Cliches for Kids Trivia Quiz

Answer: silver

A cliche is an idea which means something different from the actual words. For example, every cloud does not REALLY "have a silver lining", but it means that even in a bad situation you can find some good; the saying encourages you to go on in spite of the obstacles facing you.

Another example would be when it's raining very hard and someone says "it's raining cats and dogs", but you know it's really not!

Answer: no moss

Moss is the green flowerless plant that grows in damp, shady locations, like on trees or occasionally on stationary rocks; it cannot grow on moving objects. "A rolling stone (NOT the rock group) gathers no moss" is an old Latin proverb which means that a person who keeps moving and has no roots can't form attachments.

It can also mean people who keep moving avoid responsibilities and cares.

Answer: haste

"Haste makes waste" means that if you do things too quickly (in haste), you can make mistakes (waste) which will take even longer to correct. Another way of saying this is "if you don't have time to do it right, how will you find the time to do it again?".

In the Aesop fable of "The Tortoise and the Hare", the hare (rabbit) runs so fast that he figures he has time to take a nap; in the meantime, the tortoise (turtle) catches him napping and is able to win the race!

Answer: fit

I hope you didn't guess 'fat' as a fiddle. This old English saying, "fit as a fiddle" means "healthy and well"; when the cliche first came into being in the 1600s, fit didn't mean what it does today, like people who go to the gym and workout. Fit meant suitable or appropriate, like a violin in an orchestra; another cliche which has the same meaning is "right as rain".

Answer: a bird

The proverb "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" means it is better to keep what you have (a sure thing) than to risk it for the possibility of more, or you may wind up with nothing at all. This is like Aesop's fable of "The Dog with the Bone": a dog finds a great, big bone and takes it down to the river; when he looks in the water and sees a dog with an even bigger bone (really his own reflection), he drops the bone he has to get the one he wants, but winds up with no bone at all!

Answer: nine

"A stitch in time saves nine" is a proverb which first appeared in print in England in 1732. The saying advises to do something NOW, rather than waiting until later or, in other words, don't procrastinate! Putting things off for later may create more work in the long run; for example, mothers used to mend their children's clothing and if they took care of it right away, it might require only one stitch; if they put it off, the tear would just get worse and, perhaps, then cause ten stitches to fix.

Answer: the pen

"The pen is mightier than the sword" came from a play written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839. This adage may confuse some children because, clearly, if I had to duel with someone, I'd rather have a sword to fight with than a pen! What the proverb is trying to say is that a person writing about good and fair ideas can change people's opinions more than violence or other harsh measures can. An example of this goes back to the American Revolution where the Founding Fathers helped win support for independence through their words, even though the British outnumbered the colonists.

Answer: never boil

Did you know that this adage, "a watched pot never boils", could be found in "Poor Richard's Almanack" written by the great American statesman Ben Franklin in 1739? Of course, in reality, the pot will boil but it seems to take forever; it means that time feels longer when you're waiting for something to happen. An old example was: "there's no use sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring", but cell phones have made this activity obsolete.

Answer: at the speed of light

This reference to the "speed of light" may go back as far as Aristotle's time. The speed of light (much faster than a turtle, a fly or molasses) is 186,000 miles per second; it is the reason you see lightning before you hear thunder during a storm. If a person could move at the speed of light (which they can't), they could circle the center of the Earth about 7 1/2 times in a SECOND! If you compare that to a jet plane which flies 500 miles per hour, the plane would take 4 or 5 hours just to cross the United States; it seems that we are light years away from warp speed.

Answer: under the sun

This last phrase "there is nothing new under the sun" is actually from the Bible (Ecclesiastes 1:9). What it means is everything that is happening now has happened; if they had newspapers in Roman times, you would read about the same weather, corrupt officials and the infra-structure breaking down. Whether communication is by drums or smoke signals or 'texting', it is still communication; new forms may be invented to disseminate ideas, like television or computers, but these are just modern versions of books and story-telling.