Visit theallusionist.org/andyquiz to listen to this episode and play along using the interactive answer sheet
This is the Allusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, waft language with a fan while it drinks a tall icy beverage.
I’m on a holiday with my family for the first time since 1988, so for this episode I have enlisted my brother Andy, who some of you know from comedy, cricket commentary, or his podcast The Bugle, or episode one of this podcast, about puns - or bartending at the High Rocks Inn in Kent in the 1990s, I don’t know how you might know him.
And it’s the annual quizlusionist episode! It is multiple choice, thirteen points are available, so grab pencil and paper to log your answers, or use the interactive answer sheet on the website at theallusionist.org/andyquiz.
Also! If you go to theallusionist.org/donate and sign up to be a member of the Allusioverse by 31 August 2023, you can choose a word or phrase and I will record it for you and you can use it as your ringtone or text alert or alarm or little phrase of affirmation. What could be finer than me barking you awake in the morning? Someone has already asked for me to do a Logan Roy impression, so I’m as curious as anyone to hear how that’s going to turn out. Yes, I am open to more Succession requests. So get yourself to theallusionist.org/donate, you ludicrously capacious bags.
And now, on with the quiz.
HZ: Who are you? There are no points for this question.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Alright. I am Andy Zaltzman. I am one of your two brothers. I am a comedian, cricket statistician, and - well, I think that's about it, actually. Those are my two skills in life.
HZ: You've really done more with them than we ever thought possible. I have constructed a quiz for you to celebrate our family holiday. So it's quite heavy on the classics. Some mention of the comedy. But the first question is about the word 'bugle'.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Yes.
HZ: Because of your podcast The Bugle, not your childhood trumpeting career.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Which was hugely impressive.
HZ: I think moderately successful, yeah, for someone who didn't seem to care about it at all.
[BURST OF BUGLE NOISE]
Question 1
HZ: Question one: the word 'bugle' derives from which animal?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Okay, so the options are A. cow, B. dog, C, bug, or D burglar. Does a burglar count as an animal?
HZ: Well, humans are animals.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Yeah, but that makes it sound like it's completely different species.
HZ: My friend's cat broke into someone's house and stole their cat food. So it's very literal cat burglar. So the choices are A. cow, B. dog, C bug, or D. burglar? Any guesses?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Well, from my extremely rusty classical knowledge, I don't think it's dog. Cow, I'm gonna go with cow.
HZ: Correct. The answer is cow, because bugles used to be made from cow horns.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Not because cows make a bugley-type noise?
HZ: The word ‘bugle’ comes from the Latin 'buculus', meaning a young bullock. I remembered that from studying Greek at school because 'bous', meaning ox, was one of the first words we learned. And all those words come from the proto indo European root word '*gwou-'. That word *gwou- is the root of a lot of other words, not just 'bugle' and the cow words.
Question 2
HZ: So question two: which of the following words does not derive from the Proto-Indo-European root word '*gwou-'?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Right. Well, that's a question I've spent a lot of time thinking about.
HZ: Oh, it's really playing to your strengths.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I don't think we discuss Proto-Indo-European root words enough in modern society.
HZ: You don't.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: The options are: A. bucolic, B. butane, C. butter, or D. buttocks.
HZ: Okay. Bucolic, butane, butter or buttocks; care to make an educated guess?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Well, bucolic - I think that's covered already. So I'm guessing that is definitely from *gwou-.
HZ: Yeah. Easy.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Butter... I'm gonna go with buttocks.
HZ: You are correct. You're good at etymology, Andy. 'Buttocks' is from probably the old English word 'buttuc', which meant a short piece of land.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Was that before the - was it the Enclosure Act? So could you put a fence around someone's buttock and claim it as your own?
Question 3
HZ: Question three. You are a professional comedian.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Thank you.
HZ: Despite my rising inflection, that's not the question. The question is: what did the word 'profession' originally mean?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Right. So the options are: A. a swearing-in ceremony for teachers in the 12th century; B. the opposite of antifession, which was a synonym for unemployment; C. vows upon entering a religious order; or D. the death of fun? I think I had that option D is a review of one of my early Edinburgh shows. Well, I think it's A or - I think it's either the swearing in ceremony or the vow on entering a religious order.
HZ: What are you going to plump for?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I think I'm going to go for C. the vows on entering a religious order.
