Pauls Quiz 164
1. Seventy five percent of the dust found in a home consists of
a. fungal spores,
b. bacteria,
c. dead skin or
d. mite excrement
2. Seven countries have lost two or more football world cup finals. Name the three countries that have appeared in two finals yet have failed to win a football world cup.
3. What is the name of the fictional language which is a cuddle muddle of English, English gypsy slang, Russian and Cockney rhyming slang ? Extra points for the name of the book or film.
4. What was the second biggest city in England at the time of the American Revolution in 1776 ?
a. Birmingham
b. Bristol
c. Liverpool or
d. Manchester
5. Measured in sqare miles, what were the five largest European Empires (colonies included) at the start of World War II ? (Russia is excluded here)
6. Name the first number one hit in the USA for each of the following after the Beatles broke up. In brackets is the year the song reached number one.
a. John (1974)
b. Paul (1970)
c. George (1970)
d. Ringo (1973)
7. In the UK, what was the name of the cage like construction consisting of iron bands in which the corpses of executed felons were placed on high and left to rot ?
8. What is the name of the highest waterfall on each of the following continents ?
a. South America
b. North America
c. Africa
d. Europe
9. Which peasant do Lithuania, Germany, England, Georgia, Moscow, Portugal, Instanbul, Greece and Palestine all have in common ?
10. What is the name of the photography that can supposedly capture your aura ?
ANSWERS
1. c. Dead skin
2. Three Answers:
Czechoslovakia 1934/1962
Hungary 1938/1954
Holland 1974/1978
3. Nadsat.
A Clockwork Orange Nadsat is a constructed language based on English with many Russian influences invented by the linguist, novelist, and composer Anthony Burgess. It is a transliteration of the Russian suffix for 'teen'. Nadsat is a mode of speech used by various teen subcultures in the novel A Clockwork Orange. The anti-hero and narrator of the book, Alex, uses it, in first-person style, to relate the story to the reader. He also uses it to communicate with other characters in the novel, such as his droogs, parents, victims, and any authority-figures he comes into contact with. It is not a written language: the sense that we have of the novel is of a transcription of vernacular speech, rather than an implementation of a published, bona-fide dialect. Nadsat is basically English, with some transliterated words from Russian. It also contains influences from Cockney rhyming slang and the King James Bible, some words of unclear origin, and some that Burgess invented. The word 'nadsat' itself is the suffix of Russian numerals from 11 to 19
4. b. Bristol
5. Five Answers:
United Kingdom
France
Germany
Holland
Belgium
6. Four Answers:
a. Whatever Gets You Through The Night
b. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
c. My Sweet Lord
d. Photograph
7. Gibbet. The practice was stopped by the Home Secretary in 1832. The wooden cross used to hang the gibbet was often full of thousands of nails in an attempt to deter friends, relatives and souvenier hunters from `stealing`the corpse.
8. Four Answers:
a. Angel Falls (Ven)
b. Yosemite (USA)
c. Tugela (SA)
d. Kile (Nor)
9. St. George is their patron saint. George means peasant or farmer George is a masculine given name. Its feminine form is Georgia. George is an adaptation of the Greek name Georgios, which is derived from the Greek word georgos, "farmer" or "earth-worker". The word georgos is a compound word, formed by the words ge, "earth", "soil" and ergon, "task", "undertaking", "work".
10. Kirlian Kirlian photography refers to a form of photogram made with high voltage. It is named after Semyon Kirlian, who in 1939 accidentally discovered that if an object on a photographic plate is connected to a source of high voltage, small corona discharges (created by the strong electric field at the edges of the object) create an image on the photographic plate. In controversial metaphysical contexts, Kirlian photography, Kirlian energy, and so on, are sometimes referred to as just "Kirlian." Kirlian made controversial claims that his method showed proof of supernatural auras, said to resemble a rough outline of the object like a colorful halo. An experiment advanced as evidence of energy fields generated by living entities involves taking Kirlian contact photographs of a picked leaf at set periods, its gradual withering being said to correspond with a decline in the strength of the aura. Scientifically, it is considered more likely that as the leaf loses moisture it becomes less electrically conductive, causing a gradual weakening of the electrical field at the drier edges of the leaf.