Q 01/05

Which word stood where 'curiosity' now sits in the cat proverb as Ben Jonson wrote it in 1598?

A) Greed

B) Care

C) Pride

D) Hunger

Answer · why

B) Care

Care, meaning worry, killed the cat in Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour and in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing; 'curiosity' only took over in...

Q 02/05

'Money is the root of all evil' drops which word from 1 Timothy 6:10, which condemns 'the ___ of money'?

A) Love

B) Lust

C) Pursuit

D) Worship

Answer · why

A) Love

Love of money, not money itself, is the target, and modern translations soften even that: the New International Version makes it 'a root of all kinds ...

Q 03/05

Which bomber's manifesto gave him away partly by using 'eat your cake and have it too', the older word order?

A) Timothy McVeigh

B) Eric Rudolph

C) Ted Kaczynski

D) Terry Nichols

Answer · why

C) Ted Kaczynski

Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, had written the reversed form in a letter to his mother, and FBI linguist James Fitzgerald's match helped name him.

Q 04/05

Fred R. Barnard spread 'a picture is worth a thousand words' in the 1920s through a journal serving which trade?

A) Advertising

B) Journalism

C) Photography

D) Publishing

Answer · why

A) Advertising

Advertising was Barnard's business, and his 1927 ad passed the line off as a Chinese proverb, which is why it still gets pinned on Confucius; the edit...

Q 05/05

Which First Lady's 1996 book took its title from the proverb 'It takes a village to raise a child'?

A) Rosalynn Carter

B) Laura Bush

C) Hillary Clinton

D) Michelle Obama

Answer · why

C) Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton's It Takes a Village called the line an African proverb, yet no evidence ties that exact saying to any African culture.