FunTrivia Humanities Mix: Vol 19 Quiz

Answer: three's a crowd

A common expression, it is often used to describe a social situation in which there is a third, unwanted party, often regarded as the "third wheel". The television show "Three's Company" was titled such as a play on this expression.

Question by player ScaryKoolaid

Answer: Sailors at sea

Sirens are mythological beings who would seduce and cause death for men. Often, at sea, sailors were said to be seduced by sirens (beautiful women, or, some say, mermaids), and fall into the water and drown. Sirens typically had enchanting, irresistible beauty and voices.

Question by player VBookWorm

Answer: sprinkles

The word that relates to all three is sprinkles. Water is sprinkled at some baptisms, light rain showers are called sprinkles of rain, and baked goods or ice cream have decorations or flavored sugary pieces on them called sprinkles.

Question by player MyGirl2000

Answer: hackney

The noun hackney means a coach or taxi for hire. The noun originally meant a horse for hire. Capitalized, it referred to Hackney, a borough in East London where such horses were kept. For this reason, harness horses were referred to generally as hacknies.

The term is sometimes shortened to "hack" with reference to a taxicab. When a word or expression is overused, it may become vulgar, commonplace, or clichéd through overexposure. The adjective hackneyed has been used in this sense from the 18th century. Attempts to connect the noun and the verb etymologically have been largely unsatisfying.

Question by player FatherSteve

Answer: All are real words

These are words that have largely fallen out of use now. A gongoozler is a person who mindlessly stares at anything. A snollygoster is a 19th century American word for a dishonest or unprincipled person, which was often used in relation to politicians. Wamblecropt describes a person having digestive issues so severe that they can't move.

Question by player Mixamatosis

Answer: thicket of trees/bushes

Although it is pronounced the same as the slang for police or a popular US reality TV show ("COPS"), it is actually a term for underbrush, coppice, a dense growth of bushes. If you thought 'ample supply', you were probably thinking of copious and if you said 'dead body', you've been watching too many crime dramas with corpses.

Question by player suzi_greer

Answer: sun standing still

The word "solstice" forms from the Latin word solstitium. This is a combination of the Latin words "sol", meaning sun, and "sistere", meaning to stand still. It literally translates to "the standing still of the sun". This reflected the observance at the point at which the earth's poles are closest (and furthest) to the sun and the apparent movement of the sun's path north or south stopping before changing direction

Question by player njbruce

Answer: In a U.S. military laundry

Of the choices offered, the laundry would be correct. The term skivvy came to mean a man's underwear T-shirt and the plural would include the underwear shorts as well. Originally used by American Navy and Marines as such, it found common use among all the services and on to the general populace in the U.S.

The earliest recorded uses were in 1932 (or even back in 1918, depending on which dictionary lists the citation). Unrelatedly, "skivvy" or "skivey" was "a female domestic servant" in London slang circa 1902.

The term was also used as slang for a prostitute during the Vietnam war. Australians and New Zealanders also use the word to refer to a close-fitting, long-sleeved t-shirt with a rolled collar.

Question by player njbruce

Answer: Plie

Plie is the most basic of all steps in ballet, and it is the building block that ballet dancers rely on.

Question by player subman44

Answer: squandering it

To "make ducks and drakes" of your gifts or resources is to squander them or use them recklessly. The phrase comes from the game ducks and drakes, which is a game of skipping flat stones (drakestones) along the surface of water. In "David Copperfield", Betsy Trotwood confided to young David that her estranged husband had "soon made ducks and drakes of what I gave him, sank lower and lower, married another woman..., became an adventurer, a gambler, and a cheat."

Question by player gracious1