Mixed Up Idioms 3 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Spot

"X marks the spot" is a saying often attributed to pirates regarding buried treasure and how it can be located on maps. In more everyday terms, it means that a highlighted area on a set of directions is where something we have been looking for, or need to be readily on hand, can be found.

Answer: Goose

A "wild goose chase" is a pursuit, a searching, a chase after something that proves to be impossible to obtain. This saying can be found in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" where Mercutio warns Romeo that he is pursuing the impossible, for "thou hastmore of the wild goose chase in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five".

This saying refers to a horse race where all but the lead horse never have a chance of winning, because they have to follow that leading horse at a specified distance - like a wedge of geese following a leading goose in flight.

Answer: Through thick and thin

To stand by someone or some belief or some action "though thick and thin" means to stick to your belief in that entity, in good times and in bad, no matter what may happen to try to change your mind. Interestingly, this saying originally meant to try to work your way through the thick covering of trees or the sparser vegetation in a forest.

Answer: Again

"You can say that again!" is a term that means the speaker has heartily endorsed what another person has just said. Other ways of expressing this could be a milder "I sincerely agree with you, old boy", or, just a simple "Hear, hear!".

Answer: Three sheets to the wind

"Three sheets to the wind" in a nautical term that describes someone who is very drunk. The sheets referred to are not, as one may think, the sails on a ship, but refer instead to the ropes that hold them in place. When three sheets are not tied down properly, and flapping in the wind, then the sails they anchor will also be loose and flapping everywhere.

This has the effect of making the ship lurch all over the place, a description not unlike an intoxicated person trying to walk straight. This nautical used to be "Three sheets IN the wind" but in more recent years, it's become "Three sheets TO the wind". Either will be accepted for this question. (Thanks to Editor Fifiona81 for suggestions for this one.)

Answer: Under a bus

To "throw (someone) under a bus" or "under the bus" is to have abandoned a friend in his or her time of need, so that you gain from your betrayal. You have denied that person, disavowed him or her because of an unpopular stance taken by him or her, or because you have received some advantage by doing so. Or you have shifted the total blame for some wrongdoing onto that person alone when you were involved in it as well.

Answer: Sleep

"Sleep with the fishes" or "Sleeping with the fishes" is another way of describing death, but death that hasn't occurred in a normal way. It has menacing overtones that suggest someone has been done away with instead and thrown into the drink. An example of this saying can be seen in the 1972 mafia movie "The Godfather" where it is stated that fellow criminal "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes".

He's been bumped off, in other words, and his body disposed of in the ocean.

Answer: Pigeons

To "put the cat among the pigeons" is to cause trouble in some way, simply just by being there or by going out of one's way to deliberately create an uproar. This interesting expression is also occasionally known as "flutter the dovecote".

Answer: A grain of salt

If you take anything that another person has told you not too seriously, you have taken it with "a grain of salt". You've used your common sense instead of accepting that statement on face value.

Answer: Tripping the light fantastic

"Tripping the light fantastic" means that you are dancing, gracefully or otherwise. This term originates with the poet John Milton (1608-1674) in his 1632 work "L'Allegro", where, when referring to the light and graceful movement of the dance, he says "Come and trip it as you go, On the light, fantastick (sic) toe".