Pauls Quiz 108
1.Which useless male fashion accessory originated in Croatia ?
2. Where is the highest known mountain in our solar system ?
3. What is the world record in welly boot throwing ?
a: 25.8 m
b: 55.8 m
c: 75.8 m
4. Fer-de-lance, boomslang and tic-polonga are all examples of what ?
5. True or false: A human has more bones than a horse.
6. Who are the war like virgins in Norse mythology ?
7. The name St. Petersburg was changed to what in World War I ?
8. What was the Venician word for Duce or leader ?
9. Which Frenchman wrote a novel about space travel a couple of hundred years before Jules Verne ?
10. What make of car does one associate with each of the following fictional characters ?
a: Colombo
b: Jerry Cotton
c: Marty McFly
d: Michael Knight
e: Simon Templar
ANSWERS
1. The Tie / Cravat The modern cravat originated in the 1630s; like most men's fashions between the 17th century and World War I, it was of military origin. In the reign of Louis XIII of France, Croatian mercenaries were enlisted to a regiment supporting the King and Cardinal Richelieu against the Duc de Guise and the Queen Mother, Marie de Medici. The traditional Croat military kit aroused Parisian curiosity in, and about, the unusual, picturesque scarves distinctively knotted at their necks; the cloths used ranged from the coarse-finish cloth of enlisted soldiers, to the fine linens and silks of the officers. The sartorial word "cravat" derives from the French cravate, a corrupt French pronunciation of "Croat" ? Croatian "Hrvat" ? however, evidence shows the word used in 14th century France and in 16th century Italy. French writer Eustache Deschamps wrote a ballad containing the phrase: "faites restraindre sa cravate" ("pull his cravat tighter"). Considering the interdependence of many European regions (particularly the French) with the Venetian Empire, which occupied most of Croatia's coast, and the word's uncertain philologic origin, the new male neckdress was known as a cravate; the French readily switched from old-fashioned starched linen ruffs to the new-fashion, loose linen and muslin cravates with the broad, laced edges of the military version, while a gentleman's cravat could be of fine lace, e.g. the sculptor Grinling Gibbons carved a realistic cravat in white limewood.
2. Mars
3. b: 55.8 m
4. Poisonous snakes Fer-de-Lance is French for spearhead (literally "iron of the lance"), and is often known by it's Latin name, Bothrops lanceolatus, the Martinique lancehead, a type of viper. A boomslang (Dispholidus typus) is a relatively small, venomous colubrid snake native to sub-Saharan Africa. A Tic-Polonga is a venomous viper snake which is found in Asia throughout the Indian subcontinent, much of Southeast Asia, southern China and Taiwan.
5. True. A human has 206, a horse 205
6. The Valkyrie
7. Petrograd Socialist organizations were responsible for the assassinations of many public figures, government officials, members of the royal family, and the Tsar himself. Tsar Alexander II was killed by a suicide bomber Ignacy Hryniewiecki in 1881, in a plot with connections to the family of Lenin and other revolutionaries. The Revolution of 1905 initiated here and spread rapidly into the provinces. During World War I, the name Sankt Peterburg was seen to be too German, so the city was renamed Petrograd.
8. Doge Doge (plural dogi or doges) is a dialectal Italian word that descends from the Latin dux (as does the English duke and the standard Italian duce), meaning "leader", especially in a military context. The title of Doge was used for the elected chief of state in a number of Italian "crowned republics". The two best known such republics were Venice and Genoa (Genova), which rivaled each other, and the other regional great powers, by building their historical city-states into maritime, commercial, and territorial mini-empires. Another Italian republic styled most serene republic, was minute and virtually insignificant Senarica. It was named after its capital city Senarica, west of Teramo (in Abruzzo) on Central Italy's Adriatic coast. Senarica also elected dogi, possibly annually, from 1343 until its annexation to the Neapolitan kingdom of Sicily in 1797.
9. Cyrano de Bergerac Cyrano Hercule Savinien de Bergerac (6 March 1619 ? 28 July 1655) was a French dramatist and duellist born in Paris, who is now best remembered for the many works of fiction which have been woven around his life story, most notably the play by Edmond Rostand which bears his name. In those fictional works he is featured with an overly large nose. Cyrano's most prominent work is now published under the title 'Other Worlds', a collection of stories describing his fictional journeys to the Moon and Sun. The methods of space travel he describes are inventive and often ingenious, detailing ideas often broadly original and sometimes rooted in science. Cyrano rests alongside such minds as Kepler and Jules Verne under the genre of 'scientific travel fiction'.
10. Five Answers
a: Peugoet
b: Jaguar (E Type)
c: DeLorean DMC 12
d: Pontiac Trans Am
e: Volvo P 1800