It's Complete Nonsense Trivia Quiz

Answer: Boo

Milligan's poem, "On The Ning Nang Nong" (1959), is one of his most well known poems, especially in UK, where in 2007, OFSTED (The Office for Standards in Education) reported that it was one of the top ten poems taught in primary schools.

Answer: Apple Pie

The verse continues, "and at the same time a great she-bear coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. 'What! no soap?' So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber", which although it may seem like complete nonsense, actually served a purpose. Actor Charles Macklin boasted that he was able to memorise and repeat anything after hearing it just once, so Foote wrote "The Grand Panjandrum" in order to test his claim. Sadly, whether Macklin made good his boast is not known.

Answer: Ornithology

Mervyn Peake wrote some wonderful nonsense poetry, his best known probably being "The Trouble With Geraniums" (1972), in which he complained about the flowers being too red, as well as his toast being too full of bread.
He is best remembered, though, for his fantasy series of novels, "Gormenghast", comprising three books which were published between 1946 and 1959.

Answer: Skin Stealer

The "scoundrel" in the poem proceeds to act in a "most disgraceful way", "Ticklin' the children, And kickin' the men, And Dancin' the ladies away". Fear not though, for it is not the narrator doing these deeds, but the coo-coo who has stolen his skin.
Shel Silverstein was an incredibly talented man, known for his collections of poetry such as "A Light In The Attic" (1981) and "Where The Sidewalk Ends" (1974), his books such as "Runny Babbit" (2005) and his songwriting which included the Dr Hook hit, "The Cover Of The Rolling Stone" (1972) and the Johnny Cash hit, "A Boy Named Sue" (1969).

Answer: Custard

"The Tale Of Custard The Dragon" (1936) recounts how cowardly dragon, Custard saves the whole household after a pirate breaks in and everyone else is scared of him.
Ogden Nash is remembered as America's greatest poet of nonsense verse, and wrote hundreds of pieces, including one of my personal favourites, "The Cat", which is just two lines long and simply reads, "The trouble with a kitten is THAT, Eventually it becomes a CAT."

Answer: Platinum

Belloc advised us, "I shoot the Hippopotamus, With bullets made of platinum, Because if I use leaden ones, His hide is sure to flatten 'em." This is one of the many poems included in his 1896 publication, "The Bad Child's Book of Beasts", which is still one of the most delightful and wittiest books I have ever read.

Answer: Tulgey

Taken from the book "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There", telling the further adventures of Alice, "Jabberwocky" is one of the greatest pieces of poetry ever written to my mind, The verse in question is, "And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came!"

Answer: Sausage

The word "podyng" was used to describe a vendor of black pudding or blood sausage in 16th century England, where it was combined with "wyf" to give the now obsolete term "podyng wyf" or pudding wife.
The best known use of the word is probably Podyng Lane, London, which was used by butchers from nearby Eastcheap market to transport offal, or pudding to the River Thames, so it could be transported by waste barges. Podyng Lane eventually became Pudding Lane and is well remembered as the street where the Great Fire of London started in 1666.

Answer: And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street

These were the titles of the first four Dr. Seuss books, and it is "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" (1937) in which Marco's imagination grows. His father asks him to describe what he sees on his journey from school and all Marco sees is a horse and wagon. Soon the horse becomes a zebra, which becomes a reindeer, which eventually becomes an elephant and two giraffes, while the broken down cart becomes a chariot, complete with brass band.

Answer: In The Land Of The Bumbly Boo

Milligan was much loved for his series of war memoir novels published between 1971 and 1991, as well as his madcap "Q" TV shows, broadcast between 1969 and 1982. He was also much valued for his contribution to "The Goon Show" (1951-60) on radio, but is also dearly missed by poetry fans for his readings of his own nonsense poems, often bursting into uncontrollable laughter while he was reading them.