Q 01/05

The rude noise known as 'blowing a raspberry' takes its name from Cockney rhyming slang for which word?

A) Burp

B) Fart

C) Belch

D) Hiccup

Answer · why

B) Fart

Fart is the word rhymed with 'raspberry tart', and speakers then dropped the rhyming half. That habit of clipping is what makes the slang so baffling ...

Q 02/05

British police are nicknamed 'bobbies' after which Home Secretary, who founded London's Metropolitan Police in 1829?

A) Robert Walpole

B) Robert Clive

C) Robert Peel

D) Robert Harley

Answer · why

C) Robert Peel

Robert Peel gave the force two nicknames: officers were 'bobbies' from his first name and 'peelers' from his surname.

Q 03/05

People from which English port city are called 'Scousers', after a sailors' stew known as lobscouse?

A) Portsmouth

B) Liverpool

C) Plymouth

D) Southampton

Answer · why

B) Liverpool

Liverpool took the nickname from a stew that sailors carried between the ports of northern Europe, where its relatives survive as Norway's lapskaus an...

Q 04/05

A Briton who feels 'knackered', a word tied to the yards where old horses were slaughtered, is in what state?

A) Exhausted

B) Terrified

C) Disgusted

D) Doomed

Answer · why

A) Exhausted

Exhausted is the meaning, and the image behind it is grim: a knacker made a living from horses too old or sick to work, a trade recorded under that na...

Q 05/05

Which coin do Britons 'spend' in a euphemism for visiting the toilet, a phrase born of coin-operated lavatory locks?

A) A farthing

B) A groat

C) A penny

D) A sixpence

Answer · why

C) A penny

A penny was the price of entry: stage magician John Nevil Maskelyne patented a coin-operated lock for London's public toilets in about 1892, and the p...