The Quick Brown Fox Trivia Quiz

Answer: lazy

The keen-eyed will have spotted that the remainder of the sentence was missing a, l, y and z.

Arguably the best known of all pangrams because of its use in typing practice and in Microsoft Word as a "randomly" generated piece of text, the "quick brown fox" has been around since at least the late 19th century when it was first mentioned in the newspaper "The Boston Journal".

The word "lazy" has a few different meanings and uses. As well as its definition as "an unwillingness to exert oneself", it is also used to describe something slow-moving such as a river or as a style of branding livestock.

Answer: lynx

This one is an example of a perfect pangram, using each letter of the alphabet only once.

A lynx is any one of four species - the bobcat, the Canada lynx, the Eurasian lynx and the Iberian lynx. All are forest dwellers (although the bobcat can thrive outside of forest areas) and opportunistic hunters of various mammals such as rabbits and hares or roe deer for the larger Eurasian lynx. All have faced habitat challenges but it is the Iberian lynx that is most endangered, with fewer than 100 individuals known to exist at the start of the 21st century, all in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia. However, conservation activities allowed numbers to recover in the first 20 years of the century and it was reclassified from endangered to vulnerable.

Answer: Sphinx

A sphinx doesn't have to have the head of a human, it can in theory be any animal, but it always has the body of a lion. In Greek depictions it also has the wings of an eagle and the head is almost always that of a woman. Because of its mythical role as a guardian, whether as an aggressive creature in Greek mythology or a benevolent one in Egyptian mythology, the sphinx is frequently found at the entrance to temples.

The most famous sphinx is the Great Sphinx of Giza, which is situated close to the Great Pyramid outside Cairo in Egypt, which dates to around 2600 BCE.

Answer: zebras

The missing letters here were z, b, r and s. Adding in an a and an e as well gives the requested striped equine mammals - zebras.

There are three species of zebra, the plains zebra, the mountain zebra and Grevy's zebra. The plains zebra is the most common and is ranged across eastern and southern Africa. The mountain zebra is endemic to south-west African countries of Namibia and Angola as well as South Africa. The least common is the endangered Grevy's zebra, the largest of the zebras. Mostly found in northern Kenya, its future is threatened by the reduction in the prevalence of the grasses on which the zebra feeds.

Answer: liquor

If you were in the East End of London there would be a second meaning of liquor; a parsley sauce, traditionally made with the water left over from making stewed eels that is served with pie and mash. However, the more commonly known meaning is the hard stuff - an alcoholic drink that goes through a process of distillation after fermentation, as opposed to a drink such as beer, which is purely fermented.

Distillation involves heating the liquid until its constituent parts evaporate, allowing for different parts of the liquid to be separated. Those that are not required are removed and the remaining parts are allowed to cool and through condensation, reform into a liquid.

Answer: jocks

The nickname for male athletes comes from a shortened version of the name of the apparel used to protect their intimate parts; the jockstrap. In Scotland, Jock is a variant of Jack, itself a diminutive of John. It is thought that referring to Scottish men in general as Jocks began with that nickname being given to the members of the Royal Regiment of Scotland in the army.

Answer: jukebox

The name for a jukebox has a very earthy root. The word "juke" was originally "jook" or "joog", meaning "wicked", and comes from a creole version of English used in the coastal areas of the south-eastern United States. A "jook joint" was the name given to a brothel and somehow, much to the horror of the semi-automated phonograph manufacturers, their product took its popular name from such places.

Answer: zombies

The concept of the zombie come originally from Haitian culture and particularly from the religion of Vodou. Vodou became the dominant religion in Haiti after the revolution that overthrew the French colonial powers and abolished slavery. The belief was that Vodou sorcerors called bokors could re-animate dead slaves, capturing the soul or spirit of the deceased, leaving the body as an empty shell that could be exploited for work by the bokor.

The modern interpretation of the zombie as the brain and flesh-eating undead is inspired by George A. Romero's 1968 movie "Night of the Living Dead". Even though the creatures in that movie were never described as zombies, the name became associated with them because of the writers in the French movie magazine, "Cahiers du Cinema". By the time of the sequel "Dawn of the Dead" in 1978, Romero had adopted the zombie name.

Answer: quixotic

The word quixotic comes into English from the titular character from Miguel de Cervantes' 17th century comic novel, "Don Quixote de la Mancha". Its anglicised pronounciation is different from the character's name but its meaning comes from the delusional Don, whose quest to revive the chivalrous ways of the knights-errant was a gentle satire on medieval servitude and a joyful look at the power of the imagination.

Answer: Jeopardy

Question: This long-running game show gives contestants clues in answer form and requires responses in the form of a question.

Answer: What is "Jeopardy!"?

It made its broadcast debut in 1964 and ran for eleven years with its original host, Art Fleming, before cancellation. It was briefly revived in 1978 with Fleming again at the helm but lasted just one year. It was revived again in 1984, this time with Alex Trebek as the host. He would remain the host for 37 seasons, taping his final shows in October 2020, just two weeks before his death.