Thursday, November 18, 2004

600 Current Events Word Quiz

Have you ever noticed how many words or phrases you know, but don’t know exactly. . . so you sort of skip over them and glean the meaning from something else in the sentence? You know what an OCLC is, but do you know what the original acronym stood for? Or HTTP or JAMA?

Here’s some words and phrases from the November 16 Wall Street Journal (or ads). Try to answer all before you check Google or click on my links.

1. What is the main ingredient in Pease Porridge?

2. To what does Pandora’s Box refer?

3. Who were the Bickersons?

4. What does the acronym FICA actually stand for?

5. Geographically, where is Hibernia?

6. Just what exactly is ozone?

7. Can you name the seven deadly sins?

8. What is Tom Jones (the singer) real name?

9. What is bling bling?

10. Echo boomers are younger than Gen-Xers, but what other name generally applies to this demographic?

I didn't give myself a point unless I could stake my reputation on the answer, so I only got 10% right. I knew #1 because I'd seen it recently on TV; although I sort of knew #5 and #9 because they are used so often, I wasn't positive. For #2 I had the story a little mixed up.

Links to the answers.

1. recipe and story
2. Blame the woman
3. marital mayhem drenched in caustic wit.
4. If you're a wage or salaried employee, you pay only half
5. Ptolemy’s map
6. and a list of what we don’t know about it
7. Among the recent advertising muffs have been a campaign that focuses on the seven deadly sins
8. married at 16
9. The Silvertones "Bling Bling Christmas" earliest use
10. high-tech, big-ticket industries

3 comments:

Norma said...

Thanks for clarifying that. It really didn't sound like any 50s women I knew, but I do remember references to it, even on comedy shows--Carol Burnett, I think.

Don said...

I got four, unless you accept that Millennials are really called Generation Y, in which case I got three: ozone, pandora, hibernia. I've never taken pride in knowing things I didn't need to know. This hasn't stopped me from knowing lots of things I didn't need to know and not knowing lots of things I did.

Norma said...

"Gamers" is the word I was going for. I hadn't come across that before, but a book about them was reviewed that day in the WSJ. I missed Pandora's box, because I thought it was HER box and it wasn't. I had Hibernia in the right place, just wasn't positive.