FrathWiki Advent Calendar

1st December

What are you afraid of if you have pogonophobia?

• A: Beards, or men wearing beards.

2nd December

In Gaelic, what is the literal meaning of the name 'Campbell'?

• A: 'Crooked Mouth'.

3rd December

What was the original meaning of the Latin word 'musculus', meaning 'muscle'?

• A: 'Little mouse'.

4th December

What language gave us the word 'honcho', for 'big shot' or 'boss'?

• A: Japanese. Hancho means 'squad commander' in Japanese.

5th December

What does the name 'Jonah' mean when translated from Hebrew?

• A: 'Dove'.

6th December

What flower's name means 'nose-twitching' in Latin - a name bestowed on it because of its pungent aroma?

• A: The nasturtium

7th December

What was the original meaning of the word 'clue'?

• A: A ball of thread or yarn, with reference to the one Theseus used as a guide out of the Labyrinth, which makes the concept of unravelling a clue all the more meaningful.

8th December

What is poliosis?

• A: The graying of the hair. It comes from 'polios', the Greek word for 'grey'. The disease poliomyelitis was so named because it involves the inflammation of the grey matter of the spinal cord.

9th December

How did the duffle bag get its name.

• A: From the Belgian town of Duffel, where the coarse, thick-napped woollen fabric used for the bags was manufactured.

10th December

Dublin theatre manager James Daly was credited with inventing and introducing what word into the English language during the late eighteenth century by scrawling it in bathrooms and other public places?

• A: 'Quiz': Daly reportedly bet a friend he could introduce a new word into the language within 24 hours - and won.

11th December

What did the term 'skyscraper' originally mean - before it was used to describe a tall building?

• A: It was the name of the small triangular sail set above the royals on square-riggers to catch wind in calm weather. It was later used to describe tall men and horses, and eventually buildings.

12th December

What's an ananym?

• A: A name spelled backwards that is sometimes used as a pseudonyum. Oprah Winfrey uses an anaym of her first name for her production company Harpo.

13th December

What was the nautical origin of the expression 'not enough room to swing a cat'?

• A: The cat referred to was a cat-o'-nine-tails, which was used for lashings at sea.

14th December

What does the word 'koala' mean in Australia's Aborigine language?

• A: It means 'no drink'. This Australian marsupial gets all the liquid it needs from the eucalyptus leaves it eats.

15th December

You've no doubt heard the French children's ditty Alouette. Just what or who is 'alouette'?

• A: It's a skylark.

16th December

What is sneet?

• A: In California, where smoke and fog combine to become smog, a downpour of snow and sleet is known as sneet.

17th December

What is a dentiloquist?

• A: Someone who speaks through clenched teeth.

18th December

In Japan, what automobile accessory is known as a 'bakkumira'?

• A: The rear-view mirror. The Japanese word was drawn from the English words 'back' and 'mirror'.

19th December

What is a triolet?

• A: A poem. It's an eight-line poem having a rhyming scheme of ab aa ab ab, with its first line repeated as the fourth and seventh lines, and the second line repeated as the eighth line.

20th December

What was the original meaning of 'ezel', the name seventeenth-century Dutch artists gave to the three-legged stand we know today as an easel?

• A: 'Ezel' is Dutch for 'donkey'. The artist's stand was so named because, like a donkey, it too carried a burden.

21st December

What is the last letter of the Greek alphabet?

• A: Omega.

22nd December

What is Trockenbeerenauslese?

• A: A German wine made from vine-dried grapes so rare that it can take a skilled picker a day to gather enough for a single bottle.

23rd December

How did the loosely woven fabric we know as gauze get its name?

• A: From the city of Gaza, in Palestine, where it was first made.

24th December

What is the meaning of the word 'Siberia'?

• A: It's from 'sibir', which means 'sleeping giant' in the language of the Taatars who once dwelled in the area.