New English Words Quiz - Summer 2017: Answers
Created | Updated Jul 16, 2017
New English Words Quiz - Summer 2017: Answers
If you happened upon this page by accident, it won’t make a lot of sense. Take the quiz first!
If you arrived here from the quiz, then here are the answers, with some superfluous commentary.
- c) mass of nesting turtles
Every year, almost half a million Atlantic Ridley turtles gather on Rancho Nuevo beach, Mexico for their mass egg-laying. The spectacle, captured on countless wildlife TV shows, is known as an arribada (arrival).
- a) grape syrup
Also from the Spanish comes arrope, a thick grape syrup used to sweeten wine and sherry. Winemaking buffs may be interested to know that a less concentrated version is known as sancocho.
- a) folk ballad
From mediaeval French comes cantefable, a ballad which mixes spoken prose with passages in sung verse. I guess today’s equivalent would be the rock opera.
- c) chickpea
You may have seen chana dal on an Indian restaurant menu. According to one source, these chickpeas could be obtained in 1936 for eight annas a seer. That sounds like a bargain, until you realise you’ve bought an amount which requires an elephant to haul it.
- d) sumo wrestler’s dish
The poo emoji may have a name, but it’s not chankonabe, which is a high-protein fish, meat and vegetable stew eaten in prodigious quantities by sumo wrestlers. No wonder they wear large nappies.
- d) wood supporting roofing tiles
Is the rainwater running down your wall? Do you live in mediaeval times? What you need is a chantlate. Simply fix a piece of wood projecting from the edge of the roof at a jaunty angle and nail a few rows of tiles to it.
- a) chamber pot
In Scots dialect, a chanty is a porcelain chamber pot. This is first recorded in a 1788 poem by Ebenezer Picken: On yer pow an Envoice light Het reekan frae some chanty.
Fans of obscure insults might also enjoy chanty-wrastler: ‘an insignificant, unscrupulous, or contemptible person’.
- d) soft cheese
Tourists going off the beaten track in north-central France may come across the soft, creamy cow’s milk cheese known as Chaource. Cheese aficionados may know that in this variety the milk is allowed to ripen naturally before renneting. Please provide your favourite cheese puns below.
- c) small comet
A cometesimal is ‘a small icy body (but presumably larger than mine) in a planetary or protosolar system which is capable of growing by accretion into a comet’. And when it’s fully formed, gravity throws it into the Oort cloud. Gravity’s like that.
- d) swaying dance movement
In the Brazilian dance/martial art known as capoeira, the ginga is the name for the rhythmic swaying that takes place. Presumably you use it to mesmerise your opponent before murdering them in the dance-off.
- c) measure of economic inequality
Named after Corrado Gini, the Gini is a statistical measure of how unevenly income is distributed among a population. A coefficient of 1.00 denotes a situation in which all income is concentrated in the hands of a very few. To illustrate, in 2013, Wyoming was the US state having the lowest Gini (.408) and New York was the highest (.503).
- a) sharp-bladed knife
Chosen by marketing men to sound Japanese, the Ginsu is a brand of knife promoted for its durable extra-sharp blade. But wait - there’s more! Imagine! The Ginsu is so sharp it can cut through a tin can, and then cut a tomato smoothly and cleanly. [Yeah, we get the picture - Ed]
- b) tennis stroke
A colloquial term for ‘groundstroke’, the groundie is a shot played after the ball has bounced. There are only two other strokes in tennis: the volley and — my speciality — the air shot.
- a) cosiness
In Danish culture, hygge is a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being; contentment from simple pleasures, such as warmth, food, friends, etc. Eating three of those pastries does it for me.
- b) literary festival
Similar to the Welsh Eisteddfod, the sangschaw is a Scottish competitive festival of song and poetry. Fans of the theme will doubtless be in tears in anticipation of the rendering of Robert Burns’ finest works to the accompaniment of bagpipes.
- c) Cuban music
Developed and popularized by Cuban dance band Los Van Van (literally ‘The Go-Gos’) in the 1970s, songo is a genre incorporating traditional rumba elements into popular dance music, influenced by rock, jazz, and Brazilian music. But not bagpipes.
- b) bus
When folks in Thailand need a people carrier, they take a pickup truck, add benches to both sides, build a roof on top and call it a songthaew The word literally means ‘two rows’ in Thai.
- d) voodoo symbol
Deriving from Haitian creole, the veve is any of various voodoo symbols used to represent or summon a particular god or spirit. In ritual use a veve is traditionally drawn in flour on the ground.
- b) showy
A derogatory term used by music critics, widdly describes showy, over-elaborate electric guitar playing. It suggests something closer to the Jeff Beck end of the spectrum rather than the Anthrax end.
- d) weevil
Inspect certain tropical palm trees in South America, and you may come across a colourful little insect, whose generic name is Zyzzyva. If you fancy using this word in Scrabble, you’ll need both blank tiles, as there’s only one Z in the bag.
