Quote, Unquote Cliches Trivia Quiz

Answer: quaff

To "quaff a brew" is to drink a container of beer or ale quite heartily and deeply. "Brew" rather obviously stems from the method in which beers and ales are made. "Quaff" is another matter entirely. The word's use seems to have begun sometime in the early 1500s, but why it began to be used as a synonym for "drinking" is unknown.

Some speculate that it is a derivation of the Germanic "quassen", which means "to overindulge in drink or food". Others believe the word to be the result of onomatopoeia; apparently, some must have thought "quaff" represents the sound the back of the throat makes as one gulps or swallows.

The expression allows for other potables as well; one may quaff a glass of wine, water, juice, etc.

Answer: duck

A "queer duck" is an individual who is eccentric, odd, or crazy, someone who stands out from the crowd because of his or her appearance or behavior. It's synonymous with other animal expressions, such as "odd fish" or "queer bird". Why someone settled on a duck to help represent another's oddness and why the expression became one that was popular are questions that can't really be answered.

However, it may have to do with the fact that the word "duck" was at one time used as a slang term to refer to a person.

For example, in the 1872 book "Roughing It", Mark Twain wrote, "Are you the duck that runs the gospel-mill nex' door?"

Answer: flea

"Quick as a cat" is usually used to describe a person who is alert and swiftly responds to a situation or a person who learns quickly how to perform particular tasks. The expression is derived from the speed and agility with which a cat will suddenly pounce on a smaller moving object and seems to have been in use by 1855.

"Quick as a wink" is used to describe how quickly something has been done or how quickly something will be done. It stems from how quickly a person can wink his or her eye at another--a fraction of a second. Of course, a blink is even faster. The expression seems to have been in use by 1825.

The meaning of "quick as a flash" is essentially the same as that of "quick as a wink". More than likely, this expression is a variation of "quick as lightning", as lightning is usually described as a flash of light. "Quick as lightning" was in use by the 1700s, and "quick as a flash" appeared several decades after that as well as the expression "quick as greased lightning", which is more often used in America than any other English-speaking country.

I completely made up "quick as a flea". If that expression exists, then it most certainly is not a popularly used one as I could not find it on any internet search engine I used.

Answer: the quiet before the storm

"The quiet before the storm" (or "calm before the storm") refers to a period of peacefulness right before a period of great activity, stress, or trouble. Often, the "quiet" is considered deceptive, as if the peacefulness lulls one observing it into a false sense of security or confidence. The expression is influenced by the phenomenon that sometimes occurs before a thunderstorm when everything seems suddenly quiet and still. This experience is not an imagined one, and there is a scientific explanation for it. Storms rely on warm, moist air for fuel, and they pull this air from the environment around them, including from the area in which a storm is headed. This leaves what is referred to as a "low-pressure vacuum" in the area from which the air was pulled. As this warm air moves up through the storm and then along the top of it, this low-pressure vacuum pulls the warm air back down to flood the area of the vacuum again. Someone in this particular area of stable warm air may notice that suddenly there is no wind or current moving, the trees and their leaves are still, birds have quit singing and have retreated to their nests, and other animals may be seeking shelter as well. Animals often are equipped with senses that feel the change in pressure; thus, they know something is about to happen. Eventually, one notices an ominous cloud gradually approaching from the horizon. Conditions have to be right for this phenomenon to occur, for sometimes storms simply burst with immediate activity, characterized by powerful winds.

The saying "quiet before the storm" was being used at least 160 years ago. In 1867, Samuel Smiles wrote in "The Huguenots in France", "It was only the quiet that preceded the outbreak of another storm".

Answer: queer your pitch

To "queer someone's pitch" is to make a task deliberately more difficult for someone to accomplish, often by secretive or malicious means. The expression probably came into popular use sometime during the early to mid-nineteenth century. The word "pitch" refers to the location along a street or inside of a market where a tradesman set up his or her stall or barrow. For marketing purposes, a tradesman would try to choose the most advantageous "pitch" he or she could so that he or she could sell the most goods or services possible.

The word "queer" has not always been used as an adjective or a noun. In the past, "queer" was also frequently used as a verb, and it meant "to spoil, ruin, obstruct, or hinder". Thus, originally, someone who queered your pitch was trying to ruin whatever advantage you may have had with the setup of your business or was trying to attract others to his or her booth so that they no longer paid attention to yours. Eventually, the expression was picked up by performers who felt they were being upstaged by another performer. Finally, the idiom began to be used by anyone who felt his or her advantage was being thwarted by another.

