Lexicological Grandiloquence Trivia Quiz

Answer: Zimmer frame

Translation: What's the proprietary name of the contraption made of tubes which is used by, among others, frail elderly people to help them walk?

"Design" is used in the sense of "intent". To "perambulate" in the broad sense is to move around the room, the universe, or anything between.

A proprietary name is one over which a party has some legal rights, especially as a trade mark. If you don't believe me, check out the Oxford English Dictionary, whence all the definitions of loooooooooooong words in this quiz come.

Answer: Sir Francis Drake

Translation: Who was the famous guy who heard of the long-awaited approach of the enemy fleet, and said that the opportunity both to finish the game he was then playing and to beat the enemy was plentiful?

The enemy fleet was, of course, the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the game was bowls. As it turns out, historians now discount this whole bowls story as spurious. Boring, innit? (For the record, according to the story, Drake lost the game.)

A cynosure is "something [or by extension someone] that attracts attention by its brilliancy or beauty; a centre of attraction, interest, or admiration". One of the supporting quotes is Carlyle's "The fair young Queen...the cynosure of all eyes" - so, you see, it can apply to a famous person like Sir Francis Drake as well as a thing.

"Leisure" is used in the old-fashioned sense of "opportunity".

The adjective "pelagic" means "of, pertaining to, or inhabiting the open sea or ocean", as opposed to coastal waters or my bathtub.

Answer: An innate desire to attain its opposite margin

Translation: Why did the chicken cross the road? A: To get to the other side. Hoary old joke, but I hope you enjoyed its new garb.

If you're into hair-splitting, the OED describes a "capon" as a castrated cock (as well as a kind of fish).

Answer: pps

Translation: I write and sign a letter. I then discover that I've missed something, so I put it as a ps [i.e. postscript] after my signature. I then discover that I've forgotten something else again, and add it after the first postscript. What do I call the second postscript?

pps means, of course, "post-postscript" - i.e. "after-after writing".

"Codicil", like many other words, has a specific meaning (in this case, an addition to a will), but can also be used in a more general sense of a written or spoken addition to anything. I could, for example, give a codicil to this paragraph.

ps Like this.

pps "Lacuna" means "a hiatus, blank, missing portion". Use it in conversation. People will adore you and fall fainting at your feet. They will fight for possession of your spent cigarette butts. They will quite literally kill each other from sheer jealousy of one of your glances. (Well, it works for me!)

Answer: One two three four five six seven eight nine ten

Translation: Count in order the fingers and thumbs of a humanoid's hands.

My brachial appendages are the things on the end of my arms - i.e. my hands. My digits are my fingers. My eyes are green. My hair is obsolescent. My secrets are my own.

Answer: Mount Everest

Translation: Name the world's highest point (equivalent to mountain).

The correct mode of address for an RC cardinal is "Your Eminence". However, people of different denominations and faiths would doubtless jib at accepting a description of a cardinal as "the loftiest terrene eminence", terrene being another form of the adjective "terrestrial" - i.e. of the earth taken as a whole.

Answer: Screwdriver

Translation: Which alcoholic drink has the same name as a tool for turning screws?

A screwdriver is composed of either vodka and orange juice, or wood or plastic and metal, depending on your taste. I know which I'd prefer. As I'm a healthy male rat, it's the latter.

"Homonymous" means "denoting different things by the same name", spelled either the same (as in this example) or differently (e.g. road, rode).

To "circumvolve" is to turn something on its axis. The effect of using this word in conversation is similar to that of using "lacuna", although if you manage to actually juxtapose them (as in the irresistible chat-up line: "Hey babe, c'm here and check out my circumvolvory lacunae"), you really can't expect to hold me responsible for the results.

Answer: True

Translation: The right-hand pages of a book are odd-numbered [i.e. when their numbers are divided by two, they leave a remainder of one].

A "monograph" in the strict sense means a book on a specialised topic. Thus, a general history of heads wouldn't be a monograph, but an examination of Paraguayan left upper molars in the 1320s would be. The term can also, however, be used more generally to mean just "book", as opposed to a journal, yearbook or other such multi-volume publication. Thus, the 48-volume "Encyclopedia of Various Shades of the Colour Aquamarine", edited by Hortensius Ffortescueue (pronounced Smith), would by no stretch of the imagination be a monograph; neither would the journal "Snot Monthly".

"Dextral" means "of the right hand", and comes from the same stem as the goody-goody word "dexterous", as opposed to "sinistral", which gives rise to the dastardly "sinister". Much to my amusement, this annoys the heck out of my left-handed friends. (Actually, I should say "former left-handed friends".)

Answer: decreasing

Translation: Assume two things: firstly, that the (hypothetical) failure of the attempt referred to in Q3 [i.e. the chicken's attempt to cross the road] was because the chicken was killed by something so obvious that it doesn't need mentioning [i.e. the chicken got run over by a car], and secondly, that the chicken didn't die straight away. Would the pitch [i.e. frequency] of the last sound it heard have been rising or falling?

The last sound it heard, assuming there were no H-bombs or supernovae exploding in the near vicinity, would have been the sound of the car's engine. The chicken would have heard the frequency of this sound begin to fall as the car sped away from it.

This refers, of course, to the Doppler effect - you know, yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEOOOoooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Of course, if the moving thing hit you it would be more like: YEOW!

Answer: A banana peel placed on the sidewalk

Translation: Which of the following quizzes is most likely to cause physical harm?

"Quiz" in this sense means "practical joke" - which, in a sense, applies to this whole quiz (in the sense of "bunch of silly questions").

Here endeth the lesson. Procedamus in pace (let us go in peace) - if you've managed to retain your sanity!