An Atrocious Sounding Quiz

Answer: Sup

To sup is to have supper, which is an evening meal. It may refer to the main meal of the evening. Or it can be used to refer to a snack eaten after the main meal but before bedtime.

To sap something is to drain it of strength. To sip is to consume a small drop of liquid. To sop is to absorb liquid, as in mopping up a spill with a cloth, or to use a piece of bread, for example, to absorb the last bits of soup or gravy from a plate.

If you are sapped of energy, you may be revived by having supper with a sip of wine and sopping the last drop of soup with a piece of crusty bread.

Answer: Er

ER was used for just over seventy years by Queen Elizabeth II; the initials stood for Elizabeth Regina. The same two letters were used by by both her great-grandfather, Edward VII, and her uncle, Edward VIII, when the initials stood for Edwardius Rex.

ER is also used in American medical settings as an abbreviation for Emergency Room. The same service in a British hospital was once known as Casualty, and later changed to Accident and Emergency (A&E).

Answer: Cal

The thirtieth president of the USA was President was John Calvin Coolidge, who was generally known by his middle name. He was reputed to have a taciturn personality and was sometimes called Silent Cal.

Abe would probably refer to the sixteenth president, President Abraham Lincoln. Ben could be the twenty-third president, President Benjamin Harrison. The third president, president Thomas Jefferson, might have been called Tom by his friends.

Answer: If

If is a conjunction, which is a word used to link two clauses together in a sentence. In, of and on are all prepositions, which can be used to indicate the location of a noun.

You can score full marks on this quiz if you get all of the answers right in it.

Answer: Rag

A rag is a tattered piece of cloth. It might be used as a cleaning cloth. Sometimes people's clothes, which are very old and worn out, might be described as being in rags.

Reg might be short for Reginald or Regina; it can also be used to refer to a registration plate on a vehicle. A rig usually refers to a structure such as an oil-drilling rig or a stage lighting set, or to the tractor and trailer set of an articulated lorry. A rug is a covering perhaps on a bed, or to wrap around a person, or as a mat for the floor. In the north of England some rugs for the floor have been traditionally made from rags.

Answer: I

Pronouns are used in place of a noun. These are all personal pronouns. In English grammar the first person is I (in the singular) or we (in the plural) when used as the subject of a sentence. When used as the object they become me (singular) and us (plural). For example 'John and I gave a book to Mary, and Mary gave some chocolates to us'.

You is used for the second person, both in the singular and the plural, and also both as the subject or the object. The third person pronouns are he, she and it (in the singular) and they (in the plural) when used as the subject. As the object they become him, her and it (singular), and them (plural).

Answer: List

The set of items might be a list of questions for a quiz, or what needs to be bought when going to the shops i.e. a shopping list. When a boat lists to port or starboard it is usually because it has been unevenly loaded. Some buildings lean or list by accident; perhaps the most famous example is the campanile in Italy, known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Other buildings were designed that way; one example is the Gate of Europe in Madrid, Spain, which was completed in the mid 1990s.

Last is a word used to describe a final event or thing; it is also used as a term for a tool used by a shoemaker. Something which has been lost cannot be found; it might be described as being mislaid. To lust after something means to have a great desire for it; someone who is described as having itchy feet probably has wanderlust.

Answer: Ice

Ice is frozen water. It is one of the few substances which expands as it freezes, making it less dense than the water, which is why frozen ice floats on top of the liquid water. Other forms of frozen water are hailstones and snowflakes.

Both dew and mist are liquid water droplets. Dew forms on solid surfaces such as the ground. Mist is droplets carried in the air; fog and cloud are also droplets in the air. Steam is a gas, and is formed when water boils.

Answer: X

The number ten was represented by the letter X. I was used for 1, and V for 5. The next number was 50, represented by L. After that C was 100, D was 500, and M was 1000.

A number was written down as a series of letters which had to be added together if they were in order from largest to smallest. So LXXVI would be 50 + 10 + 10 + 5 + 1 = 76. A shortcut was used for some numbers; when a smaller number was placed before a larger number it would be subtracted from the larger one. For instance, IX would be 10 - 1 = 9, and XL would be 50 - 10 = 40.

Answer: Pi

The sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, Pi (π) is used for the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. While it is sometimes approximated to 22/7, or, slightly more accurately, 355/113, its actual value is irrational, and goes on indefinitely when written as a decimal - 3.141592...

Psi (ψ), Chi (χ) and Xi (ξ) have no specific values when used in mathematics, although any of them could be used as an unknown variable in an equation. However Phi (φ) is used for another irrational number, 1.618033... It is described as the golden ratio and is the number which is the solution to the equation φ^2 + φ = 1.

Answer: Ali

Cassius Clay Jr. was born in February 1942. He became an amateur boxer after starting training when he was twelve years old, and won a gold medal at the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960. After that he became a professional boxer. He rejected his birth name in 1964 because of its links to enslaved ancestors and formally became Muhammad Ali three years later.

Answer: Doc

The story of Snow White was written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in 1812. When Walt Disney made the animated film version of the story, the company gave names to the seven dwarfs. They were Doc, Happy, Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy, Sneezy and Bashful. Doc, the only one of the dwarfs to be depicted wearing glasses, was the leader of the group.

Answer: IOU

IOU is a shorter way of writing 'I owe you'. It is used for an informal loan between two people. The document will usually specify the amount of money involved, the names of the lender and the borrower and, possibly, the date.

KLM is used for the Royal Dutch Airline known as Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij in Dutch. DLR is the Docklands Light Railway in London, UK. ABC, being the first three letters of the alphabet in English, is sometimes used as a reference to the whole alphabet.

Answer: S

Sulfur, previously spelt as sulphur, has the symbol S. It has the atomic number of 16, and is a non-metallic element. Fourteen of over a hundred elements on the periodic table have a single letter as their symbol.

Most of the elements have a two-letter symbol. However, there are no chemical elements with the symbols Sf, Sl, or Su.

Answer: Mary Poppins

The fourteen answers are sup - er - cal - if - rag - i - list - ice - x - pi - ali - doc - iou - s, which make the song title 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'.

The song was written by Robert and Richard Sherman for the 1964 Disney adaptation of the story "Mary Poppins" originally written by P.L. Travers. Julie Andrews played the title role in the film and sang the song. It starts with the words, "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! / Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious", hence the title of the quiz.