Happily Ever Before Trivia Quiz

Answer: quick

Quicklime is the everyday term used to refer to the chemical calcium oxide. It is produced by heating substances with a lot of calcium carbonate in them. The resulting product, however, is quite happy to react with carbon dioxide in the air and turn back into calcium carbonate. It also reacts strongly with water, so can produce dangerous burns if it comes into contact with human skin.

Quicksand is a term used to describe a mixture of sand and water which is non-Newtonian, meaning that its viscosity (resistance to motion) changes when exposed to vibrations and pressure. You've seen the cartoons in which it sucks everything down inexorably. In reality, you will not sink forever (your body is less dense than the quicksand), but it is very difficult to escape, as moving your limbs increases the liquid's resistance. The recommended technique is to relax, move slowly, and try to get your body into a floating position.

Quicksilver is an old-fashioned word for liquid mercury, the only metal which is a liquid at room temperature. It tends to form small balls, which roll around readily. You may have played with a mercury maze puzzle, or seen how the liquid from a broken thermometer rolls around the floor - it is both silvery and quick! Since mercury is also poisonous, it is no longer used as widely as it was when I was young.

Answer: short

Shortbread is so called because it is made with a crumbly (short) dough that contains lots of butter. Recipes for this treat with Scottish origins vary, but start with creaming the butter and sugar, mixing in flour, forming into fingers or other shapes, then baking slowly until golden.

A short circuit occurs in an electrical system when resistance is removed, and the current moves too quickly for the system to handle. This can lead to lots of heat (possibly enough to ignite surrounding materials) and is very dangerous. That is why we have fuses or circuit-breakers to close things down when the current is too large.

A short story is exactly what it sounds like - a piece of fiction that is shorter than a full-length book. It is generally agreed that a short story can be read in a single sitting, but there is much debate about exactly how short it has to be before it is called by another name, such as a novella. They usually have at least 1,000 words, and can be up to 5,000 or 10,000 (depending on who you ask).

Answer: black

Blackmail is the act of extracting money or favours from someone by threatening to reveal some secret that they want to keep concealed. That is the usual definition. Emotional blackmail, another common term, means making someone feel guilty about not wanting to do something, and coercing them that way.

A blackout is an event in which electricity supplies are lost in a (relatively) wide area, such as following a severe storm that brings down power lines. We can also describe a brief loss of consciousness as a blackout.

A black sheep is someone whose character or actions are considered disreputable, and who may be ostracized by their family or social group. The term comes from a time when wool was an important fibre for making clothing, and the wool from a black sheep couldn't be spun into a white fibre. A black sheep not only stood out in the field, it was useless from the perspective of the farmer.

Answer: car

A carpool is a group of people who travel together in a single car, when they could have travelled separately. It most commonly refers to people who live near each other and work together, and who save on expenses by travelling in a single car. They may take turns driving each other, or have a single driver whose expenses are shared by the other members of the carpool.

A car phone used to be a status symbol, suggesting that the person who owned it was too important to be out of contact for the time they were travelling in their car. With the advent of mobile phones, car phones have virtually disappeared.

Car bombs have been used to set off large explosions by filling the car with explosives, leaving it at a suitably disruptive spot, and setting it off from a distance. They are frequently used by insurgent groups (often labeled terrorists by the powers against whom they are rebelling) in urban settings.

Answer: full

A full house, in poker, is a set of five cards consisting of a pair and three of a kind: 2-2-5-5-5, for example. A full house is also what it looks like when all the grown children and their families converge on the parental home for Christmas!

The moon goes through a monthly (roughly) cycle of being dark, then a crescent getting steadily bigger until there is a semi-circle, further increase through the gibbous stage until it looks like a full circle - that is a full moon - and then reversing down, with the lit portion on the opposite side as it wanes

Fullback is a playing position in a number of sports, many involving a ball that has to be moved around a rectangular field and into a scoring zone. Depending on the game, the position may be part of the team's offense (American gridiron football is an example) or its defense (as in the case of field hockey, where a fullback plays near the goalie).

Answer: finger

A finger bowl is not part of your usual dinner table, but may be seen at a formal affair, if there is some food presented which is eaten with the fingers. One then dabbles the fingers in the (slightly warmed, with a floating slice of lemon) water before drying them with one's damask table napkin. You get the idea.

Finger painting is an art form that uses thick paints which can be speared around the paper (or more delicately smoothed into place, if you are no longer a three-year-old artist) to produce pictures. the end product often adorns the family fridge until the next one displaces it.

Fingernails are the keratinous section at the end of your fingers. They may be cut short for efficiency, or grown long for decorative purposes. Long fingernails are often painted in bright colours.

Answer: bull

Bullfighting is now banned in many parts of the world, and is obviously a cruel activity in which to involve animals, but was long seen as a magnificent exhibition of courage and skill. Not all bullfights involve a death, although that is what one traditionally pictures. Ernest Hemingway was a big fan, and wrote a book called 'Death in the Afternoon' about the art of the bullfight.

Bullfrogs are one of the largest species of frogs, the largest true frog native to North America. Where they have been introduced in other parts of the world, they are an invasive pest that damages the local ecology. If you ever had to dissect a frog in a school science class (avoiding which was the reason I chose Chemistry instead of Biology, but that's another story), it was almost certainly a bullfrog.

Bull terriers are, as their name tells you, a breed of terriers. They are most easily identified by their distinctive head, which is usually described as egg-shaped, and has a distinctly Roman nose. They are the only dogs with triangular eyes. In the 1980s, a bull terrier named Honey Tree Evil Eye performed as Spuds Mackenzie in a beer advertising campaign.

Answer: snow

A snowmobile is a motorised sled, designed to run on snow or ice, popular for roaming the countryside offroad in places where there is snow in the winter. They usually have tracks (like those of a bulldozer) at the rear, and skis on the front.

Snowshoes are devices that can be strapped onto one's feet to allow walking across snow without sinking in deeply, because they have a large surface area over which your weight is distributed. My mental image is of a shape something like a tennis racket, made of a wood frame and leather straps. Modern ones, however, are often made of aluminium and polymers, and look a lot more like regular shoes.

A snow cone is basically shaved ice with sweet syrup poured over to saturate it. It is served in a paper cup or a paper cone, and popular flavours include various fruits and cola.

Answer: under

An undertow is a current that runs below the surface of a body of water, particularly one that drags swimmers out to sea from a beach. Metaphorically, the term can be applied to something that tends to act in opposition to its apparent movement.

Underwear is clothing worn underneath the clothing that one expects others to see. Except if you want to follow the fashion, and display your underwear. Women's underwear, especially when it is frilly and designed to be sexually suggestive, is referred to as lingerie.

The underbelly of something is a vulnerable spot, one that is difficult to defend against attack. this may be physical (like the stomach of a four-legged animal, from which the term arises) or metaphorical. The world of organised crime can also be referred to as the underbelly of society.

Answer: over

To overdo something is to carry it too far. Organising a party, for example, can get right out of hand if you overdo the plans for food, drink and entertainment. Not to mention the size of the guest list.

Someone who is overeager exhibits excessive desire to perform some action. They may try to start too early, or do too much, and in fact may overdo the entire thing.

In business, an overhead is a cost that must be incurred in order to operate - paying rent on premises, keeping the electricity connected, etc. One may also describe something as being overhead if it is located above the level of one's head.