What 's In A Word ?

15 Points Per Correct Answer - No time limit  

1. Dry sherry is sometimes called 'sack'. What did that term originally mean? Sack is short for saccharin the product used to sweeten such sherry a little bit. It refers to a type of wine always sold in bottles that were wrapped up in a kind of linen bags. It's English for Spanish seco, dry. It's simply the name of the British importer of that wine.

2. What is the link between the words salami, salad, salsa, sauce and the modern word salary? they all are related to the Latin word for salt they all are related to the word celeriac they all are related to the word cellar they all are related to Latin saltire to jump up with joy

3. Which of the following words is the only one not to have a common origin with the words skill, scalp and scalpel? skull scallion shelf sculpture

4. Wagners opera 'Die Nibelungen' deals with Germanic heroes who called themselves:___________________? The Children of Mist The Children of the Moon The Children of the Clouds The Children of the Woods

5. The famous Indian 'Mahabharata' is one of the great stories in world-literature. Bharata was the name of the dominant tribes in North India and Punjab. Because of the development of the caste system it came to stand for "true humans" in general. What does the whole name mean? great story of human people short history of the humans holy book of the humans secret history of the humans

6. Given names are often meant as secret wishes as to what a child should be like. Alas for parents, children themselves usually care a lot more about the petnames they get, rather than about the original meanings of their first names. Few girls who get the name Melissa ever realise they have been called :______________? spider sweet as sugarcane sweet as molasses honeybee

7. The woman who wiped off Jesus' face on his way to Calvary got a name in Bible which is Greek for :'truthful icon or image'. What is that name? Vera Magdalena Myriam Veronica

8. When at a given moment in 1498 during of his America-trips, Columbus sighted land and thought he saw 3 islands, he soon realised that what he he saw it was only ONE island with THREE mountains.So three-in-one. In the pious tradition of the times he baptised the land after the Holy Trinity and called it :__________ ? Answer: (Eight letters. Lopez is not part of the name.)

9. When G.B. Shaw founded the famous Fabian Society not everybody will have immediately understood what he meant by that name. Where was it from ? after Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator the go-slow Roman general it was an acronym for Free Association of British and International Admirers of Napoleon after a friend of his Dr. Fabian after the Fabians an Etruscan people living in a kind of ideal democracy at least in Shaw's opinion

10. Names can also be re-interpreted. Because of the abbreviation o.f.m. some people call the Friars Minor : 'the friars without manners' (from German 'Ohne feine Maniere'). O.s.b. 'Ohne sonstige Beschaeftigung'.'Without any other business (than praying)'. Which of the following religious orders got a cruel Latin nickname meaning 'God's bloodhounds' because of their involvement in the Un-holy Inquisition? Dominicans Franciscans Jesuits Carmelites