Anything Goes Five Trivia Quiz

Answer: Finger Fumbler

Tongue-twisters are word games that are fun, but are also designed to help people improve the clarity of their diction. They are excellent training for children with speech problems as well, but of course very easy ones should be the first step with this under the guidance of a speech therapist.

More than anything else though, they're quite entertaining and can lead to some very funny mistakes. Some famous ones include "She sells sea-shells on the sea shore" and "Yellow lever, Red lever" and "Good blood, bad blood".

The sign language equivalent of the spoken tongue-twister is known as a finger-fumbler, so one imagines fingers would be flying everywhere as a result.

Answer: For wasting a torpedo

Seriously. USS PC-496 was built in Wisconsin, USA in 1941 and launched in November that year, commissioned in New Orleans in 1942, assigned to patrol the European waters of operations in 1943, and was sent to a watery grave in 1943 off the coast of Tunisia, by an Italian submarine. It only took the poor little vessel one minute to go down, taking five of her crew with her. Crew members were rescued by various allied ships in the area.

USS PC-496's job in her short life was that of submarine chaser, and this is what led to her demise. Or was it? Not at all. The captain of the Italian submarine lurking not far from her side mistook USS PC-496 for a destroyer, and the short-sighted fellow sent off his deadly torpedo as a result. Nevertheless, a sunken enemy ship is a sunken enemy ship, so was he rewarded for his vigilance? Not at all. Instead, that myopic captain of the Italian submarine was court martialed for wasting a torpedo on such a small ship. Talk about ingratitude.

Answer: First dictionary to call itself an English dictionary

How's that for a fine piece of trivia for you? Published by lexicographer, Henry Cockeram, in 1623, this work was the first English language dictionary to include the word "dictionary" in its title. The tome was relatively successful, contained nothing startling, met with no criticism, and was republished eleven more times between 1623 and 1658.

The word "dictionary" evolves from the medieval Latin "dictionarium" which translates to "a collection of words and phrases" and "dictionarium" was used in the title of a work on Latin words published c. 1220 by John of Garland. Three hundred or so years later, Sir Thomas Elyot used the word in his 1538 work, "Latin Dictionary", but Henry Cockeram takes the credit for the first use of his "English Language Dictionary". Riveting stuff. What, one wonders, is the etymology of the word "boring"?

Answer: The devil

Originally known as Beaver Creek, this little town was quite a prosperous little place at one stage, with its own "post office, three general stores, a cotton gin, a cotton seed-oil press, grist mill, saw mill, brick kiln, hotel, and livery stables" (Wikipedia). Today however, there isn't much left of this community at all, apart from a small church and a few houses.

At one period during its period of growth, it was noted by the County Land Office that one half acre of land, adjoining an hotel, had been left out in the original setting out of land allotments, so that office, asking for trouble it seems, deeded it to the devil - after which it became known as Hell's Half Acre. After a saloon was built on the site, it promptly burned down (oh oh). Eventually a church decided to build on the site, so the name Hell's Half Acre was altered to omit the reference to hell. If you're superstitious, however, it was too late. The town began to melt away. Perhaps it was from the heat.

Answer: No

In fact, although female roos can sometimes have a brief disagreement with one another, they rarely lost their dignity by resorting to blows. How uncouth. The very idea. Males, on the other hand, are known to disagree more often, but even this is never to the death. These fights, when they occur, are usually over a fertile female, or limited feeding resources in times of drought. Fights are either brief and over in a few seconds, but longer fights are more ritualised in nature. If this is the case, males will usually assume an upright stance facing one another, and one male will grab the other around the neck to signal the onset of the challenge. If accepted, both will then box at each other's neck or chest or shoulders (but never below the belt, goodness me no, our roos are honourable chaps).

As the fight progresses, they will then attempt to wrestle one another to the ground by locking their forearms and pushing. If one sees an opening, he will then balance back on his tail, and give his opponent a hefty kick with his powerful back legs. The fight is over when one or the other gives up and hops away - but not with his tail between his legs. He'd fall over if that happened. Kangaroos have to use their tails to maintain equilibrium. One other way that a forthcoming tussle may be on the way is when a dominant male, trying to intimidate a rival, will signal his intent by pulling up a pawful of grass. Ooh, terrifying indeed. Hop for your life!

