Look Ma! No Hands! Trivia Quiz

Answer: malleus

The malleus is one of the three ossicles or middle ear bones; it is the tiny bone often referred to as the hammer. The calcaneus is the heel, the talus is the ankle, and the cuboid helps form the midfoot, where the arches occur.

Answer: athlete's foot

Athlete's foot is a form of ringworm or a fungus that typically attacks the skin of the feet, particularly around the toes. Few people know, however, that the fungus can spread to other parts of the body and that, if left untreated, a serious enough infection could occur that requires antibiotic treatment. A bunion is a growth of bone or tissue around the joint where the big toe connects with the foot. Club foot is a birth defect that causes one's foot to turn inward at the ankle.
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Answer: chiropod

Chiropod, which would mean "hand-foot" is not a real classification for animals; however, "chiropodist" used to be a term for a podiatrist. Also, "chiroptera" is the order containing bats, but "chiroptera" means "hand-wing", not "foot". An arthropod is a "joint-foot" or a creature with jointed feet--insects, spiders, crabs, shrimp, etc.

A cephalopod is an octopus or a squid, and the term means "head-foot". These creatures were given this name because of their exceptionally large heads that dangled downward.

A gastropod is a snail or slug and other similar creatures. "Gastropod" means "stomach-foot", a name given to these animals because observers mistakenly believed them to be crawling on their stomachs. In fact, snails' and slugs' stomachs are on the upper sides of their bodies.

Answer: codo

"Codo" is Spanish for "elbow", not quite the same as a "foot". "Piedi" is Italian for "foot"; it consists of the typical Latin root that occurs in English words like "pedal" and "pedestrian". "Stopa" is Polish for "foot"; notice the similarity between the word and what English speakers do with their feet - "take a "step". "Voet" is Dutch for "foot"; the "v" is pronounced like an "f".

Answer: spirochaete

How many recognized "spirochaete" as a kind of bacteria? :) A foot in poetry consists of a certain number of syllables with an emphasis consistently placed on specific syllables. For example, an iamb always consists of two syllables, with the second syllable receiving an emphasis. Iambic pentameter is one of the most popular metrical patterns in English poetry; each line of the poem consists of five (penta) feet, and each foot is an iamb (two syllables, the second syllable accented). Consider the first line of Shakespeare's Sonnet #18: "Shall I / com-PARE / thee TO / a SUM- / mer's DAY".

A trochee is the opposite of an iamb: it consists of two syllables, but the first syllable is emphasized rather than the second. An anapest consists of three syllables with the third syllable receiving an emphasis.

Answer: Oedipus

Oedipus was an ancient king of Thebes according to Greek myth. His tragic life has been retold in many plays, but the most famous is "Oedipus Rex" written by Sophocles during the early 400's B.C. When he was an infant, Oedipus's parents, the king and queen of Thebes, had his feet pierced together so that he could not crawl; then he was given to a servant to dispose of.

A prophecy had been told that Oedipus would grow up to murder his father and have children with his mother. As is usually the case, however, every time people attempt to prevent events foretold in prophecy, they cause the events to occur. Oedipus survives and grows up unaware of who his biological parents truly are.

As an adult, he kills a man, unaware that this man is his biological father, and after solving the Riddle of the Sphinx to save Thebes from that monster, he is presented the kingdom of Thebes and its queen, his own mother, with whom he has three daughters. Eventually, he learns the truth and purposefully blinds himself in his anger and horror before entering into exile.

Answer: Daniel Day-Lewis

Christy Brown frequently wrote poetry and painted with his left foot, his left leg being the only limb of which he had substantial control after the paralysis he suffered because of his cerebral palsy. Daniel Day-Lewis portrayed him in the 1989 Jim Sheridan film "My Left Foot", a film sharing the same name as Brown's autobiography. Day-Lewis won his first Academy Award for Best Actor in 1990 for his work on the film. Day-Lewis is known for his method acting, and he often refuses to step out of character until his work on a film is completed. Sometimes, such behavior takes a toll on his health.

Answer: "Walking on the Moon" by The Police

"Walking on the Moon" was released in November 1979. It became The Police's second number one hit in the United Kingdom after "Message in a Bottle" and reached number nine on the Australian charts, but it did not chart in the United States. The song was composed by Sting, the lead singer and bass guitarist for The Police.

In his own book "Broken Music," written in 2003, Sting claimed that the inspiration for this song came from walking back from his first "real" girlfriend's house back in his early days. Sting wrote, ". . . [B]eing in love is to be relieved of gravity."

Answer: The shoe is on the other foot.

"The shoe is on the other foot" probably became a popular expression in the 19th century, and the original expression may have been "the boot is on the other leg". Not until the 1800's did shoe and boot manufacturers begin making footwear designed specifically for right and left feet. Earlier, a shoe or boot could be worn on either foot interchangeably. If one switched the shoe on one foot to the other foot, then supposedly that foot could feel what the first foot felt. Thus, the expression is used to mean "conditions have been reversed" or even "now things are in my favor instead of yours" (the tables are turned).

Answer: a mile

A foot is usually considered .3048 of a meter. The origin of the term and of the precise length is assumed to be that a human foot was frequently used as a standard for measuring. However, the need arose for a consistent length so that "a foot" didn't mean different lengths for different people. Of course, anyone with common sense will quickly argue that most human feet are not 12 inches long.

The assumption is that the 12 inches was decided upon after measuring the length of a man's foot with a shoe on it.

After all, most people, when measuring with their feet, do so with shod feet. Who takes off his or her shoes to walk heel-toe when measuring?