Five Golden Rings Trivia Quiz

Answer: A confused and noisy classroom

If you've ever been to the circus, you know that a lot can be happening in the ring. At a three-ring circus, you've got acts competing for your attention, sometimes placed right next to each other.

The key factors in 'a three-ring circus' are noise and confusion.

Answer: True

'Ringing true' originally referred to the sound made when testing the quality of glass or metal (by hitting it and judging how it sounded against what was considered right).

Answer: Carousel rides

Around the turn of the last century (1880s - 1920s), carousel riders (in the outside row of horses) were often given the challenge of trying to grasp a ring as they went around. Typically, most of the rings were iron, but a couple would be brass. If you managed to grab one of the brass rings during your ride, it would be redeemable for a prize, or for another free ride.

Answer: Ringing off the hook

Nowadays, many styles of telephone no longer even use a 'hook', or cradle for a handset. At most, there is a charger for the handset battery pack. But it used to be that all phones had a separate handset from a base where the dialing apparatus (keypad or rotary dial) and cradle for the handset were.

When a phone would ring incessantly for a long period of time, with hardly a break between calls, it is referred to as 'ringing off the hook.'

Answer: Your hat

To 'throw your hat into the ring' has become synonymous with expressing your willingness to enter into a contest - and perhaps no place is it more evidently in use than in the political world, when candidates put their name forward for an election.

That said, it is believed that the origin of the phrase came from early boxing competitions, when those who wished to show their readiness to fight would throw their hat into the boxing ring.

Answer: True

The 'ring' in 'ringing up' your purchases is a direct reference to the cash registers of old, which would ring a bell with every completed (totalized) transaction.

For me, it always brings to mind the scene from the 1986 movie "Stand By Me" when Gordie Lachance (Wil Wheaton) takes the combined change of the four boys and gets their food at the store. The old cash register popped up the number figure with the expected 'ka-ching' sound.

Answer: Year

It was a tradition (in England) for the church bells to ring as midnight on New Year's Eve approached. The bells would ring a mournful tolling, as when marking someone's death, then switch to a more joyful pealing when the new year arrived.

Tennyson's 1850 poem "Ring Out, Wild Bells" makes reference to the custom in the second stanza:

"Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true."

Answer: "Goldy Curls and the Three Pandas"

Different things can have 'a familiar ring to it', depending on what you're hearing. It could be a story that is very similar to something you've heard before, or perhaps an excuse being given that has been tiredly overused. Maybe it's a name that tugs at your memory?

Suffice to say, when something has 'a familiar ring to it', it means that it sounds like something you know (but may not be SURE you know), or have heard before.

Answer: Bell-ringing (church bells)

In bell-ringing, changing between the different patterns is called, appropriately enough, a 'change'. 'Ringing the changes' meant that all the different patterns would be played through in sequence. Thus, 'ringing the changes' came to carry the meaning as described in the question.

A secondary connotation to the phrase expands on the first. It can also mean that something has come full circle, usually in terms of someone getting what's coming to them (like going through the complete cycle of the bell-ringing changes and coming back to the beginning).

Answer: It sounds interesting or attractive

'It has a certain ring to it' and simply 'it has a ring to it' all carry the same meaning - that something sounds pleasant, or has a meaning that is pleasant, interesting, or attractive to you.

In the same way, you could say that you are unsure about something if it 'has an odd ring to it'.

This quiz is excellent, you say? I think that has a nice ring to it!