HZ: Three for three. It is the vows upon renting a religious order. Did you have to make any vows to enter the comedian order?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: No, I mean, the only vow I've really ever made is never to do the Manchester Comedy Store again, after my harrowing experience there in December 2002. I've made certain vows that jokes I made early in my career I'd never think about again. But apart from that, I think every comedian makes that vow some point. It might be something that the industry ought to consider
HZ: What, to flush out the wastrels? Those who aren't committed to spending 300+ nights of the year away from their homes and families.
Question 4
HZ: Okay, question four: incredibly, your career is comedian. Which of these terms is not related to the etymology of career? Three are; one is not.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Okay. A. careening, B. running at full speed, C. a racecourse or D. a road for vehicles? Well, I can't remember what 'careening' means.
HZ: Careening is sort of veering all over the place. Which feels relatable for my career.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Yes. Running at full speed - so that meant careering down a hill. A race course - was used as something to do with chariots? A road for vehicles. So carriage was... a good question... Careening. I'm gonna go with careening.
HZ: Very good, Andy, very good. Because careening is from the Latin 'carina' which meant a ship's keel; careening was a ship tipping over on its side.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Oh, there we go.
HZ: Whereas the rest are all from the Latin word for run, 'carrus'. So 'career' was a race course... Roads for vehicles. And you're right to make the carriage collection, because that is where we get the word ‘carriage’, and thence the word ‘car’.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Yes.
HZ: Car and career.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Excellent.
Question 5
HZ: Question five. You and John Oliver, your comedy partner of days of yore, used to do a character called Johnny Dynamite.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Yes.
HZ: The word 'dynamite' derives from the Greek word 'dynamis', which means:
ANDY ZALTZMAN: A. power, B. bang, C. fireball or D. kaboom.
HZ: I like the fact that in the script I've given you, I've numbered the questions, and you read them all out with ABC and D.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I just think I've been quite fundamentalist about this, Helen. I think multiple choice questions should be letters, not numbers. But it has caused some confusion where I've suddenly thought "Oh, which which is next?" It should be quite simple really.
HZ: Just choose a system and stick to it. I'm fine with it being letters.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: To give a bit of context to the character: you say we used to do a character, we did it - I can't remember - a total of maybe seven or eight times maximum?
HZ: I remember you used to do it when a gig was pretty horrible. And I remember seeing it about two in the morning in Edinburgh 20ish years ago. And I've laughed so hard I was almost physically sick.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: It has been downhill for both of us since then. Both me and John. It was a character where John would slick his hair back, put a leather jacket on and pretend to be a bad American stand up. His catchphrase was, "I'm dynamite!" And then he would mind pushing down the lever on a - what do you call it?
HZ: Detonator.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Detonator, there you go - and bang.
HZ: So what do you think the etymology of dynamite is, Andy? Power, bang, fireball or kaboom.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I think power.
HZ: Yeah.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Because that's one of the few things I remember from actually learning some Greek back in my distant past. I don't know if they had words for 'kaboom' in those days, because not as many things exploded, did they.
HZ: I guess not. That's an interesting point.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: What is the etymology of kaboom? Have you ever looked into that? I imagine it's merely onomatopoeic.
HZ: Imitative, yeah. Boom as well. I wonder how old these words are. Okay, 'boom' was originally a humming or a buzz. I guess you're right that they didn't have louder noises than bees. Alfred Nobel, of Nobel Prize fame, invented dynamite, and the word 'dynamite' - explosives were his job. He originally called dynamite 'Nobel's Safety powder', and then maybe realised what dynamite does, so came up with the the name dynamite. But it was really interesting reading about Alfred Nobel's career and the invention of all these explosives, because it seemed to have been - not that you'd expect weapons manufacturer to be a particularly meek business, but. He invented another one called ballistite, which I could not find the etymology of, and I think it was probably just ballistics - but it caused him a lot of trouble because he was in France manufacturing it, but he had a licence to the Italian government to sell it to them, and they were at loggerheads with France. So France shut down his lab, seized his equipment, accused him of treason, prohibited him from manufacturing it there, and kicked him out of the country, so he had to spend the last few years of his life in San Remo. All because of ballistite. Read up on it, fascinating.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Good story.
HZ: Yeah.
