miami specialty, and growth has rarely paused. I mentioned a metropolitan population of 3.2 million in 1980. US Census 2015 estimates for the Miami Metropolitan Statistical Area showed a population just under six million, nearly one third of Florida's population.
10. The quintessential nickname for the quintessential American city. Long the most populous city in the US, it is also the city most non-Americans instantly think of when you mention the United States. Locals have long claimed that "civilization stops at the Hudson River". Famed for towering architecture, great museums, theater, finance and a breakneck pace of life that intimidates outsiders, what is "the Big Apple"?

Answer: New York City

Three magnificent, special, cities as wrong answers, yet even combined they don't influence the world, or even the United States, to the extent New York City (NYC) does. "The City That Never Sleeps", to use another nickname, is also the city that defies superlatives. Truly one of the most remarkable cities in the world, NYC has to be seen to be believed, let alone understood.
Source: Author Jdeanflpa

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