More Wordwise 2 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cash on the nail

Cash on the nail refers to transactions that are carried out on a cash up front basis. None of this booking it up business for these people. They operate on a pay up or forget it mentality.

This expression has been around since 1596 at least, for it was first recorded in Thomas Nashe's "Haue with you to Saffron-Walden", which was published in that year.

Answer: Caught in a cleft stick

To be caught in a cleft stick means that whichever way you turn, whichever choice you make, you're still going to be a loser or lose out in some way. You're squashed between a rock and a hard place in other words.

This expression was known some time prior to 1745, for Jonathan Swift refers to it in his "Directions to Servants" in "Works", which is believed to have been published in that year. In it he jokingly states "You may conveniently stick your candle in a bottle, or with a lump of butter against the wainscot, in a powder-horn, or in an old shoe, or in a cleft stick."

Answer: Chow down

To chow down is to sit down and get ready to eat. The use of the word "chow" for food came into use some time around 1886, for, in Sir Henry Yule and Arthur Burnell's "Hobson-Jobson: being a glossary of Anglo-Indian colloquial words and phrases", published in that year, it states that "Chow is in 'pigeon' applied to food of any kind." The expression "chow down", meaning to get ready to start chomping, came into being in the United States defence forces during World War II.

Answer: Climb on the bandwagon

To climb on the bandwagon means that one has decided to join a popular movement of some sort. This could be a political protest, or a push for healthier foods, anything of this kind. Bandwagons date back at least to the 19th century when most circuses had an accompanying band that travelled along with them on their tours. Your average circus, in the days before televisions and movies, were very popular wherever they travelled. Once politicians realised this, it wasn't too long before they too began using bandwagons during their electoral campaigns, and it is believed that the expression "climb on the bandwagon" emerged from this.

Answer: Close quarters

This term means to be closely engaged with an enemy or an opponent in a game perhaps. Its origins are nautical in nature. During the 17th century when two sailing ships were engaged in battle and had pulled alongside one another for hand to hand fighting, planks were arranged on deck like barricades, so that the crew could flee back behind them to safety - as in the following quote from the 1627 copy of "The Seaman's Grammar":

"A ships close fights, are small ledges of wood laid crosse one another like the grates of iron in a prisons window, betwixt the maine mast, and the fore mast, and are called gratings."

Those gratings eventually became known as close quarters, or closed dwellings. Further into the future, the term close quarters meant very close proximity to one another.

Answer: Chip off the old block

This idiom can literally mean a chip off a large piece of wood, such as when chopping up same with an axe to use in old wood stoves, fireplaces or barbecues. Alternatively it could mean a child so like either of its parents in mannerisms or character that they are said to be like a small copy of the original. We usually associate this term with the latter today.

The earliest known recorded mention of this can be found in the 1621 "Sermons" of Robert Sanderson, the Bishop of Lincoln, in which he asks "Am not I a child of the same Adam - a chip of the same block, with him?" By the 19th century, however, the original "of" in this expression evolved into the "off" we use today.

Answer: Clog up

If anything has become clogged up, it's been blocked up with rubbish or dead leaves or gunk of any kind. Sinks and drain pipes, for example, are noted for this. One possible explanation for the origin of this idiom is when English textile workers (Luddites) feared they'd lose their jobs because of the new technology being introduced into mills during the Industrial Revolution in England.

When one Ned Ludd was supposed to have smashed two such machines during the late 18th century, other workers followed his sterling example, leading to them all being referred to as Luddites.

Another version has the workers coming from Holland where they tossed their clogs into new-fangled machinery there, "clogging" it up and preventing its operation.

Answer: Cloud nine

To be on cloud nine is to be blissfully happy about something in particular or life in general. Various theories, including an association with meteorology or Buddhism, have been put forward as to the origin of the term, but no one theory appears to have any real grounding to it.

Answer: Cotton on to

To cotton on to anything is to take a liking to someone or some thing to the extent that it becomes annoying. It can also mean in another sense to wise up to some behind-the-scenes activity that shouldn't be taking place. This idiom is probably more familiar to British, Kiwis or Australian players than elsewhere. It dates back at least to 1648 in England, where it appears in a pamphlet, "Mercurius Elencticus", attacking the parliament of the time. John Camden Hotten's much later 1869 "Slang Dictionary" defines it as the following:

"Cotton, to like, adhere to, or agree with any person; "to COTTON on to a man," to attach yourself to him, or fancy him, literally, to stick to him as cotton would." So there you are, you've gotten some cotton from Hotten.

Answer: Cogito ergo sum

"Cogito ergo sum" is a Latin term that translates to "I think, therefore I am", nicely summed up in the 1637 philosophical work "Discourse on Method" by Rene Descartes. In this he attempts to prove he exists because he thinks.