Question 6
HZ: On the topic of explosives, Andy, question six: true or false the etymology of 'explode' was to drive someone offstage with applause.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: So the options here are A. true or B. false.
HZ: What do you reckon?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I'd say false.
HZ: Incorrect. It's true. Has that ever happened to you, that you've been driven offstage with applause?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: No, not with applause. With other things.
HZ: I was assuming it was the kind of sardonic applause, like [claps three times, a second apart]. It's from 'ex-', out of, and 'plaudere', which was to make noise. So audiences would make a lot of noise to make someone go away.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I see. Right. So not in a positive way, like standing ovation at the end of a particularly impressive piece of gladiating.
HZ: I suppose the point is someone's sardonic applause is someone else's appreciative applause, so either way, you win.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: If only you'd said that to me 25 years ago, Helen.
HZ: I've seen some chilling silences that greeted the end of your gigs.
Question 7
HZ: Question seven: 'explore' is only one letter different from 'explode'. What was the etymology of 'explore'?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Is it option A. a typo from someone trying to write 'explode'? Is it B. a former plore - as in an ex plore? What is plore, you may ask? It's a Scots term for messing about in mud. Option C: plod outside, 'ex' meaning outside and 'plore' meaning plodding? Or is it D. weeping?
HZ: So to recap: is the etymology of explore A. an explode typo, B. a former plore, C. to plod outside, or D. weeping?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I think I'm gonna go with option C.
HZ: Plodding outside?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Plodding outside.
HZ: The answer is D. weeping.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Really?
HZ: It's 'ex-' - the Latin prefix again - and 'plurare', which was the Latin for crying, same as deplore which means totally crying. But 'plore' really is a Scots term for messing about in mud. I wouldn't lie to you.
Question 8
HZ: Andy, you are left-handed, so etymology really has it in for you with words like 'sinister' in Latin. How do you feel about that?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I have, over 48 harrowing years, come to accept these deep prejudices humanity has against my people.
HZ: Well, there might be a few to add to the pile to process. The word 'left' in English is from about 1200 and probably came from a Kentish word - our home county Kent - 'lyft' meaning 'foolish'. Before that, the Old English term for left, as in the opposite of right, was 'winestra'. What did 'winestra' mean?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Right. Is it: A. wrong, B. satanic, C. friendly or D. drunk?
HZ: A. wrong, B. satanic, C. friendly or D. drunk?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Now, I feel you're trying to trick me by having the word winestra beginning with wine or wines. Well, I think because there was a lot of, as you say, prejudice against left handedness, I'm going to go with satanic.
HZ: The answer is 'friendly'. It was a euphemism so that they could avoid invoking the sinister forces connected with the left hand. And Greek also used a euphemism for left, they would say 'aristeros', the better one. Really incredibly rude, isn't it, of etymology.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Yes. And also congratulations to humanity for finding reasons to be prejudiced against people where other species wouldn't even bother looking.
HZ: The Old English word for 'right' as in the opposite of your left hand, was 'swiþra', which meant stronger. So just people won't just won't let up with the right handed normativeness.
Question 9
HZ: Question nine: I used to live in your attic.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Yes, voluntarily. This was not a sibling hostile situation.
HZ: You didn't even charge me rent. But I suppose you wouldn't charge hostages rent. Attics are named after the Attica region of Greece, where a lot of the buildings used to have an extra bit between the walls and the roof, so either an extra wall above the main walls or a row of columns holding the roof up. So eventually, people started referring to the space under the roof as 'attic'. The attic region was allegedly named by the second king of Athens. Kranaos, who named it in honour of his late daughter Atthis because she was:
ANDY ZALTZMAN: A. a virgin, B. a champion athlete, C. pissed off at him for forgetting to buy her a birthday present for the last seven years, or D. so tall that people joke, "What's the view like up there in the attic?
HZ: So did King Kranaos of Athens named the Attica region after his late daughter Atthis because she was A, a virgin, B. a champion athlete. C. pissed off at him for forgetting to buy her a birthday present for the last seven years, or D. tall?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I'm gonna rule out option D.
HZ: Really?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I am; I don't think the average mythological daughter of a mythological King was particularly tall in those days.
HZ: Have you checked all the pottery to prove it?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I have. Okay, yeah, I'm gonna go with C - because a lot of Greek myths have some sort of element of familial guilt or regret, parental failings. But also the ancient Greeks heard loved sex and athletics as well. So either of the first two are equally plausible, but we're gonna go with C.
