It's Windy! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Chicago

No-one really knows why Chicago is called by this nick-name. Many people think it is because the streets were laid out in a formal, grid pattern when the city was re-built after the Great Fire of 1871 and that they form traps, down which the winds blow and accelerate.
It is interesting to note that wind records do not show that Chicago is more windy than any other city in the U.S.A.

Answer: ill

This phrase is often used to explain the idea of someone, or something, benefitting from someone else's misfortune.
If many people lost their homes in a flood and then builders profited from rebuilding all the houses, the above phrase could be applied.

Answer: Mistral

This wind usually blows during the Winter and the Spring but it isn't unknown in other seasons. It blows from the north and the north-west and picks up speed as it passes southwards through the valleys of the Rhone and the Durance, cooling and drying everything in its path.

It can cause storm problems for shipping in the Mediterranean and its effects can also be felt in N. African countries.

Answer: bonny

This lovely song, with its words and music, comes from Northumberland. It became very-well known when Kathleen Ferrier sang it. Are you old enough to remember her beautiful, contralto voice? She was born in 1912 and died in 1953.
As for the song- it goes on like this.-
'They told me last night there were ships in the offing,
And I hurried down to the deep, rolling sea;
But my eye could not see it, wherever might be it,
The barque that is bearing my lover to me.'

Answer: False

It is true that, in medieval times, the word' wind-owe' was used but it was derived from an Old Norse word - 'vindauga' which means 'wind-eye'. - (vindr = wind: auga = eye)

Answer: trembling

Christina Rossetti was born in London (England) in 1830. She was the sister of the famous poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. She is more-remembered, nowadays, for 'Goblin Market and Other Poems'.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this poem, here is the second (and last) verse -
'Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I;
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by'.

Answer: as a washerwoman

Toad is the one of the four main characters (the others are his friends Mole, Ratty and Badger) who is the most impulsive. His various obsessions, such as the one with cars and motoring, are always getting him into trouble. He is, however, quite an endearing character and his friends do their best to help him - especially in the battle for Toad Hall.

Answer: the coming of the Holy Ghost

(The King James' Version of the Bible is being used for the quotations.)

You can read the story of the coming of the Holy Ghost in the Book of Acts, chapter 2.
Following the sound of the wind 'there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.'

Answer: anemometer

An anemometer consists of three or four hemispherical cups at the ends of crossed bars which are mounted on a spindle attached to a measuring mechanism. The spindle rotates slowly or quickly depending on the speed of the wind which fills the cups and makes the spindle turn.

Answer: fight them

Miguel Cervantes published his novel 'Don Quixote' in the early 17th. century. It narrates the adventures of a retired, country gentleman who becomes obsessed with the idea of chivalry and who, imagining that he is a knight-errant, rides out in search of adventures.