Colours Are Something Else Trivia Quiz

Answer: Greens

Spring greens are the obvious vegetable, but the term can be used to refer to cabbage, kale or spinach, to name a few. Very often it is heard in the sentence 'Eat up your greens'. Generations of British school children will remember those greens having been boiled to death before being plonked on their plate, probably alongside lumpy mashed potato and some unspecified meat smothered in thick gravy. However it is possible to cook green vegetables in a tasty and appetising manner, which doesn't involve removing all the beneficial vitamins.

Greens could also refer to putting greens on a golf course, or to village greens, which can be the scene of weekend cricket matches or summer fairs. Someone who is very environmentally friendly can be described as being green. It is also used as a description of someone who is inexperienced.

Answer: Pinks

Pinking shears are special scissors with blades that cut neat zig-zag edges. They are very useful for cutting cloth to stop it fraying, or to put a decorative edge on paper or card. Pinks are also pink or white garden flowers similar to a carnation.

An engine making a rattling noise can be described as pinking. Being in the pink is to be fit and healthy. Pink is also a term for two types of sailing ships, both with narrow sterns. From the Italian 'pinco', a small flat-bottomed ship was used for cargo in the Mediterranean Sea. The Dutch word 'pincke' gave the name to similar, but larger, vessels used in the Atlantic Ocean.

Answer: Ivories

Traditionally piano keys were made from ebony and ivory. Ebony, being a very dark wood, was used for the black keys. The white keys were covered in strips of ivory which led to the expression 'tinkling the ivories' to refer to playing the piano. By the twenty-first century, concerns about the danger of extinction of many animals, including elephants, led to a ban on the ivory trade, so piano keys were made from plastic.

Ivory is used to describe a pale cream shade, often for the fabric of a wedding dress. An ivory tower is a term for a state of isolation, free from the everyday problems of the real world; the term comes from Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, a nineteenth century French author.

Answer: Oranges

Oranges come in many different sizes, and degrees of sweetness. Seville oranges are bitter, but are good for making into marmalade. Jaffa oranges can be squeezed to make a drink which is full of vitamin C. Satsumas, are small, sweet and easy to peel, so ideal for a lunch-box or snack. Blood oranges have tougher skins than some others, but the flesh inside is dark red.

Surprisingly, the name of the colour comes from the name of the fruit, rather than the other way round. It comes from the Arabic 'naranj' and the Persian 'narang'.

Answer: Creams

Creaming butter and sugar is the first stage of making many cakes. After that, eggs are added, then flour is mixed in. The butter and sugar should each be the same as the total weight of the eggs. The flour could be the same, but could weigh more depending on the type of cake. The cake can have added flavourings such as lemon juice, melted chocolate or chopped cherries. It can then be cooked as one big cake, or smaller cakes. Afterwards it, or they, could be filled with jam, or decorated with sifted sugar or frosting.

Creams may also refer to products rubbed into the skin for medical or cosmetic purposes. Cream rises to the top of milk which has been left to stand, so the word is also used to refer to the best part of something, such as the cream of the crop.

Answer: Blues

Blues music originated in the southern states of the USA in the late nineteenth century. Having the blues was an expression used to describe someone who was depressed, so the term was applied to the songs, which often had melancholy themes. The blues can also be a nickname for a sports team which wears blue clothing.

In the singular, a blue can refer to someone who has represented Oxford or Cambridge universities in a sporting fixture, an argument with someone, or a redheaded person in the antipodes. Blue is the colour of the sky on a fine day, so something unexpected can be described as coming out of the blue.

Answer: Rubies

Ruby Murray was a popular singer in the UK in the 1950s. Her name was adopted as cockney rhyming slang for a curry. As happens with some other rhyming slang, the last half of the pair was dropped, with the result that a 'ruby' is a curry. Other examples are a 'barnet' for hair (Barnet Fair) and take a 'butcher's' for take a look (butcher's hook).

As well as being in use as a girl's name, a ruby is a red gemstone made from corundum. It is the gift traditionally associated with a fortieth wedding anniversary.

Answer: Whites

Traditionally, men in cricket teams would wear white, or cream, trousers and shirts, with the addition of a pullover if required. The pullover would often have stripes around its V-neck, cuffs and waist in colours appropriate to the cricket club. With the rise in the popularity of the one day version of the game, towards the end of the twentieth century, coloured clothing was introduced for those matches. However the traditional colour was retained for the longer version of the game, although the garments were often made of modern materials.

Tennis is another sport in which the players traditionally wore white clothing. There is a theory that it was because white would reflect the sun, and so help to keep the players cooler on hot days. By the end of the twentieth century, many players wore all sorts of colours, although some clubs and tournaments still insisted on white, including Wimbledon - the oldest of the Grand Slam tournaments.

Answer: Tans

In past times, rich people with naturally pale skins were able to retain them because they had no need to do manual labour in the sun. During the early and middle part of the twentieth century, it was seen as desirable to acquire a sun tan. Maybe because it was discovered that exposure to sunlight could hep prevent cases of rickets. By the end of the twentieth century, the link between over-exposure to the sun and skin cancer was well known, and excessive sunbathing was discouraged.

Tanning also refers to the process of making leather by soaking animal skins in a solution of tannic acid. Tanbark, or tan, is the bark of trees, such as oak, used to extract the tannin, or tannic acid. In trigonometry 'tan' is used as an abbreviation for 'tangent', which is the ratio of the sine of an angle to its cosine.

Answer: Violets

Violets are small dark purple flowers, which like shady areas, or dappled sunlight. There are many different types found in different parts of the world. They are often sweet smelling, and have been cultivated for medicinal purposes as well as decoration.

Violet, as a colour, is at the end of the spectrum as remembered by 'ROY G BIV', or, more interestingly, as 'Richard of York gave battle in vain'. It can be seen at the bottom of the curve in a rainbow, unless it is a reflected double rainbow, when it will be on the outside. Violet is also used as a girl's name.