Mind Your Ps and Qs Trivia Quiz

Answer: Who knows?

Nobody seems to know the exact origin of this phrase. When I was a little tot, my grandmother always admonished me to "Mind your Ps and Qs", as in "Remember to say "Please' and 'Thank you'." That's one explanation of the origin of this stricture. Another quite logical explanation is that in the days when newspapers were set in lead type, the letters were kept in two boxes above the typesetting machine - the upper box contained capital letters, the lower box contained small letters (which is where we get the terms upper and lower case, just in case you're interested). Apprentice printers were always told not to mix up p and q, since the two compartments were side by side, and it was easy to mistake a p for a q.

Hence, "Mind your Ps and Qs." Yet another suggestion is that in the 18th century, English publicans kept a running tab on a chalk board for each customer, and would list thereon how many pints or quarts said customer had on his tab.

It was a good idea to mind one's Ps and Qs, in order to make sure one could pay one's bill, and to make sure one didn't get too drunk, I suppose!

Answer: A primitive pipe bomb

A petard was a weapon invented in the 15th century, and it consisted of an iron pipe filled with gunpowder which was attached to the gates of a city under siege, or the portcullis of a castle under siege. The trick was to light the fuse to set off the gunpowder and get away before one was killed in the explosion (hoist with your own petard, in other words)! Grappling hooks were used in war at sea and would be cast onto the side of the opposing vessel.

Answer: Bildad and Peleg

Bildad and Peleg, whom Melville characterizes as 'Fighting Quakers', are co-owners of the Pequod. Bildad is the character who takes the ship's crew to task for using profanity. Captain Ahab, of course, was the captain of the whaling ship, while Queequeg is a harpooner from New Zealand. Peter Coffin is the owner of the Spouter Inn in New Bedford, which is where Ishmael meets Queequeg, thus beginning a close friendship.

Answer: On your head

Peruque is a French word for a wig, and is particularly applicable to the wigs worn in the 17th and 18th centuries. Judges and barristers wore full bottomed wigs, that came down to the shoulders (as criminal court judges still do in the UK), while military men preferred their wigs with pigtails and side curls.

In England, wigs were called perukes or periwigs. The fashion for wigs reached the heights - or lengths - of hairiness in the late 17th to mid-18th centuries, when both men and women wore mounds of artificial hair. Women's wigs reached ridiculous heights and the wearers had to bend down to get through a doorway.

Moreover, their wigs were decorated with a variety of strange items - small ships, jewelled miniature towers, for instance. When one considers the general lack of personal hygiene in those days, one shudders to think what may have been nesting in all that hair!

Answer: Keep accounts

Quipu is an ancient Peruvian word meaning 'knot', and a quipu was a length of rope just under a metre in length that was made of vari-coloured threads tied in knots. The different knots and coloured threads represented numerical combinations, and the quipu was used by the Incas to keep track of buying and selling accounts, to record information, etcetera.

Answer: A missile

A quarrel is a metal bolt fired from a crossbow. It could make a nasty dent in one's armour!

Answer: In a tobacconist's shop

A quid is a piece of chewing tobacco, and while you might find one in a museum or on a sailing ship, you'd be more likely to find it in a shop that sells tobacco. Chewing tobacco was sold in chunks, and they're called quids because one chews them - quid is another form of cud. Check your cows - they might be chewing tobacco! For some reason, quid is also a slang term for the English pound (in currency).

Answer: Dublin

The word first appeared around 1780, and the story goes that a Mr. Daly, a theatre manager in Dublin, laid a bet that he could invent a word that would be on everyone's lips within 24 hours. Overnight, it seems, the new four-letter word was chalked on walls, fences, gateposts - anywhere it could be written - and everyone in Dublin was asking what it meant. Mr. Daly won his bet. Later, the word came to mean anyone who was a bit eccentric or one who gossiped, and readers of Jane Austen will be familiar with the term 'Bath quizzes', meaning the clique of dowagers who inhabited Bath, a fashionable watering place in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

There wasn't much else to do in Bath except drink the foul-tasting water at the spa, so the dowagers occupied their time by gossiping about all and sundry. Quiz can also mean one who teases.

Answer: A Christian sect

The Quintillians were members of an heretical Christian sect in the second century C.E., founded by Quintilia, a self-proclaimed prophetess. They used bread and cheese at Eucharist and ordained women as priests and bishops.

Answer: A rhetorical term

Periphrasis is the rhetorical term for an overabundance of words, as in 'at this point of time' instead of 'now'. Politicians and bureaucrats seem to suffer from periphrasis more than anyone else!