Tuesday, September 12

The origins of the word quiz

As originally told by Niall Stokes - while driving 120mph through the fair city trying to make the kick-off against Kilbarrick Rovers or some such - and confirmed by Ask Oxford.

"The story goes that a Dublin theatre proprietor by the name of Richard Daly made a bet that he could, within forty-eight hours, make a nonsense word known throughout the city, and that the public would give a meaning to it. After the performance one evening, he gave his staff cards with the word 'quiz' written on them, and told them to write the word on walls around the city. The next day the strange word was the talk of the town, and within a short time it had become part of the language."

Now that we are all feeling informed, let's see how you fare in Belgium for Beginners. I scored a dissappointing 60%, the main dissappointment being my failure to answer the witloof question correctly. Putain.

3 comments:

Patrick Keating said...

I scored 80%, though some of the questions are a bit random.

Some interesting factoids though, I had no idea Audrey Hepburn had a belgian link!

Liberal in Brussels

Andreea said...

interesting, interesting ...

Tippler said...

70%. Not bad after 6 years. And Audrey was born in Ixelles, bless her...