K, V, W, or Y? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Waikiki

Waikiki is a beach resort and suburb of Honolulu, Hawaii, the 50th state to join the USA but geographically part of Oceania, not North America. Karachi is a major port city in Pakistan. Yonkers is near The Bronx, New York City. Valdosta is in south Georgia.

Remember to read all of the questions carefully. Some are deliberately tricky.

Answer: victual

"Victuals" is actually pronounced "vittles", which is food prepared for consumption, and yes, in olden days they would say "Come victual with me."

Knackwurst (a kind of sausage) and yodel (to sing rapidly between one's normal voice and falsetto) don't make sense here. Although "wassail" may be a verb, no one in the Appalachian mountains would use it, and it is pronounced as it is spelled, and it would describe a drink but never a stew.

Answer: voles

A yapok is a water opossum found in Central America. Wombats and koalas live in Australia, along with wallabies and kangaroos. A vole resembles a mouse; in fact, the field mice that you may find seeking refuge in your home at wintertime may actually be voles. They are found throughout Eurasia and the Americas.

Answer: vicuņa

A vicuņa is a cousin of the llama. A keythong is similar to a griffin, except that it lacks wings. A wyvern is a two-legged dragon. A yale is a goat-like creature with swiveling horns.

Answer: Lake Kissimmee

Lake Kissimmee is sometimes where folks stay who actually have come to see Orlando and Walt Disney World. Lake Kissimmee State Park boasts daily cowboy exhibitions and over thirteen miles of hiking trails.

Yellowstone Lake is part of Yellowstone *National* Park (not a state park) in Wyoming. Lake Wobegon is a fictional Minnesota town made famous on the National Public Radio program "A Prairie Home Companion". Veronica Lake was a Hollywood movie star of the 1940s.

And can someone tell me why we say "Lake Kissimmee" and "Lake Superior" but not "Lake Yellowstone"?

Answer: W

Tungsten is called wolfram in many European countries, hence W. K also doesn't match its English element name either, which is potassium (also known as kalium). V is for vanadium, named after a Scandinavian deity because of its colorful compounds. Y represents yttrium, used to make the color red in television picture tubes.

Answer: Yorick

Between 1066 and 1946, there were four Williams on the throne of England, beginning with William the Conqueror. Queen Victoria set the record for the longest-reigning monarch in England's history, until she was surpassed by Elizabeth II. Henry VIII married three different Katherines: Katherine of Aragon, Katherine Howard, and Katherine Parr.

Their names are sometimes spelled with a 'C'. There was never a Yorick in the royal lineage, but there should have been.

Answer: Kentucky bluegrass

Welsh rarebit (sometimes called "Welsh rabbit") is basically cheese on toast with a savory sauce. Yorkshire pudding is a muffin-like concoction served with roast beef. Valencia oranges are better for juicing than for eating, but they might be served in a restaurant, perhaps as part of ambrosia (oranges, bananas, coconut).

Kentucky bluegrass is a beautiful meadow grass that originally came from Europe. While it is grown at times for fodder in Kentucky and Virginia, human beings can't really eat it.

Answer: watt

Remember that this is how a physicist or engineer would use these terms. Kudos if you got this right!

Watt measures power, meaning work done over time, that is, the rate at which energy is expended. Another unit of power would be the horsepower, which equals about 746 watts in the USA. Horsepower is to engines as watts are to lightbulbs.

A kilowatt-hour is a unit of energy, not power, typically used by electric companies. Multiply power (kilowatt, or a thousand watts) by time (hours) to get the amount of energy delivered to your household (for which the electric company sends you a bill).

A volt is a measure of electric potential. The technical definition is "the difference of potential that would drive one ampere of current against one ohm resistance." There is no easy way to explain this in a trivia quiz. It is roughly analogous to water pressure.

A yoke may describe a pair of oxen pulling a plow, but it never really caught on as unit of power.

Answer: VY

KY = Kentucky the 15th state, home of the Kentucky Derby, birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, and formerly a (very large) county of Virginia.

WV = West Virginia, the 35th state, also formed from Virginia, during the Civil War, after Virginia had already seceded.

WY = Wyoming, the 44th state and the first state to recognize women's right to vote.