Answer: The funeral of a deceased

Following the uprisings in Soweto in South Africa during the 1980s, and during the funeral service of one of the participants in the uprisings, a car was stolen, and spun round and round at a very fast speed to honour his death. This soon caught on and became a "popular" event at subsequent funerals. Eventually this activity became a legitimate sport in that country - and is very dangerous.

Not only do drivers now drive vehicles around in circles at top speed, they climb out of the spinning cars (hopefully obtained legally) to do death defying stunts at the same top speed.

The most reckless of these drivers become recognised as top celebrities. One presumes their peculiar careers only last until their own probably rapidly occurring funerals take place.

Answer: Rodeo

Born Louis Burton Lindley Junior in 1919, Slim Pickens worked in rodeo for twenty years before he branched out into film. He went on to appear in almost ninety films and multiple television shows for the rest of his career. An excellent horseman from a young age, most of his silver screen appearances were in Westerns. Slim chose the nickname he went by for most of his life when, as a teenager, he put his name down to compete in a local rodeo. The manager of the event took one look at the hopeful youth, and tried to discourage him by saying that there'd be "slim pickings" for him because of his age and inexperience. Slim, however, had already been roping steers and riding indignant green horses for some time - and went on to win a few hundred dollars that day. Because his father disapproved of rodeo, and even more of the idea of his son taking part in any such events, Slim hid his future rodeo moonlighting participations from him by entering all other shows from that time, under the name of Slim Pickens.

Did you know that Slim had a brother who was also an actor, but not nearly as well known as Slim? He went, believe it or not, by the name of Easy Pickens.

Answer: Heated rods of bronze

Ah the ladies, God bless 'em. If hair is curly, they like it straightened - and vice versa. Clever women of the Babylonian age, not to be put off by the fact that hair curlers or rollers as we know them today, had not yet been invented, simply heated up hot rods, wound strands of their hair around them, and allowed them to cool down so that the hair retained the curled shape when the rods were removed. Out in America's early days of western expansion, women solved their hair curling problem in a somewhat similar manner by heating up lead pencils and winding hair around these.

These very inventive methods definitely worked, but hair was sometimes burned or damaged as a result. Women would have been wiser perhaps to curl wet hair around pencils or sticks, and allow it to dry out in the sun naturally.

The same effect would have been achieved.

Answer: That Lisa remain vegetarian for the rest of the series

"Lisa the Vegetarian" was the fifth episode of series seven of the famous long-running animated show, "The Simpsons". In that episode, Lisa attends a petting zoo and becomes very attached to a little lamb there - so she decides to give up eating meat and become vegetarian. Her classmates, father Homer, and brother Bart all poke fun of her for this decision but Paul and Linda McCartney's characters support her decision to commit to this new life style - as did Apu, the Indian owner of Springfield's Kwik-E-Mart store. Both Paul and Linda, long time vegetarians in real life, were guest stars for this episode, but Paul would only do so on the condition that the creators of "The Simpsons" left Lisa as a vegetarian for the rest of the series. And so she was.

During this episode, Lisa also rescues a pig that is about to be barbecued by Homer (they escape on a ride-on mower), but all's well that ends well when Homer gives Lisa a "vegie-back" ride back home.

Answer: Sheep fat

When cooked, ul boov cake looks a little like the inside of a decorated moccasin. The name itself is Mongolian for "shoe sole cake" and, based on the shape of the finished product, this is pretty apt really. Ingredients for ul boov include sheep fat, flour, salty water, sugar and butter.

It is made by Buddhists in Mongolia as part of a large feast to celebrate their lunar new year, and the various foods included in this feast look quite tasty. Lunar new year is known as Tsagaan Sar in the Mongolian language, and the celebrations for same date right back at least to the days of Genghis Khan.

When the communists took over Mongolia in 1924, they banned the celebration of Tsagaan Sar because of its associated religious and cultural overtones, and forced Mongolians to replace it with a holiday called "Collective Herders Day" instead. Following the Democratic Revolution in this country in 1990, however, Mongolians thumbed their collective noses at that enforced change, and swiftly reverted back to celebrating Tsagaan Sar once again.