HZ: The answer is A: he named the place after Atthis because she was a virgin. Why?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Yeah, it's quite hard to parse the logic.
HZ: It's creepy.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Even for mythological people, who obviously didn't exist and therefore had slightly skewed logic a lot of the time, it's hard to join the dots on that one.
HZ: Yeah. Was he doing it as a sort of congratulations to her for maintaining that at a time when the Greek gods particularly were such liabilities in terms of sex crimes?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Yeah, they were absolute horndogs, weren't they. What would he have called it if she she hadn't been? I mean, was he sure? How did he know?
HZ: It's worrying to think how he knew.
Question 10
HZ: Question 10. Andy. Your brain is mostly a storage space for cricket trivia.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Correct.
HZ: Where does the word ‘trivia’ come from?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Right. Well, that's not a piece of cricket trivia, so I have no idea. But the options are A. the ancient Greek for three truths. The ancient Greek for three bullshits is Option B. Option C is the Latin for three lives. Or option D is the Latin for a three way intersection.
HZ: Your ABCD system nearly slipped there.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: It did. I went a bit off piste a couple of times there.
HZ: OK: three truths, three bullshits, three lives or three way intersection?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I'm going to go with with three way intersection.
HZ: You are correct. Did you get that because you knew it was the Latin for 'tri via', three roads?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Yes. Yes. So why, Helen?
HZ: Because the meeting of the roads was a public place. So trivia was a public place, then that came to mean something that was commonplace. And then I guess it was facts - although, for mediaeval students, the trivium was what they had to study before moving on to the quadrivium, or the highest level of education. So trivium was grammar, logic and rhetoric, thus giving people the raw materials for pedantic arguments, and then the skills to make them go on forever. And then the quadrivium was music astronomy, arithmetic and geometry.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Alright. The big four.
Question 11
HZ: Speaking of trivia, Andy: which of the following sweeteners is named after an ancient Greek mythological character?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Okay, is it A. saccharine, B. agave, C. stevia, or D. aspartame?
HZ: So, which is the mythological character that is also the name of a sweetener? A. saccharine, B. agave, C. stevia, D. aspartame?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Well, Steve is not an ancient Greek mythological character. He's the third wheel In the Bible origin story along with Adam and Eve.
HZ: They got rid of him in the translations.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Yeah! Saccharine - that's got the look of a Greek word. Aspartame: that sounds like some dubious chemical that was developed in one of humanity's dark eras. I'm gonna go with agave.
HZ: Very good. Agave is the correct answer. She was the queen of the Maenads, and the mother of Pentheus, king of Thebes, daughter of Cadmus, founder of Thebes, and thus features heavily in Euripedes's play The Bacchae. Did you study that?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: ...I did a bit... Yes, I don't think I did at university. I think we did it a school, which was quite a not traditional text to do at an all-boys private school. But it was about as as close as we ever got to learning anything about women. And that was really as far as the school was prepared to go.
HZ: It's a upsetting-sounding story, I've not seen it or read it. The Theban Maenads murdered Pentheus because he banned the worship of Dionysus and said Dionysus wasn't a god. So Dionysus, who was his cousin - so extra rude - lured him to a wood, and the Maenads tore him apart. And then his mother Agave finished the job and tore him limb from limb, and thought she had killed a lion because Dionysus had made to insane. And then she carried her son's head on a stick right back to their hometown Thebes.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: We've all done it.
HZ: She didn't realise her mistake until her father pointed it out. Which really seems oblivious.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Good parenting though. The Theban Maenads, I think that they won the Ancient Greek Ice Hockey League four years in a row around the same time.
HZ: Did they have much ice hockey in ancient Greece? More field hockey, I would have thought, if they're gonna hock.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: They were really appalling mythological people, the ancient Greeks. I mean, most mythological people were pretty awful.
HZ: Stevia is an eponym, after the 16th century Spanish botanist Pedro Esteve.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Or Steve to his mates.
HZ: Sweet Steve. Aspartame was discovered in the search for anti-ulcer drugs and is from the same 'aspar' as asparagus.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Really?
Question 12
HZ: Question 12, the penultimate question, Andy: which entertainment genre's name means 'goat song'?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Oh, I should know this.
