Quiztime

QUIZTIME WITH MEIKE

Today we have another guest quizsetter. It's my friend Meike from Ludwigsburg, Germany. Her long-running blog is called "From My Mental Library". You can find it here. As usual, the answers will be given in the comments section.

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1) What is the tallest free-standing structure in Great Britain? 

(a) Arqiva Tower (Emley Moor transmitting station) 

(b) The Shard  (Office block in London)  

(c) Brighton i360 (Observation tower in Brighton, Sussex) 

(d) Blackpool Tower (Constructed in the 1890s)

2) What is the African country of Swaziland now called? 

(a) Zimbabwe (b) Egypt (c) Narnia (d) Eswatini

3) Meike asks, "How many cyber attacks against hospitals in Germany were officially registered in one single week in November 2020?"

(a) 29 (b) 295 (c) 2,950 (d) 29,500

4) What is gelotology? 

(a) The study of the effects and uses of gelatine in food production.

(b) The study of rocks and how they form through 

both volcanic and sedimentary activity. 

(c) The study of laughter and its effects on the body, 

from a psychological and physiological perspective.

(d) The study of icebergs, glaciers and  ice sheets

5) Who is this woman? She was the first female artist  to top the British pop charts with a self-penned song - back in 1978.

6) What was the longest song that the Swedish pop group ABBA ever released? 

(a) "Eagle" (b) "Dancing Queen" (c) "Waterloo" (d) "Fernando"

7)  Worldwide, which female artist has sold more records than any other?

8) What does the L in Samuel L. Jackson stand for?

(a) Leviticus (b) Leonard (c) Leroy (d) Luke

9) Which film star  was born in 1921 in the USA, the eleventh of fifteen children of a poor family of immigrants from Lithuania. His birth name was Charles Dennis Buchinsky.

(a) Mickey Rooney   (b) Charles Bronson 

(c) Charlton Heston  (d) Marlon Brando

10) What is this? (clue - it is thought to be 3750 years old and was unearthed in Germany in 1999)

(a) The Frankfurt Frisbee (b) The Dusseldorf Drum 

 (c) The Stuttgart Shield (d) The Nebra Sky Disc

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That's it folks! How did you do?

Liberation

It's Liberation Day!

Hip hip hooray!

All of out troubles will fly away.

Tariff time is here at last -

Our future rises from the past

With thanks to number forty seven

America is bound for heaven.

So dance my fellow patriots

Dance and laugh and proudly sing

Liberation Day means everything!

Illumination

Lightning

Let me be gentle. No, I am not frothing at the mouth. Yes. Let me smile and provide the following guidance with cheery goodwill. After all - in the end - does it really matter? It's only symbols on paper. I am not blowing a gasket. No I am not.

In my defence, I will say this... I was an English teacher for thirty eight years. I marked thousands of books, assignments, exam papers, essays, stories, letters, fake job applications, poems, playscripts, answers to questions. They all passed under my bridge, like autumn leaves upon the surface of  a river.

One red pen said hello to a new red pen and another and another. Sometimes there were green pens - lines of them stretching out to the horizon. I was doing my best to help. Never belittling nor being superior. The ability to spell accurately is born into some of us but not into others. I know that very well.

The psychology of spelling is often interwoven with our sense of self.

And now I come to the main meat of this blogpost. Settle down everybody. I would like you to look at the following two words:-

lightning

&
lightening

Can you see how they are different from each other? The second one has an "e" in the middle, Not only do these words look different - they have very different meanings.

lightning  - This refers to the natural phenomenon of a bright flash of light in the sky during a storm, caused by a discharge of electricity. It is also widely used figuratively to describe fast movement. Examples:-

During the storm, a bolt of lightning hit the church tower.

The pop fans ran like lightning to the front of the auditorium.

lightening - This is connected with the verb "To lighten". That verb may concern either light or weight. 

Light examples:-

The make-up artist was busy lightening the actress's 

cheeks with some white powder.

Over in the east, I observed a subtle lightening of the 

clouds as night gave way to a new day.

Weight examples:-

At the airport, Pixie tried lightening her suitcase by 

removing her bowling ball.

Lightening one's mind may often be achieved by sharing one's troubles.

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So that's that. I thought that my teaching days were over but repeated evidence of lightning/lightening  confusion in the blogosphere caused me to dust off my mortarboard and academic gown  once more. Class dismissed.

Lightening