Q 01/05

English borrowed the word picnic from which language, where it first appeared in a satirical verse of 1649?

A) Italian

B) French

C) Spanish

D) Latin

Answer · why

B) French

French pique-nique meant a meal where every guest paid or brought a share, and only around 1800 did English speakers move it outdoors.

Q 02/05

In which park does the cartoon character Yogi raid campers' picnic baskets while dodging Ranger Smith?

A) Jellystone

B) Yellowstone

C) Yosemite

D) Sequoia

Answer · why

A) Jellystone

Jellystone Park spoofs Yellowstone, and the joke became real estate: a chain of family campgrounds has traded under the cartoon park's name since 1969...

Q 03/05

Which toys gather for a picnic in the woods in the 1907 tune that Jimmy Kennedy set words to in 1932?

A) Tin soldiers

B) Rag dolls

C) Teddy bears

D) Wooden puppets

Answer · why

C) Teddy bears

Teddy bears were still a novelty when John Bratton wrote the tune: the toy had been named after President Theodore Roosevelt only five years earlier.

Q 04/05

Which picnic toy is named after a Connecticut bakery whose empty pie tins Yale students tossed to one another?

A) Hula hoop

B) Yo-yo

C) Boomerang

D) Frisbee

Answer · why

D) Frisbee

Frisbee was what college students were already calling Wham-O's plastic Pluto Platter, so in 1957 the company made the nickname official.

Q 05/05

Which picnic staple is named after an 18th-century English earl, said to have ordered it during long card games?

A) Shortbread

B) Sandwich

C) Crumpet

D) Pasty

Answer · why

B) Sandwich

Sandwich honors John Montagu, the 4th Earl, whose valet is said to have brought him roast beef between two slices of toast so he could keep playing cr...