Ten to One Trivia Quiz

Answer: reversible

A REVERSIBLE item of clothing is constructed so that can be turned inside-out to effect. For example, a blue jacket may have a green lining, with the seams concealed between the layers. You can decide whether you want to wear blue or green today.

Chemical reactions are called reversible if the products formed can themselves react to give back the original reactants. An example is the dissolving of carbonic acid in water: it forms bicarbonate ions, which can react with the hydronium ions that were also produced to recombine into the original molecule. Relatively few reactions are reversible, because one or more of the products is in a form that does not readily react with the others - when you burn a piece of wood, the carbon dioxide gas and water vapour disperse into the air, leaving a residue of ash behind.

Answer: believers

One who has faith in an idea, a movement or a religion is said to believe in it. The noun that describes a group of them is BELIEVERS. The Monkees had a hit with the Neil Diamond song "I'm a Believer" in 1966; it was covered in 2001 by Smash Mouth for the soundtrack of "Shrek".

As the opening lines state, "I thought love was only true in fairy tales / Meant for someone else but not for me / Then I saw her face, and I'm a believer".

Answer: be silver

Gold and silver are not the only precious metals, but ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium and iridium just don't work, so it has to BE SILVER. Actually, most metals are described as being silver in colour, with copper and gold being the exceptions.

Answer: reviles

When one REVILES someone or something, the object in question is being harshly criticized, in a manner that suggests they are worthy of hatred and disgust. (Read almost any lengthy thread on social media, and you will encounter someone being reviled.) The word has been in use since the 14th century, and comes to English from the French "reviler", with the same meaning.

Answer: livers

Animal LIVERS are organs that are involved in producing essential chemicals for the digestive process, and in removing toxic products from the blood. The liver is the heaviest internal organ, and the largest gland in the human body.

The livers of many animals are eaten in cuisines around the world, cooked in a large variety of ways (including raw in the Lebanese dish asbeh nayeh). Many of these dishes are considered 'peasant food', but when they are prepared as a liver pâté, they are seen as being much more elegant. Liver is an excellent source of iron, along with vitamins A and B12. Cod liver oil also has vitamin D, which is why it was given to children in the 19th century to prevent rickets.

Answer: livre

The LIVRE was the currency of France between 781 and 1794. The Old French word came from the Latin word 'libra', which was a unit of weight. Charlemagne established the livre as being equivalent to a pound of silver. It was divided into 20 sous (or sols), each of which was further divided into 12 deniers. Originally, only deniers were produced - the other units were for accounting purposes only. This currency structure was adopted by other European states, including the British pound, the Italian lira, and the Spanish dinero.

In 1795 the franc was introduced to replace the livre. The euro replaced the franc in 2002.

Answer: evil

The word EVIL is usually used to describe the absolute absence of goodness, a state that is immoral and wicked. There is an implication of actively attempting harm. The supernatural TV series "Evil", which had its first season in 2019, teamed up a forensic pathologist and skeptic, a Catholic seminarian and an IT expert to investigate supernatural phenomena such as demonic possession.

The word VILE also applies to something or someone wicked or contemptible, loathsome but not necessarily actively malignant. The 2011 film "Vile" was about a group of teenagers who were kidnapped and forced to torture themselves and each other. Apparently, the film was not vile, but not much more than adequate for its genre.

Answer: lie

To LIE is to make a statement which is not true. Sometimes one can be said to lie by omission - leaving out something that should have been said, so as to give a false impression.

Lie can also mean assume a horizontal position, especially in the phrase lie down. The word lay can either be the past tense of this verb, or it can be the transitive form - to lay something down. The children's prayer that starts, "Now I lay me down to sleep" is technically correct because me is the object being laid down. It is not considered correct to say that I will lay down for a nap, although that intransitive usage of lay is becoming more common in the spoken language, and the distinction may eventually disappear.

Answer: il

The United States Postal Service, established in 1971 to replace the United States Post Office Department, has developed two-letter designations for each of the fifty states. Many of them are the first two letters of the name of the state, as in the case of IL for Illinois. The traditional abbreviation was Ill. (which looks quite strange in the font on this site!).

Answer: i

A pronoun is used to replace a noun (pro- meaning for). The ninth letter of the alphabet, I, is also the pronoun used to refer to oneself. The first person plural, we, refers to oneself and one or more others. Second person pronouns refer to the person being addressed. Currently, that is you for both singular and plural forms, but the pronoun thou was formerly used for the singular. Third person pronouns refer to someone or something else - he, she or it in the singular, they in the plural. It is becoming increasingly common to use they for both singular and plural when referring to people, to avoid unnecessary gender distinction.

Then, of course, the pronouns can take on other cases than the nominative. George Harrison's autobiographic memoir "I, Me, Mine" illustrates the objective and possessive forms of the first person pronoun. He was presenting and reflecting on some of the songs that he had written while part of the Beatles, when he felt that his musical contributions were distinctly downplayed in favor of the emphasis on Lennon-McCartney composiitons.