HZ: You should.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: So A. comedy, B. tragedy, C. melodrama or D. farce? Or goat farce.
HZ: I think goats have quite farcical tendencies. Which entertainment genre's name means 'goat song': A. comedy, B. tragedy, C. melodrama, D. farce.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I'm going to go with B. tragedy.
HZ: You are correct. Tragedy meant 'goat song'. Do you have any idea why?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: To be honest, no. I just had a vague memory of that from, again, my long distance classical past. But I've never actually heard a goat sing. They mostly use auto tune these days as well, so it's quite hard to get genuine goat song. So no, I don't know; I can't remember the reason.
HZ: I'm not sure that anyone knows there's a lot of speculation about maybe they they used to perform where a goat was a prize for a choral contest or they would sacrifice a goat or blah, blah, blah. But it's all speculative. And tragedy used to mean somewhat different things, didn't it, in the ancient Greek entertainment world?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Yes.
Question 13
HZ: Okay, final question, Andy. It's a token cricket question.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Good.
HZ: Which of the following is not a bail, spelt B A I L?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Okay, is it A, a horizontal piece of wood across the top of cricket stumps? I'm fairly confident that is a bail, B A I L.
HZ: I think that I gave it away with the introduction to the question.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: B. the bar across a typewriter that keeps the paper flat against the roller, C. a partition for separating cows in a cow pen, or D. whalebone?
HZ: Which is not a bale, B A I L? A. a horizontal piece of wood across the top of cricket stumps, B. the bar across a typewriter that keeps the paper flat against the roller, C. a partition for separating cows in the cow pen, or D. whalebone.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I'm going to go with D. whalebone. The others sound like they could well be bails - bail were something to do with gates, weren't they?
HZ: Yeah, and lots of things like a handle on a bucket, the attachment for hanging a pendant off a necklace, all sorts. But yeah, you're right: whalebone is not bail, despite the baleen connection, which comes from the Greek for whale, φάλλαινα. Can you guess what φάλλαινα derives from?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: No.
HZ: Phallus. Because whale bodies reminded them of penises.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Oh, really? Not because whales had generous members?
HZ: I don't know how close look they got at the time.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Well, we went on a whale watching tour the other day and the tour guide was fairly enthusiastic about whale appendages.
HZ: Is that why they got into whale tour guiding?
ANDY ZALTZMAN: I'm not sure. But he told lots of the stories about one of the male whales disporting himself in front of innocent tour groups.
HZ: The whale didn't ask to be watched.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Did it not? How come it keeps turning up where all these boats are?
HZ: Maybe they pay it appearance fees.
Scores
Okay people: what did you score out of a possible 13 points? Andy, you scored nine.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Oh, that'll do.
HZ: I think you did quite well.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Thank you.
HZ: You're good at etymology. Or I wrote the quiz too easy.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Oh yeah, that's possible. Do I get a certificate? Or prize money?
HZ: All the money, you get all my money. If I die before you, you can have all my money. Thank you very much.
ANDY ZALTZMAN: Pleasure.
If you want more etymology quizzes, I’ve got em! Browse down your Allusionist podfeed and there are previous quizzes about swears, animals, food and more, you can also find them at theallusionist.org, there’s even a quiz category to summon all the quiz posts. While you’re there, mash that tab at the top that says ‘donate’ and become a member of the Allusioverse; if you do that this month, August 2023, I will record the word or phrase of your choice - excluding slurs and branded content - and you can use it as your ringtone or text alert or alarm or little phrase of affirmation. So head over to theallusionist.org/donate for that.
And you can hear me talk about unrequited love and my first celebrity crush on a certain tv detective on the podcast Crushed, a very charming show hosted by Margaret Cabourn Smith, who compelled me to share way too much about myself. Listen to Crushed in all the podplaces.
Your randomly selected word from the dictionary today is…
jetton, noun: a counter or token used as a gambling chip or to operate slot machines.
Origin 18th century: from French ‘jeton’, from jeter ‘throw, add up accounts'; so named because the term was formerly used in accounting.
Try using ‘jetton’ in an email today.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, the music is by Martin Austwick of palebirdmusic.com. Andy Zaltzman can be found on The Bugle podcast, in all the podplaces and at thebuglepodcast.com.
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