Pushing Daisies Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cowboy slang from the American West

"To die with your (his) boots on" is a euphemism for death that gained popularity with cowboys and settlers in the American West during the 19th Century. However, the phrase was also used in 17th Century England to describe outlaws and others that were killed by hanging. The condemned were fitted into heavy boots to add greater weight and hasten death. Some etymologists suggest that the phrase is even older and refers to the death of a knight in battle, since a "boot" was a name for the protective armor worn around the knight's lower leg and foot.

Cowboys who died with their boots on in the American West were often buried in a cemetery named appropriately, Boot Hill. The first Boot Hill Cemetery was in Dodge City, Kansas circa 1875. A cemetery in Tombstone Arizona was also named Boot Hill. Three of the "Clanton Gang" killed in the famed 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral were buried in Tombstone's Boot Hill Cemetery. A third Boot Hill Cemetery from the same period is in Deadwood South Dakota and contains the remains of American West legends Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Canary) and William (Wild Bill) Hickok.

Answer: He cashed in his chips

The phrase "to cash in your chips" derives from gambling and thus is associated with Las Vegas. The specific origin of the phrase is unknown. However, the phrase was likely first used in the American West sometime after 1880. Beginning with the California Gold Rush gamblers often bet with gold dust or nuggets. Poker chips were invented around this time to standardize the value of the bets at the table. Turning in the tokens for money or "cashing in" the chips was done when a player was finished with the game and had left the table. Death, metaphorically, is the ultimate payout for the game of life.

The State of Nevada legalized gambling in 1931. However, the Great Depression all but killed off the gaming industry. After World War II, there was an influx of money from dubious sources including organized crime. New York gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel is credited with kick-starting Las Vegas' tremendous growth. By 2012, there were over 1700 licensed casinos and over 125,000 hotel rooms used by 36 million tourists a year bringing an annual revenues estimated at over 9.5 billion dollars per year. That is a lot of poker chips!

Answer: World War II RAF

"Gone for a Burton" is a curious euphemism for death that appears to have been used primarily around the early period of World War II by pilots and airmen in the British Royal Air Force (RAF). The origin of the phrase is disputed. Some sources claim that the reference was to a pre-War advertisement for a beer brewed in the Midlands city of Burton-on-Trent, where a missing fellow was "gone for a Burton" when he was at the pub. The second story references the tailor Montague Burton. In Blackpool, airmen were tested for flight duty at a location above the Burton Tailor Shop. When asked about missing friends the phrase when was used to indicate the pilot was lost or presumed dead. Since World War II, the phrase has not entirely "gone for a Burton" itself but is not used frequently.

In an odd twist, the same Montague Burton tailor shop is one of the possible derivations for the origin of the phrase "the Full Monty". According to the legend, customers who ordered a three piece suit with a waistcoat from the shop were said to be seeking the full Montague Burton experience. Eventually, customers would shorten the exchange to say just get me the "Full Monty".

Answer: Dead as a Dodo Bird

Sadly, each of these bird species is extinct. The Dodo bird (Raphus cucullatus) was a flightless bird similar in size to a turkey that lived on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. The Dodo was similar to a dove or pigeon and prospered on the island because it did not have any natural predators. This was also the undoing of the bird, because when the Dutch settled Mauritius in the late 16th Century the seemingly trusting Dodo would often waddle towards the settlers making itself easy prey for hunters. By the mid-17th Century humans had wiped out the Dodo population and the species was extinct.

The Dodo might have remained a forgotten casualty to human expansion if not for Lewis Carroll. The Dodo appears as a character in Carroll's 1865 classic "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". At the same time, skeletal remains of Dodos were discovered by amateur ornithologist George Clark reviving interest in the species. "Dead as a Dodo" begins to appear as a euphemism for something that is gone or dead thereafter and remains popular today.

Answer: On a one-way ticket

A one-way ticket is a type of fare used when the traveler does not return to the original destination. Death is the final destination on the journey of life. Thus, to purchase "a one-way ticket" has become a familiar euphemism to describe death.

The word "ticket" to describe a token authorizing a right of access to transportation first appears in the English language in the late 17th Century. The word is believed to be a diminutive of a "certificate of entry" or passage when used to mean valid for transportation.

Answer: George Eliot

"To join the choir invisible" is the opening line in the eponymous poem written by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) in 1867. The poem was quite radical for its time, detailing that death does not offer salvation, but that true salvation is earned by good works during your life. Eliot while raised a Methodist would today be seen as a secular humanist. Eliot may have intended a humanist vision for the phrase "join the invisible choir", but modern usage of the phrase infers the subject to have died and ascended to the Judeo-Christian concept of heaven.

The phrase earned a revival due to the intervention of the Monty Python comedy troupe. The Pythons often did a live version and included in their television show a sketch called the "Dead Parrot". In the sketch, a purchaser of a parrot attempts to obtain a refund when he discovers the parrot sold to him by the shopkeeper was already dead. The frustrated customer at one point gives a rather lengthy list of euphemisms for dead including these lines "...'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!"

Answer: Yes

Tango Uniform is the combination of the NATO alphabet phonetic word for the letters T (tango) and U (uniform). In crude soldier slang, T also stood for a person's chest area and U for Up. Commonly, a person is buried "breast side" up. To be told a soldier was "tango uniform" signaled he was dead.

Another similar origination variation suggests the phrase comes from advice to pilots to keep their wings and nose (the chest of the airplane so to speak), up, so as to avoid a roll spin where the plane is inverted and the pilot may lose control.

Answer: Hamlet

Of all Shakespeare's characters Hamlet, the doomed Prince of Denmark, seems the most introspective and tortured. The famous soliloquy in "Hamlet" known as the "To Be or Not to Be" speech is an externalized discussion by the troubled Prince as to whether he should commit suicide to end his problems. Within the speech, Hamlet refers to death as having "shuffled off this mortal coil". In the end, Prince Hamlet does not directly choose suicide, but sets in motion events that end with his death nonetheless.

American author and humorist Mark Twain created a diary of sorts called "The Earthquake Almanac" based on his experiences in San Francisco during a small tremor in 1865. In describing his thoughts, his entry for November 6th states, "Prepare to Shed this mortal coil" and on November 7 the entry was simply, "Shed"!

Answer: False

"Pushing daisies" or "to push daisies" does not appear in records until the late 19th Century. The phrase was not commonly used until the advent of World War I. The Oxford English Dictionary cites a 1917 poem by Wilfred Owen 'A Terre entitled "Being the Philosophy of Many Soldiers" as the first public use of the phrase.

"Pushing Daisies" was a quirky US television show that ran for three seasons from 2007-2009. The show had a "simple" premise: a pie baker ran a detective agency and had the ability to bring dead people (and plants or animals) to life with a touch, but killed them anew if he touched them again.

Answer: He scared me half to death

Turns our Mr. Body was not dead, but rather was very much alive. To paraphrase another euphemism for death, he had actually "shuffled off to Buffalo" for a few days to see his mother. Upon his return, he tracked Inspector Clueless down and startled the man. To be "scared to half to death" and the more severe "scared to death" are idioms of unknown origin meaning to be frightened.

The sayings are perhaps too accurate as medical evidence has proven that it is possible to be scared to death.