Answer: to act in a manner that is contrary to your best interest

One's "bread and butter" is typically used idiomatically to refer to one's source of income or one's livelihood; thus, to have a "quarrel" with that source is quite foolish, most particularly if he or she is risking the loss of that livelihood. Obviously, you don't want to behave angrily or antagonistically toward your employer, an authority, or someone who may be politically connected to such an authority when that may mean you are jeopardizing your employment and, therefore, your income.

In other words, you shouldn't cut off your nose to spite your face.

Instead, you want to practice the opposite of quarreling with your bread and butter. You want to practice the wisdom of another cliche, one that relies on the same association: know what side your bread is buttered.

Answer: The Bible

The earliest written recording of the phrase "the quick and the dead" is found in John Wycliffe's Bible, the first English translation albeit Middle English (Chaucer's English). In 1 Peter 4:5, one may read the following words, which have been translated to Modern English as they appear in the King James Version: "Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead".

The word "quick" is rarely used to refer to "life" or "living" or "alive" anymore as that meaning has been mostly supplanted by the meaning of "fast" or "rapid". "Quick", as a word for "living", may have been derived from a word from a precursor to the Germanic languages: "kwikwaz", which meant "alive" or "lively". This connection with "alive" or "lively" is still retained in such words as "quicksand", "quicksilver" (another name for the element mercury), "quickening" (the moment during pregnancy when the mother first feels movement from her child), and the expression "cut to the quick" (which refers to the layer of living and feeling flesh beneath the outer layer of skin or fingernails and toenails).

Answer: a queen bee

A queen bee is a female, often a teenager or young adult, who holds a dominant and favored position over the other females in her group or clique. The idiomatic term is derived from the hive behavior of bees. In a hive of bees, there is only one solitary queen, and she emits a mandibular pheromone that is collected by the worker bees around her and distributed among all the other workers so that they are inhibited from creating anymore queen cells to produce any other queen bees. Furthermore, the queen bee is surrounded by worker bees who meet her every need, such as providing her royal jelly for food and then removing her body's waste from the premises.

While the figurative queen bee's position may be an enviable one, a real queen bee's position is not.

The queen bee is practically a prisoner and servant of the hive, for her only function is to reproduce, laying around 1,500 eggs per day at some points. Furthermore, the queen bee is so surrounded by her workers that she occasionally is smothered and killed from their heat.

Answer: quiet as a mouse

Someone who is being "quiet as a mouse" is someone who is perfectly silent or nearly so. This cliched expression is actually a truncated version of the original, which was "quiet as a mouse in cheese". The older phrase occurs in Henry Porter's 1599 play" The Pleasant History of the Two Angry Women of Abington": "Mum, mouse in cheese, cat is neare". By 1859, George Eliot wrote in her novel "Adam Bede", "She looks as quiet as a mouse". Why the mouse was selected as the source of this comparison is not readily known, especially when one considers that there are many silent creatures from which to choose; however, the mouse is one of the most pervasive and common creatures living among human beings, and its silent movements and behaviors are essential to its successful thriving.

Some may be familiar with this phrase's variation--"quiet as a church mouse". However, this is an inaccurately constructed mixed metaphor, or perhaps mixed simile to be exact. The true expressions are "POOR as a church mouse" and "quiet as a mouse". A mouse in a church usually doesn't have to worry so much about being quiet as there are often few people present except at certain hours of certain days of the week. However, the lack of a full-time presence of people at a church and, thus, the lack of food that would be present as well would make such a mouse a poor one indeed.

Answer: a quantum leap

A "quantum leap" is often used by people to refer to a sudden, highly significant breakthrough. While this phrase may idiomatically mean such, this is not the original meaning of "quantum leap". First of all, "quantum" originally referred simply to something that has quantity.

However, in the early twentieth century, scientists such as Max Planck and Albert Einstein used the word to describe a theory of light--the quantum theory--to relay the idea that light consisted of a quantity of small but measurable bits of energy. Eventually, scientists began using the phrase "quantum leap" or "quantum jump" to refer to the abrupt transfer of a very small amount of electromagnetic energy. Non-scientists assumed "quantum" was referring to something gigantic instead. Associating the word "quantum" with light and its ability to travel great distances (i.e. the light year), many speakers of English began to associate the word with something large, tremendous, and extensive. Thus, "quantum" has emerged as a word meaning something of great size, and "quantum leap" is a great jump.