quizballs 184 - diversity/words quiz 2 - questions & answers

free language diversity and general knowledge quiz questions and answers - for pub quizzes, pub games, team games, learning and fun

This quiz illustrates the diversity of the English-speaking world. The words in the answers came into the English language from different languages. They reflect cultural diversity - people of different nationalities and ethnicities, etc., mixing together, and often adopting cultural behaviours as well as the language.

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Below are the quiz answers. Here are the quiz questions without answers.

Spelling note: Some UK-English and US-English spellings may vary, notably words ending in our/or, and ise/ize. Where appropriate please change the spellings to suit your local situation.

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quizballs 184 - free language diversity and general knowledge quiz - questions and answers for trivia quizzes and pub quizzes

Two answers are required for each question -

the 'non-English' word that was adopted into English, and
the language from which it came (directly into English)

How many do you know? Some of the source languages are surprising.

Love it or hate it food brand originally an earthenware cooking-pot? Marmite - French (hence the cooking-pot logo)
Crazy, derived from a bovine/equine disease? Loco- Spanish (south west USA - the name for the plant Astragalas and illness due to eating it)
Subject of Himalayan cryptozoology? Yeti - Tibetan (from original yeh-teh, meaning small manlike animal - cryptozoology is the study of hidden animals whose existence is not proven)
Enthusiastic or enthusiasm, from military use and original meaning 'work together'? Gung-ho - Chinese
Celebratory or entertainment gathering or event, typically a suffix for words like film, book, arts, etc? Fest - German
Prohibition? Embargo - Spanish (from root meaning originally arrest or impede)
High performance, notably of cars? GT/Gran Turismo - Italian
Audacity or boldness, usually shameless, a word with Aramaic roots? Chutzpah - Yiddish (or and equating to European-German Jewish - incidentally Aramaic refers to the ancient and nowadays small minority Jewish language and people of the near east and Syria)
Official person or body responsible for investigating complaints? Ombudsman - Swedish (Adopted initially into English by UK parliamentary language, it means legal representative in Swedish)
Common sense or intellect, from a language ironically used jokingly to describe nonsense or the impossible to understand? Nous - Greek
Revived soulless corpse or mindless unresponsive person? Zombie - Bantu (or acceptably also West African or Haitian)
A moving marker, especially digital, orginally runner or messenger? Cursor - Latin
Low bed or mattress? Futon - Japanese
(Take a) look (at something), typically "Let's have a .... at that", originally British army slang? Dekko - Hindustani
Sour bacterial fermentation of milk? Yoghurt - Turkish (or Yogurt/Yoghourt, from original yogurt in Turkish)
Spiritual teacher or expert mentor? Guru - Sanskrit (less correctly Indian or Hindu - Sanskrit is the ancient Indo-European language, used in Indian Hindu and classical writings, which persists today in Indian religious and scholarly work)
Distinguished and sometimes self-important female singer? Diva - Italian (from Latin meaning goddess)
Inspirational aura or personality (of a person)? Charisma - Latin (technically ecclesiastical Latin.. more about the 'science' of charisma)
Long course bathsponge? Loofah - Arabic (name extending to lufa plant and luf species - a tropical gourd - a loofah is its dried vascular system, technically speaking)
Old woman or grandmother, also obscurely a headscarf, and (slightly misspelled) hit song for artist whose name is actually in the word (bonus point for artist name)? Babushka - Russian (Kate Bush wrote and sang the 1980 hit song Babooshka)

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