The South End of Things Going North Quiz

Answer: a beaver tail

The low-growing beaver-tail cactus attains only six to twelve inches in height but spreads up to six feet in width. The paddle-like stems of the beaver-tail cactus, covered in needles, grow as wide as six inches and as long as a foot. And they do resemble a beaver's tail.

These cacti are common to the deserts of California, Utah and Arizona. The North American beaver is native to Canada, the United States and Mexico, and has been introduced to Argentina, Chile, Finland, France, Poland and Russia.

Answer: caboose

The Dutch word for a ship's cookhouse ("kambuis") evolved from a German word meaning a cabin built of wood on the weather deck of a ship. Cooking took place in such wooden cabins. Exactly how this food-related term came to be applied to the end-of-train car on railroads occupied by conductors and brakemen is unclear.

The iconic caboose is being replaced by ETDs: end-of-train devices which electronically emit radio signals, show lights and engage in braking.

Answer: flagellum

Flagellum is the Latin word for a whip. Single-cell entities have no need for whips so they use their flagella primarily as devices to propel them and secondarily as sensing organelles which detect chemicals and temperatures. All of the following have them: Vibrio cholerae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli. Psudomonas pneumonia, Helicobacter pylori and Salmonella.

Some cells have more than one flagellum; some have flagella on opposite ends which makes one wonder how they ever get anywhere at all.

Answer: bustle

A bustle was worn under the skirt in back so as to lift the skirt and prevent it from dragging. It has the practical effect of keeping skirt hems clean. The weight of skirt fabric had a tendency to pull down over the behind and flatten the garments under it.

The bustle countered this effect, as well. Bustles were made of cotton, feathers, horsehair, straw and other innovative materials. The term does not appear to be related to the English verb meaning to rush about excitedly.

Answer: rudder

Stern-mounted rudders were used by ancient mariners in Rome and China. The competing technology, steering oars, gave way to rudders early on. The rudder is a control surface which steers a boat through water. (Rudders on aircraft are slightly different and outside the scope of this question). Rudders are frequently used metaphorically, e.g. "Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer." ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Answer: to verbalize incessantly

Possibly English and possibly Irish, this expression (and its parallel companion "talk the hind legs off a dog") appear to be about 200 years old in British conversation. There is an even older expression ("talk the legs off a cast-iron pot") which is probably related.

The underlying notion is that the speaker is so verbose that the listener's legs drop off from atrophy while waiting for the speaker to get to the point.

Answer: the back of the house

When clinical psychologist Scott Haas investigated what drives chefs to run their own restaurants, he named the resulting book "Back of the House: The Secret Life of a Restaurant" (2013). In choosing this title, he adopted restaurant language used to describe the "back of the house" which includes those food storage, food preparation, cooking, serving/plating and dishwashing areas which the public never sees.

In many restaurants, there is a place where the cooks hand plates to the expediter who inspects them and gives them to runners/servers for delivery to the customers' tables.

This is called "the pass" and demarks the border between the front of the house and the back of the house.

Answer: rear admiral

A rear admiral is a commissioned naval officer (OF-8) of flag rank. A rear admiral outranks a captain and a commodore (rear admiral, lower half) and is outranked by a vice admiral. The use of the term "rear" derives from the English Royal Navy in which a squadron of ships would be commanded by a senior admiral on a ship in the center, assisted by a vice admiral who fought the lead ship and a rear admiral (the most junior admiral) who commanded the ships in the rear of the flotilla.

Answer: gluteus maximus

There are three muscles in the gluteal group: the gluteus maximus, the gluteus medius and the gluteus minimus. Athletes and physical therapists refer to them as the "glutes." The gluteus maximus is the main extensor muscle of the hip and has much to do with maintaining an erect posture.

It is also the muscle responsible for making the human behind look really good in a pair of tight jeans.

Answer: The end of the world

The 27 books of the New Testament end with The Book of Revelation, or The Revelation to John, or The Apocalypse, the specific title not being part of the original manuscripts. The book describes Saint John's vision of the end of the world and its replacement by a new world which is better. This is a common theme in Judeo-Christian apocalyptic literature and was received by its first readers as a message filled with hope.

The American rock band R.E.M. recorded "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" in 1987, and released it both on their album "Document" and as a single. Discerning the meaning of the lyrics is challenging. "The other night I dreamt of knives, continental drift divide, mountains sit in a line, Leonard Bernstein, Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs, birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic, slam but neck, right? Right!" They do appear to have something to do with the end of the world.