the arts & etymology quiz
TRANSCRIPT
The Arts & Etymology QuizIIT Kanpur Quiz Club
Quizmaster: Anshul Roy
Rules of the game• 1 round of Infinite Bounce. 42 questions in total.
• +20/-10 on a pounce.
• +10/-0 on a bounce.
• The answer to none of the questions in this quiz is 42. A team answering 42 to any question would be sent to the Gulag.
• Hints on special request (valid only if the Quizmaster is in a good mood).
• The more you stare at the question, the more the answer stares back at you.
• Kindly refrain from cybernetic investigations.
• While preparing the quiz, Wikipedia has been assumed to be factually correct.
• Quizmaster is Ozymandias, the King of Kings. His decisions are final and binding.
Bad Luck Brian memes serve as safety slides in this quiz, keep an eye out for some easy chuckles.
इनिफिनट बाउंस
Q - 1In the year 1849, in New York City, a man named William Thompson would walk up to random strangers and spark a conversation. He would gain their trust and then ask them - “Have you the confidence to trust me with your watch until tomorrow?’”. Having said that, he would then never return. He was finally caught in the act when a stranger recognised him.
He was nicknamed X. Over a time period, this nickname X was edited a bit and gave rise to the word Y.
Id Y.
AnswerY = Con man (derived from the word “Confidence Man”)
Q - 2This is a couch gag from “The Simpsons” referencing which famous painting by which famous artist?
AnswerRelativity by M.C. Escher
Q - 3The famous painting X by Y has sparked considerable academic debate as scholars interpret the painting. Some critics believe the melting _______ in the piece are a response to Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Art critic Dawn Ades says - "the soft _______ are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time.”
When Y was asked directly if Einstein's Theory of Relativity was an inspiration, Y declared his true muse for the deformed _______ was a wheel of Camembert cheese that had melted in the sun. As Y considered himself and his persona an extension of his work, the seriousness of this response is also up for debate.
Many people also believe that X might be a self-portrait. The floppy profile at the painting's center might be meant to represent Y himself, as the artist was fond of self-portraits.
Id X and Y.
AnswerX = The Persistence of Memory, Y = Salvador Dali
Q - 4The Classic Cafe is a diner located in New York City’s West Village neighbourhood (image on the next slide).
In 2014, a Chicago native named Mark walked into the cafe and told the manager, Alex Vigor, something unexpected which left him “star-struck for a second”.
Alex Vigor and the cafe owner, Fiko Uslu, were intrigued by this revelation and began researching the building’s history. They came to the conclusion that the revelation was true and they changed the name of the diner to X.
Most of their evidence is based on the visual similarity between their diner, located at 679 Greenwich Street, and the one shown in X. Both are triangular spaces with large windows and seating at a dark wooden bar. They also talked to elderly residents of the neighbourhood, and they recalled the building housing a diner in the 1940s.
Id X.
AnswerX = Nighthawks
Q - 5These are some paintings from a series of 46 paintings made by an artist. What is the first and the most famous painting of this series?
AnswerThe Great Wave off Kanagawa
Q - 6Wanting to support USA during World War 2, and inspired by Franklin Roosevelt's January 1941 address to Congress, X sought to illustrate the President’s vision for a postwar world founded on the Y, that is - A, B, C, and D.
Finding new ideas for paintings never came easy, but the high concept became an even greater challenge for X. By chance, the artist attended a town meeting near his home in Arlington, where one man rose among his neighbors to voice an unpopular view (this particular incident later inspired X to make the sketch called A).
The same night, X awoke with the realization that presenting the Y from the perspective of his own hometown experiences could prove quite effective. X made some rough sketches and went to Washington to propose his poster idea, but the Ordnance Department of the U.S. Army did not have additional resources for the commission. On his way back to Arlington, X stopped at the Philadelphia office of Ben Hibbs, editor of The Saturday Evening Post, and showed him the proposed sketches for the Y. Ben Hibbs immediately made plans to use the illustrations in the The Saturday Evening Post.
The United States Department of the Treasury later promoted war bonds by exhibiting the original sketches in sixteen cities.
Id X and Y.
AnswerX = Norman Rockwell, Y = Four Freedoms
Q - 7These two paintings were painted by the famous artist Edvard Munch in the year 1907 as his own interpretation of a very famous painting.
Which famous painting am I talking about?
AnswerThe Death of Marat
Q - 8In the early 1900s, traveling circuses would display what they called “X shows”. These shows featured either performers with some utterly bizarre ability or physical feature, or a performance in which something bizarre happened. Usually, that meant a person eating something disgusting, like biting the heads off live chickens.
It is believed that the word X in those shows came from the old German word Y, which basically meant - “a stupid person”.
Nowadays, the word X is used in a very different context.
Id X.
AnswerX = Geek
Q - 9Franz X was a German physician and astrologist. He is known for a particular medical procedure where he sat with a patient, looked into their eyes and made passes in front of their face.
Franz X believed that this would remove the barriers in our body and allow the free-flow of the processes of life. This procedure was later developed, by others, into the complex __________ procedures practiced today.
Franz X was highly criticized at the time for his procedures, mainly due to the lack of scientific evidence to support them.
What word is derived from the name of this German physician?
AnswerMesmerize
Q - 10This is the movie poster of the 2011 film “Winnie the Pooh”. Which famous painting is this poster inspired from?
