Up and Down in the Night! Trivia Quiz

Answer: betide

Dating back to the late 12th century, 'betide' means happen, happen to or befall. It is now rarely seen except in the phrase 'woe betide (a person or group)', which wishes misfortune on that person or group should some unwanted action be taken. For example, woe betide anyone who steals my chocolate cake!

Answer: debit

As a verb, 'debit' means the removal of funds (money) from an account. A 'debit' is an item of debt, recorded on the left hand side of the ledger (credits go on the right). Debit comes from the Latin 'debere', which means 'to owe'.

Answer: diet

The Diet (or Imperial Diet) is the national legislature of Japan. Consisting of an Upper and a Lower House, the Diet was created by the Meiji Constitution of 1889 and then significantly altered by the Constitution of 1947. Whilst keeping the Lower House of Representatives, the 1947 change altered the previous Upper House of Peers (largely appointed) to the House of (elected) Councillors.

Answer: die

A die is singular, while two (or more) of these cubed objects with numbers 1-6 on the faces are referred to as dice. The word 'die' comes through the French 'dé' from the Latin 'datum', meaning something that is given. Datum is also used in English, with the plural of data. Opposite sides of each die add up to 7 and the odds of getting any particular number is 1 in 6.

Answer: id

Sigmund Freud's structural model of the human psyche was first introduced in 1920 and formalized in his book, 'The Ego and the Id', in 1923. Freud contended there were three components of the psyche, the id, the ego and the superego. The id describes the instinctive desires that are present at birth.

The id is driven by the pleasure principle which is the need to immediately address desires. Freud called it the 'dark, inaccessible part of our personality'.

Answer: I

Pronouns in the nominative case (usually the subject of the verb) are I, you, he, she, they, we and it. Self-referencing means you are talking about yourself; hence I ran, I read, I think. In contrast, the accusative case refers to the object. The self referencing accusative pronoun is 'me'.

Answer: ti

The solfège method refers to a common method of teaching pitch in music. Many people may know this method from watching 'The Sound of Music' where Julie Andrews teaches the children about music through the song 'Do Re Mi'. These are the first three tones in the scale and they are followed by fa so la ti (do).

This is commonly called the sol-fa scale. There are variants on the pronunciation and lettering of several of these tones (e.g. doh instead of do, sol instead of so).

Answer: nit

A 'nit' most commonly refers to the egg of a louse (usually a head louse). Head lice are a regular, albeit relatively non-serious, health concern with younger children, especially in a school environment, as they spread rapidly from child to child. Chemical treatment is normally required to kill off both the lice and their eggs (nits).

There is no link between nit and 'nitwit' meaning a silly or stupid person. The latter term derives from old German or Yiddish for 'not with wit (intelligence)'.

Answer: hint

The word hint, meaning a clue or helpful suggestion, originated from the middle English 'hinten' (to tell or inform) in the early 15th century. It can also be traced back to the word 'hunt'.

Answer: night

In the context of sleep patterns, diurnal is the antonym of nocturnal. Hence a diurnal animal sleeps at night and is active during the day. A little confusingly, 'diurnal' can also refer to daily meaning the full 24 hours, but this is usually in the context of daily cycles as distinct from weekly or monthly. I hope you picked up the link between 'bedtime' as the 7-letter starter and the final answer of 'night'!