Ditloid Delight Trivia Quiz

Answer: 7 years bad luck

Back through the mists of time, it is thought, rather logically, that early "mirrors" were nothing more than peering into a pool of water to see the reflection of oneself. This was followed by canny folk polishing pieces of volcanic glass known as obsidian, such as those dating back to 6000 BC which were unearthed by archeologists in modern Turkey. By 4,000 Bc, humans were using polished copper in order to see their reflections, and, during the years of the Roman Empire, silver mirrors were in use, but glass mirrors as we know them today, weren't in use until the 3rd century AD.

The origin of the belief that breaking a mirror resulted in seven years bad luck (7 Y B L) is said to date back to the Romans at a time when it was believed that the soul regenerated every seven years. It was also believed that the gods observed people through mirrors - what a frightening thought - so if you broke one, this was considered such an act of disrespect, that the gods sent bad luck down upon you until it was time for your soul to regenerate again.

Answer: Sheets in a ream of paper

A ream of paper is a packet of 500 sheets of paper that were used years ago by busy office typists, where a sheet at a time (usually) was rolled onto their typewriters (including manual ones in use before the invention of electric typing machines) before typing commenced, to produce endless pieces of information or correspondence for office managers and the like. Each sheet of paper measured 10 inches by 8 inches. Known once as quarto size, this is now referred to as A4. Smaller or larger sized sheets (A3, A8, A5 etc) all have the letter A in front.

The number following that letter indicates the size of each sheet. Apparently, "if any A-sized sheet of paper is cut in half, the ratios of the sides of the two resultant halves are in the same proportion of one to the square root of two." One is inclined to say "big deal" with this piece of information, but these sizes are now pretty much the standard size in use world-wide. Today, reams of paper are mostly used for photo-copiers, fax machines and printers.

Answer: 1 day at a time

If you are having a particularly bad time of life at any given time - and it happens to everyone now and then - try to step back a little, shift your focus onto something else and just take life one day at a time. Relax. Stop stressing. If it can be changed then it probably will when all is sorted out, but if it can't be changed, then tell yourself there is nothing you can do about it, accept it and get on with life. Even King Canute couldn't stop the tide from coming in.

The origin of the term "one day at a time" is thought to date back to 1935, when the Alcoholics Anonymous fellowship group was established in the United States by Bill Wilson and Dr Bob Smith, for the purpose of helping, supporting and encouraging people with drinking problems along the road to sobriety and abstinence via a twelve step program. Part of the program is to encourage members to "only think about staying sober for the next 24 hours. If they can do that every day, it'll get easier as they go along".

Answer: 4 Gospels in the Bible

For those who follow the Christian faith, and particularly the Bible's New Testament, you will know that there are four Gospels in that great work. These four Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - basically sum up the life, work and words of Jesus Christ leading up to his crucifixion, followed by his Resurrection and short time on earth before his ascension into Heaven.

They are fascinating, informative and spiritually uplifting.

Answer: A bunch of fives

A bunch of fives is a term describing a tightly clenched fist, and if you've been threatened with that, be prepared to either duck - or clench your own fist in preparation for a scuffle - or take off for the lick of your life out the door. It is a boxing term, and, although there is some dispute about when it was first used, one of the contenders (over in the bluuuee corner, ladies and gents) has it appearing in Charles Westmacott's 1825 novel "The English Spy", in which he has one of his characters as having come "...up to the scratch and floored many a youkel with their bunch of fives."

During this era in English history, boxing was a very popular (and brutal) sport that was fought between two combatants, neither of whom wore protective boxing gloves on their hands. The bunch of fives applies to their clenched fists as they wade in for the rounds that follow. The "scratch" mentioned in the above quote refers to a line in the ring that boxers had to be at, facing one another, before the match began.

Answer: 30 days in September

This ditloid is based on the old rhyme of remembering the dates in all the months of a calendar year. As follows: "Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31, excepting February alone. That has 28 days clear - and 29 in each leap year." There are slight regional variations to the last two lines of this rhyme, but all basically amount to the same thing - the number of days in each month.

The first printed version of this rhyme appears in Richard Grafton's 1562 work, "Abridgment of the Chronicles of England" under the heading "A Rule to know How Many Dayes Euery Moneth in the Yere Hath" (spelling intact).

Answer: 2 hulls on a catamaran

Catamarans are sea-going craft with two same sized hulls on either side, separated by a large open space between them that the waters surge through as the catamaran zooms along the surface at remarkable speeds. These cleverly designed "non-existent" hulls reduce the impact of the water on the craft and help prevent over-turning.

They were invented by the indigenous people from an area of the world that includes Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, Madagascar and south-east Asia.

Answer: A stitch in time saves nine

If this expression is taken literally, it simply means to immediately sew up a tear or a split seam in any article of clothing, or other piece of material, to stop that tear or split developing further. On another level, it means to step in and sort out an immediate problem in any factor of life, before that problem escalates out of control.

This phrase first appeared in print, circa 1732, in Thomas Fuller's "Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs; Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British." It always reminds me of the old rhyme where a young woman didn't put a few needed stitches into the elastic of her underwear before going out for the evening:

(Name) was dancing on the ballroom floor
Her dancing was fantastic
All of sudden she rushed to the door
Never - trust - elastic

Answer: One horn on a unicorn

A unicorn is a mythical creature described in various works for the past couple of thousand years. Drawings depict it as a type of wild goat or horse, with a large horn protruding from its forehead. It is believed, somewhat suggestively, that it can only be tamed by a virgin, because the animal itself is symbolic of purity and grace. Don't you just love the double standard of that? It seems to suggest that a pure and graceful virgin (likened at times to the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus) apparently loses all those positive attributes once tossed on the "marriage" bed. However, back to the horn on the unicorn - this appendage was supposed to have the power to heal sickness and make poisoned water drinkable again.

Sadly so, with human nature being what it is, and the horn in such demand, it is thought that, in the middle ages, the tusks of narwhals were foisted off onto a gullible public as being genuine unicorn horns. Hmm, perhaps that's a bit of a yarn. Narwhals are found in the cold waters of Greenland, Canada, Russia and Norway, so who from the more heavily populated ares of the world, would have even heard of them, or had the expertise to get together fishing expeditions to find the poor old narwhals back then? Quite possibly, these "unicorn" horns came directly from a cow or bull instead? Caveat emptor.

Answer: Takes two to tango

The expression "It takes two to tango" basically means that in any controversial matter involving more than one person, that it is seldom the fault of one person alone. A marriage in trouble for example, or a school brawl, or a shonky business deal - that type of thing. On a rather more unpleasant level, it is sometimes applied to a girl who has found herself pregnant, and when one person is blamed entirely for this, those of a cynical or realistic mind will sometimes comment that "It takes two to tango", meaning in that case that the pregnancy was not an immaculate conception - two very human people were involved.

This phrase is believed to have originated in a 1952 song "Takes Two to Tango" by Hoffman and Manning and made popular by singer, Pearl Bailey. Argentina has been given the credit - or otherwise - for the rather passionate dance of the tango which originated in that part of the world in the 1880s, and which, while it is compelling to see performed, is always rather amusing. It involves very close contact between the dance partners, suggestive body language, and heated embrace - much to the severe disapproval of various authorities at the time. Oh, but it really is so VERY amusing when it is performed by people of a comedic nature.