Q7

A bit of trivia (meaning you either know it or you don't):

Q. Who would you be talking about if you were protecting the POTUS and the FLOTUS?

Since it's obviously an anagram, and the last two letters of the anagram seem familiar, try working along those lines.

Yesterday's answer: Pina Colada!

Q6

Q: This drink, created in Puerto Rico, literally translates to "strained pineapple" in Spanish.

Again, based on etymology, you have to go for something that sounds like pineapple in Spanish. If you are familiar with cocktails (another favourite of quizzers), then playing around with the 'pine' root should get you to... (answer in next post)

Previous post:
Petra - Rock (related to Peter, Latin root)
Veritas - Truth/True (related to lots of words with a 'ver' root like veritable, vera, Latin again I think)
Cheetah - Sita (Sanksrit root for the spots on a Cheetah, giving it its name)
Orange - N'arange (French root, converted from "a n'arange" to "an orange"!)

Exercise your etymology skills

The answer to yesterday's question was Algebra. Al-jebr should have given it away (along with polynomials, equations).

Here's another activity to develop your etymology skills. Guess the language and the meaning the following roots/words are associated with:

Petra
Veritas
Cheetah
Orange

Or just try to find as much information about their origins as possible.

You can feel free to use the web for the activities, but all quiz questions should only be 'guessed'.

Q5

An easy question, just to get a feel of words in quizzing.

Q: X (from Arabic al-jebr meaning "reunion of broken parts") concerns the study of the rules of operations and relations, and the constructions and concepts arising from them, including terms, polynomials and equations. What is X?

Hint: Clearly, related to maths. Try saying the Arabic phrase out loud.

Answer tomorrow.

Etymology

A lot of quiz questions supply clues to the answer by describing the etymology of the word. Whether Latin, Greek or Sanskrit, knowing where your words came from can make the difference between being a good quizzer and an excellent one.

Even modern languages - Spanish, French and Arabic in particular - feature prominently in various questions.

Familiarize yourself with roots of words and work on your language skills.

An excellent resource is Etymonline

Q4 + Avoid traps!

Often, quizzes have really easy questions made 'difficult' by having the clues surrounded with loads of rubbish. And in a gruelling quiz, when you see a slide full of words - after having no clue about any of the questions so far - you lose all will to even bother reading the question.

Just reaffirms another great tip for life: Never give up.

Here's a question to illustrate what I mean...

Q: Founding of which company is described in the lines below?
"Minoru Yoneyama founded Yoneyama Company, Ltd., a producer of wooden floats for fishing nets. His wood crafting business thrived until modern advancements - namely plastic floats - forced the company out of the float business. At this time, frustrated by being pushed aside by advanced technology, Yoneyama vowed never again to be left behind technologically. Thus, he began a commitment that eventually led to innovations in the world of golf, tennis, and badminton. Relying on strengths in wood crafting, the Yoneyama Company evolved into manufacturing badminton racquets in 1957 under other brand names."

Minoru Yoneyama

The main clue here lies in what the company was making. But, in all questions like this (where a name has been mentioned), it is good to keep the name at the back of your head all through the question.

So, we have:
1. Badminton racquets.
2. Minoru Yoneyama and the Yoneyama company.
3. "producer of wooden floats", "wood crafting", "never again to be left behind technologically".
4. "innovations in the world of golf, tennis, and badminton".

If you've ever played/followed badminton, the first two clues should make the answer evident to you. It has got to be Yonex, a badminton racquet manufacturer with a name so strikingly similar.

The third clue could probably serve to confirm your guess, though it is pretty obvious already. The fourth clue may take you off track if you don't know of Yonex in the context of a particular other sport and try to think of another company that fits all three.

Oh, and the answer to yesterday's bonus question was "Spoonerism".
Nooks and crannies -> crooks and nannies, right at the beginning :)