The all new, revised and easier quiz! (mod note posts 1 and 2042)

Samaris

the block wrote: »

Dogs

..Drat, I meant to ask for their names, but that was my bad phrasing!

Yep, Belka and Strelka, accompanied by forty mice and two rats.

Rubecula

Samaris wrote: »

..Drat, I meant to ask for their names, but that was my bad phrasing!

Yep, Belka and Strelka, accompanied by forty mice and two rats.

and half a million fleas

BrensBenz

Rubecula wrote: »

and half a million fleas

Do we have to name the fleas?

Rubecula

BrensBenz wrote: »

Do we have to name the fleas?

if you can.... lol

BrensBenz

Rubecula wrote: »

if you can.... lol

Itchie
Scratchie
Rashie
Gnatser
Hives
Bitey
Lousy
Knasher
Dracula
Swatter Dodger
Mozzie
Jumpie
Hopper

Is that half a million yet?

IrishB.ie

BrensBenz wrote: »

Do we have to name the fleas?

They were George Foreman's, so they were
George Jr
George III
George IV
George V
George VI
etc, etc, etc

Samaris

Sadly, at least three fleas did not survive the journey. Jeffrey, Tod, and Bloodsucker will be missed.

Given it's been a couple of days, I'll ask another :P

Can anyone remember a children's TV show from the '60s-70s that had the announcer 'Auntie Jean' and friends Katie Kookaburra, Willie Wombat, and Ermintrude Emu?

BrensBenz

Samaris wrote: »

Can anyone remember a children's TV show from the '60s-70s that had the announcer 'Auntie Jean' and friends Katie Kookaburra, Willie Wombat, and Ermintrude Emu?

Yih, Cobba, that was Tingha and Tucker. Still can't beat Torchy Torchy the Battery Boy.

Samaris

BrensBenz wrote: »

Yih, Cobba, that was Tingha and Tucker. Still can't beat Torchy Torchy the Battery Boy.

Indeed it was and over to you!

BrensBenz

Meteorologists tell us that clouds are made up of tiny drops, particles or crystals, mostly of water, floating in the atmosphere. To save time, they decided to pick one word to describe these drops, particles and crystals. However, these days, their choice of word sounds a little strange - well, it sounded strange to us when we were learning basic meteorology for sailing. What is the word?

looksee

*warbles*

Torchy, Torchy, the battery boy
He's a walking, talking toy
Press my switch,
See my light
Start to (gleam?)
Its the most magic light yooooo haaaaave seeeeeen!

Have no memory of the program at all! Just the song.

garancafan

Would it be "mizzle"?

BrensBenz

garancafan wrote: »

Would it be "mizzle"?

No, not mizzle (mist + drizzle?).

Previously, I was hereabouts, ranting I mean discussing the trend of taking perfectly good words and giving them entirely different meanings, e.g. the word "meal" means one thing at McDonalds but something todally different in the rest of the English-speaking world. Or "spam"!

I can't confirm but I suspect that this word may have been in use in meteorology first and was then usurped and re-cycled so that, these days the interloper meaning seems "normal" and the original meaning seems strange.

By the way, the "word" also applies to "clouds" closer to ground level, e.g. fog (natural); smog (unnatural).

garancafan

BrensBenz wrote: »

No, not mizzle (mist + drizzle?).

Previously, I was hereabouts, ranting I mean discussing the trend of taking perfectly good words and giving them entirely different meanings, e.g. the word "meal" means one thing at McDonalds but something todally different in the rest of the English-speaking world. Or "spam"!

I can't confirm but I suspect that this word may have been in use in meteorology first and was then usurped and re-cycled so that, these days the interloper meaning seems "normal" and the original meaning seems strange.

By the way, the "word" also applies to "clouds" closer to ground level, e.g. fog (natural); smog (unnatural).

Indeed. I remember being looked at rather oddly when I told a couple of youngsters (probably in their forties) that I used to love spam, egg and chips.

Would the answer to your question, by any chance, be "precipitation"?

BrensBenz

garancafan wrote: »

Would the answer to your question, by any chance, be "precipitation"?

No, not precipitation.
I know that precipitation can mean wet stuff falling from the sky and also solids settling on the bottom of a container of liquid but, in a way, these two meanings are similar.

Following intense research with my daughter and niece, the "word" has its normal, modern, everyday meaning but the meteorologists' meaning is entirely different. When told of the other meaning, said daughter and niece were heard to remark: "Ya whoh??? Dat's mad!"

Pulsating Star

Blanket?

looksee

The tv weather person calls it 'spits and spots' of rain.

looksee

haar ... um, no.

Samaris

Heard of them as either "atmospheric particulate"(s) or aerosols?

BrensBenz

Samaris wrote: »

Heard of them as either "atmospheric particulate"(s) or aerosols?

Yes, aerosols. Well Done.

I can (sort of) understand why "aerosol" is appropriate in both meteorology and bathroom cabinets, i.e. in both cases, drops, particles or tiny solids are suspended in gases, but it's still strange to me to think about clouds being full of aerosols!

Samaris

Clouds are aerosols, as is mist and smoke Dust from deserts is another; as soon as you have tiny drops of solids (or liquids) suspended in a gas, you have an aerosol. It did cause a certain confusion between "aerosols are bad!" and the canned ones though.

Where it can be a bit confusing is their effects - it's a physical reaction rather than a chemical one, so aerosols overall effect is a cooling one - the Sun's rays hit the tiny particles being carried and refract the light back out into space.

*cough, nerd moment over*

Sooo... oh! A device used in several detective stories, particularly Agatha Christie; if the detective finds a handkerchief embroidered with the letter H at the scene of the crime, who (singular or plural) may be the owner out of the following list?

Helene Ansbacher
Hortense Kiely
Natalya Andrinov
Clara Horton
Ola Hansdottir

Edit: Remember to follow normal detective story rules! There's no mad chance in the question above, so no need to be too Sherlockian

looksee

Any of them really, people don't always have the correct initial on a hanky- they could have borrowed it or be setting someone up or got married or...

Samaris

looksee wrote: »

Any of them really, people don't always have the correct initial on a hanky- they could have borrowed it or be setting someone up or got married or...

That is being too Sherlockian Not borrowed, stolen, incorrect.

looksee

Helene Ansbacher
Hortense Kiely
Natalya Andrinov
Clara Horton
Ola Hansdottir

mutter, seems too easy...

looksee

(Don't tell me you can't have a surname initial on your hanky)

Samaris

Incorrect. ^^

looksee

Samaris wrote: »

Incorrect. ^^

Snort! think i will go and do something useful.:pac:

Samaris

I get the feeling I may be in mild trouble when the answer comes out!

Jellybaby1

I will say Natalya Andrinov because old Natalya, bless her...him, had either a middle name beginning with H, or Natalya is a ladee who married a MR. H-something or other. Knowing Agatha Christie, I'll bet they always suspected the murrrrderrrerrr was of the 'lower classes', as dem wot are our betters are ladees and gents and incapable of doing such rascally things, doncha know loike?

OldGoat

Helene Ansbacher

The golden rule of detectives is "Follow the money" and Ansbacher is the stand out money name in the list.
Though the reality is that it was the butler, in the library, with the lead pipe.