Q 01/05

Which breakfast cereal's mascots Snap, Crackle and Pop take their names from onomatopoeia in a radio ad?

A) Corn Flakes

B) Shredded Wheat

C) Rice Krispies

D) Cocoa Puffs

Answer · why

C) Rice Krispies

Rice Krispies briefly had a fourth elf in the 1950s named Pow. The original trio were drawn in the early 1930s as elderly gnomes with large noses, ear...

Q 02/05

Which character from a London pronunciation book 'picked a peck of pickled peppers' in a classic alliteration?

A) Peter Piper

B) Peter Pan

C) Pied Piper

D) Peter Rabbit

Answer · why

A) Peter Piper

Peter Piper may have been a real person: some authors identify him as Pierre Poivre, an 18th-century administrator of Mauritius who studied growing sp...

Q 03/05

Which boxer's two-simile motto, coined by cornerman Bundini Brown, was 'Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee'?

A) Joe Frazier

B) George Foreman

C) Sugar Ray Leonard

D) Muhammad Ali

Answer · why

D) Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali's motto came from a poem by Drew Bundini Brown, his assistant trainer, and it went on: 'rumble, young man, rumble.'

Q 04/05

Which personification of death, named in English since the 1800s, is usually shown as a robed skeleton with a scythe?

A) Father Time

B) The Grim Reaper

C) The Sandman

D) The Headless Horseman

Answer · why

B) The Grim Reaper

The Grim Reaper is younger than he looks: the earliest known use of the name in English is in an 1847 book, although a skeletal Death with a scythe go...

Q 05/05

Which idiom do actors say before a show because wishing 'good luck' aloud is thought to bring bad luck?

A) Steal the show

B) Break a leg

C) Bring the house down

D) Bite the bullet

Answer · why

B) Break a leg

Break a leg has a ballet rival: professional dancers do not say it, and wish each other 'merde' instead, a habit some theatre people have picked up to...