A Brand New Key Trivia Quiz

Answer: Front door

Children whose parents both work sometimes have to let themselves into their homes after school, if they are old enough to be alone for awhile until Mum and Dad get home from work. In order to do so they need to have their own front door key.

Answer: Starts a car's engine

Driving a car is a serious business and should only be done by people who hold a valid driving license, and who are not in any way impaired or distracted. The age at which one can obtain a learner's permit, and subsequently a license, varies from place to place, but typically is sixteen or seventeen.

Answer: Hotel front desk

Each key has a tag with the room number and hangs on the corresponding hook on the board by the hotel's front desk. When guests check in they are given their key so they can come and go from their room. When they check out they return the key so the next guest can use it. Many hotels have started to use key cards instead of traditional metal keys.

Answer: Strongbox

The image shows an old U.S. Treasury Department seal, from the early 1800s which depicts a strongbox and a watchdog protecting the key to that item. Legend has it that the dog was named Nero, and really was owned by the U.S. Mint at that time.

Answer: Love

This bridge is in Lithuania, but there are many such bridges in various countries around the world. The locks are symbolic of a couple's love and the lasting nature of that love, symbolized by tossing the keys into the river.

Answer: Piano

A piano usually has a total of 88 keys, while some accordions and electric keyboards have similar layouts with fewer keys. Trumpets have keys, or valves, but they are brass and look very different. An ocarina is a small wind instrument with fingerholes instead of keys, and a timpani is a set of kettle drums.

Answer: Yes

The metal rims on the keys mark this as an old-fashioned manual typewriter such as the one I used when learning to type. The word typewriter originally meant the person who used the machine and not the machine itself. Between this model and modern computers came electric typewriters and word processors.

Answer: To make him move

If you turn the key in his side several times and then put him on the floor he will walk and move his arms. Be careful not to overwind the key, otherwise the mechanism might break.

Before toys needed batteries to make them move, many were of the clockwork or wind-up variety, including cars, animals, drumming monkeys and much more.

Answer: War of 1812

The War of 1812 was ended by the Treaty of Ghent in December 1814, though because communications were much slower in those days another battle took place in New Orleans early in 1815, before the armies knew the war had ended. The date of the bombardment of Fort McHenry can be seen on the plaque.

As a surname, Key has many possible derivations, including someone who made keys or possibly someone who lived near the docks, or quays (pronounced "keys").

Answer: Telegraph key

Long before the internet, e-mails or text messages, people used the telegraph to send important messages, using Morse code tapped out by skilled operators using keys like this one. When the message was received on the other end it was written out and delivered, often by a boy on a bicycle, to the intended recipient.