Oooooops! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Garret

The jeweller has written "garret" instead of "garnet", replacing the "n" with an "r". A garret is a room beneath the roof, often small and with a sloping ceiling. Samuel Johnson and his assistants worked on his dictionary in the garret of his London home before its publication in 1755.

The intended word, garnet, names a group of minerals used as gemstones, with colours including red, green and orange. A gannet is a seabird. A gable is the triangular upper part of a wall beneath a sloping roof; it is part of the wall, not a room. A gasket is a seal fitted between joined parts to prevent leaks.

Answer: Progeny

Your progeny are your offspring or descendants; the word says nothing about their talents. A prodigy is someone with exceptional ability, often shown at a young age, perhaps in music or mathematics. Protégés receive guidance or support from someone more experienced, so the connection is one of mentorship rather than family. Progenitors are ancestors, taking us in the opposite direction along the family tree.

A gifted child could be both someone's progeny and a prodigy, but the words describe different things.

Answer: Garrotte

A garrotte is a device used for strangulation; "garrote" is another spelling. A gavotte, despite its similar spelling, is a French dance. The word also names music written for that dance, so a concert programme might list a gavotte even when nobody is dancing. In a dance programme, mixing up these two words would give the audience quite a surprise!

Answer: An enclosure for livestock

A corral is an enclosure for horses or other livestock. Coral, with one "r", refers to marine animals and the hard material that many of them produce, which can build up into reefs. Another similar-looking word, "choral", describes music written for a choir.

The film refers to the 1881 gunfight in Tombstone, Arizona. Despite the familiar name, the fighting took place in a nearby vacant lot, rather than inside the O.K. Corral.

Answer: Employees and their assigned duties

A staff roster lists employees, often alongside their assigned duties or shifts. Wages and deductions belong in payroll records, while training records and performance reviews serve different purposes. An English rooster is an adult male chicken, so adding that extra "o" changes the meaning completely.

There is a surprising twist in the word's history: "roster" comes from the Dutch "rooster", meaning a gridiron, a metal grid used for cooking. The connection is the arrangement of parallel lines, not the farmyard bird.

Answer: A record of events arranged year by year

An annalist writes annals, which record events year by year. One entry might describe a flood, and the next year's entry might record a change of ruler. The name is related to the Latin "annus", meaning year. You may also see "annals" used more broadly to mean historical records, as in "the annals of sport". An analyst examines information to understand it; for example, a market analyst might study sales figures and market trends. Keeping a yearly record and interpreting data are different tasks, which is the distinction between these two words.

Answer: Piqued

To pique curiosity is to awaken it: the story has made you want to know more. "Peeked" means took a quick look, while "peaked" means reached a highest point, as when sales peak before falling. "Picked" can mean selected, as in choosing a book from a shelf. Pique, peek and peak sound alike, but their meanings are quite different.

As a noun, "pique" can also mean wounded pride or irritation, so leaving "in a fit of pique" is not the same as leaving curious.

Answer: Serious and sincere

An earnest person is serious and sincere about what they say or do. The adjective sounds just like Ernest, the name that creates so much confusion in Wilde's comedy. Jack uses that name during his visits to town, and Algernon later adopts it when he visits Cecily in the country. Gwendolen and Cecily both attach great importance to marrying a man called Ernest.

The joke is that having the right name tells them very little about whether its owner is actually earnest.

Answer: Petrel

A petrel is a seabird; many petrels spend much of their lives far from land. Petrol is the usual British English name for the fuel called gasoline in American English, so one changed vowel has taken us from the filling station to the sea. A patrol is a person or group keeping watch, or the round they make.

A pastel is an artist's colouring stick; the word also names a picture made with these sticks or describes a soft, pale colour. A pestle is the tool used with a mortar, a sturdy bowl, to crush or grind ingredients.

Answer: It has the shape of a cube

"Cubical" describes something shaped like a cube, with six square faces. "Cubicle" names a small compartment separated from the space around it, such as an office work area divided by partitions. Cubicles are also used for changing clothes at swimming pools or in shops.

The words look and sound similar, but one describes a shape and the other names a space. An office cubicle can therefore be long and narrow without being cubical at all.