Exploring Tegucigalpa! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Capital

The word "capital" was first mentioned in the 13th century, as an adjective meaning "of or pertaining to the head", primarily from Latin "capitalis", meaning "of the head", always with the sense of principal, chief. The word "capital" in the sense used in this quiz "city or town that is the official seat of government", dates from the 15th century. This word has other meanings when used in economics and architecture.

Tegucigalpa is not only the largest city in Honduras, it is also its capital. Tegucigalpa was founded by Spanish settlers in 1578 as a gold and silver mining center. In 1880, it replaced the former capital Comayagua, also a very old city founded in 1537. Tegucigalpa is situated in a valley surrounded by mountains and located 975 meters above sea level.

Answer: Apiculate

The words caliphate, cartilage and duplicate contain some letters that do not appear in Tegucigalpa. The word apiculate can be formed using the letters in Tegucigalpa and is used to describe something that ends abruptly in a small, distinct point.

With this meaning, the word appeared first in 1804. Apiculate is used in botany to describe the shape of some leaves. The term comes from the New Latin "apiculus", which is the diminutive of apic-, apex.

Answer: Plague

"The Plague" is a 1947 novel by the French writer Albert Camus (1913-1960), whose central theme is the concept of "freedom". The background of the novel is the French Algerian city Oran that is under a cholera epidemic and whose residents must be quarantined. I think the subject of this book is very current.

The word "plague" can be used as a verb and as a noun. The verb "to plague" means to cause persistent trouble or distress. As a noun the word refers to a disease that spreads rapidly, affecting a large part of the population, with a high mortality rate.

Answer: Tulip

According to literature, the word tulip appeared in Europe in the 1550s. Its origin seems to be from the Ottoman Turkish "tülbend" from Persian "delband" (turban) may be due to the similarity between the shape of the flower and the turban used by the Turks.

Tulips are very colorful flowers and popular in gardens. Tulips, onions, garlic and asparagus are part of the Lily family. This plant originates from the Himalayas region. In 1551 the ambassador of Vienna in Constantinople sent a letter to his country talking about this plant. In 1562 the first shipment of tulip bulbs arrived in Antwerp, starting commercial production of tulips in Europe. In the mid 1630s there was a frenzy for tulips, the bulb prices reached absurd heights, resulting in the "Tulip Mania", when a precipitous drop in prices took place and several families in the Netherlands went bankrupt.

Answer: Plateau

The word "plateau", as used in this quiz, dates from 1796, meaning "elevated tract of relatively level land". In the 12th century, in Vulgar Latin appears *plattus, from Greek plates, meaning "flat, wide, broad".

Plateaus along with plains, hills and mountains. is one of the four major landforms. A plateau is a flat large area of high ground level that rises sharply over the surrounding areas or at least on one side. Sometimes these areas, as in Honduras, are surrounded by mountains

Honduras is the most mountainous country in Central America; it has several mountain ranges among which are its main plateaus: Siguatepeque, Santa Rosa, La Esperanza and Santa Ana.

Answer: Palace

The word "palace" means big residence, especially royal residence or the residence of an important person. The word is derived from the Latin word "palātium", from Palatine Hill in Rome where the imperial residences were located.

When the Honduran capital moved from Comayagua to Tegucigalpa in 1880, the president's official residence became a two-story wood house located in Plaza La Merced. In 1998, after several changes, the executive's residence became the "Honduran Presidential Palace" also named "Palace José Cecilio del Valle". The building, built in 1988 by architect Jorge L. Durón Bustillo, housed the Ministry of External Relations.

Answer: Gulag

The term "gulag" was initially an acronym referring to the administration of forced labor camps, used to detain political enemies, especially intellectuals in the Soviet Union. The term is used to refer to any detention camp in the Soviet Union, and became popular with the publication of the book "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), first published in 1973.

The book was based on interviews, documents and in the author's own experience, who was imprisoned for eight years in labor camps.

Answer: Pea

Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884) was an Augustinian monk and botanist. In 1843 he went to seminary at Brünn (Brno) and then to the University of Vienna where he attended a scientific initiation program. In 1854, back at the seminar, he started a plant hybridization program with the objective of verifying how the transmission of genetic characters between generations occurs.

For his experiments, Mendel chose the edible pea (Pisum sativum), an annual herbaceous plant, easy to grow and control of pollination, whose seeds have a high germination rate. His results, presented to the Natural History Society of Brno in 1866, were criticized and not taken into account during his lifetime. Only after 1900, scientists rediscovered Mendel's work and gave him the due credit.

The word "pea" is actually a back-formation of Middle English "pease", which was a mass noun (like "oatmeal"), but mistaken in the 17th century for a plural noun. Going back farther, it's from Old English "piose" or "pise", from Latin "pisa", which itself was mistaken for the feminine singular, when it was actually the plural of "pisum". That word was borrowed from the Greek "pison", whose origin is unknown. And that is why the pease porridge in the pot is nine days old; the cook got confused.

Answer: Mouth

The mouth is the opening that exists in the lower part of the human face; it is through the mouth that food is ingested and sounds are emitted. The word mouth is derived from the Old English "mūp", which means opening, door, gate. Linguists do not agree on the exact origin of the word.

The palate is the upper part or the roof of the mouth that separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. The anterior part of the palate, named hard palate, consists of a plate of bone covered by a mucosa. It has a very important function during chewing because the structure does not allow food, once in the mouth, to press the nasal cavity, making breathing difficult. The posterior part, the soft palate, is a muscular portion that ends in an elongate projection called the uvula.

Answer: Teacup

The word teacup in its present sense appeared in the 1700s. It is a cup larger than the coffee cup. It is usually a cup with a handle used in conjunction with a saucer for hot beverages.

The word "teacup" often appears in the idiomatic expression: "to make a storm in a teacup", which is used when someone is very upset, worried about something that is not so important and that is often easy to solve. The lyrics of the song "Storm in a teacup" recorded by the British group "The Fortunes" in 1972 make clear the meaning of the expression "storm in a teacup".