AnswerWashington crossing the Delaware
Q - 11Back in the 14th Century, X were the backbone of the agriculture industry. That is to say, they were the guys who worked on farms.
The word X is an old French word that traces it’s etymological roots to the word Y, which was Latin for “country house”.
Over a period of time, the meaning of the word X gradually changed. Farm workers were generally poor peasants. Peasants, because they were poor, were deemed untrustworthy and suspicious. At that time, it was believed that untrustworthy people committed crimes.
Eventually we ended up with the modern day definition of X.
Id X.
AnswerX = Villain (derived from the Latin word “villa”)
Q - 12In 13th Century France, wooden shoes were unfashionable. These wooden shoes were called Y, and were worn generally by lower class citizens because they were cheaper than leather shoes. Walking more than a few steps in a Y was very difficult, clumsy, and noisy. The French noticed this fact, and came up with a word to describe this - “Yier, to walk noisily and clumsily wearing Y”. Eventually, Yier became known as any sort of bungle, like getting the words wrong in a speech and completely bungling the whole thing. By 1910, the meaning of Yier had further progressed to mean malicious bungling, and the word was eventually changed to X.
Another etymological theory states that - when French workers went on a strike, they would angrily hurl their Ys into the factory machinery, damaging them beyond repair. Thus Ys became a symbol of destruction and obstruction. Eventually, the word Y was changed to the word X.
Id X.
AnswerX = Sabotage (derived from the word “sabot”)
Q - 13This is a phrase from Rule 6 of the “Laws Of The Mendip Miners” –
“If any man do pick or steal any lead or ore to the value of 13 Pence, the Lord or his officers may arrest all his Lead or Ore with his Grooves and workers and forfeit it and shall take the person that hath soe offended and bring him where his house or his workplace is and all his tools and instruments are and put him into his house or workplace and burn it all together with him inside and banish him”.
This is the origin of a very popular phrase.
What phrase am I talking about?
AnswerBeing fired from a job
Q - 14Which famous painting directly inspired the album cover of the music albums “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II” by Guns N’ Roses?
AnswerThe School of Athens by Raphael
Q - 15In 1819, X purchased a house on the banks of Manzanares near Madrid called “Quinta del Sordo” or “Villa of the Deaf Man”. It was a two-story house which was named after a previous occupant who had been deaf, although the name was fitting for X too, who had been left deaf after contracting a fever in 1792.
Between 1819 and 1823, before X left the house to move to Bordeaux, he produced a series of 14 works, which he painted with oils directly onto the walls of this house. At the age of 73, and having survived two life-threatening illnesses, X was likely to have been concerned with his own mortality, and was increasingly embittered by the civil strife occurring in Spain. Although he initially decorated the rooms of the house with more inspiring images, in time he overpainted them all with the intense haunting pictures known today as the “Black Paintings”. Uncommissioned and never meant for public display, these pictures reflect X’s darkening mood with some intense scenes of malevolence and conflict.
Y was one of six works with which X decorated the dining room of the house. Y is among X’s most famous paintings. Many art historians believe that X may have been inspired by Peter Paul Rubens' 1636 picture of the same name.
Id X and Y.
AnswerX = Francisco Goya, Y = Saturn Devouring His Son
Q - 16In Greek mythology, X was a nymph who cast a spell on Zeus which caused him to fall in love with her. In consequence of this, Hera metamorphosed her into the Eurasian Wryneck bird.
This bird has occasionally been used for magic and divination and is remarkable for it’s ability to twist it’s head by almost 180 degrees while hissing like a snake. The Eurasian Wryneck bird is found in Africa and Eurasia and is popularly known as the X bird.
What superstition gets it’s name from the popular name of this particular bird?
AnswerJinx
Q - 17Charcot Marie Tooth disease (CMT) is a group of inherited conditions that damage the peripheral nerves. These nerves are found outside the main central nervous system and they control the muscles and relay sensory information, such as the sense of touch, from the limbs to the brain. People with CMT may have - muscle weakness in the feet, ankles, legs, hands and an awkward way of walking.
In May 2016, Professor Marc Patterson, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, said that X from the painting Y by Z is likely to have suffered from a form of Charcot Marie Tooth disease. Professor Patterson reviewed X’s medical history, and also studied all of Z's paintings of X, including Y.
He said - “This was a fascinating case. This painting has long been a favourite of mine, and the question of X’s ailment was an intriguing medical mystery. I think her case best fits the profile of this disease.”
The findings were presented at the 23rd annual Historical Clinicopathological Conference held at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The conference is devoted to the diagnosis of disorders that afflicted historical figures.
Id the painting Y.
AnswerY = Christina’s World
Q - 18This is a very famous painting (next slide) by the English poet and painter William Blake titled - X.
In the year 1981, a serial killer named Y saw this particular William Blake painting in an art gallery, which gave a voice to his alternate personality. Y became obsessed with this particular painting. He became fixated with the strength and power he thought the ___ ______ exuded. He also had a giant tattoo of the ___ ______ on his back. He believed that killing people - or "changing" them, as he called it - would allow him to more fully "become" the ___ ______. Y murdered two entire families in two months, on a full moon night. Y chose his victims through the home movies that he edited as a film processing technician.
Y was nicknamed "The Tooth Fairy" due to the nocturnal nature of his crimes, his tendency to bite his victims bodies, the uncommon size and sharpness of his teeth and other apparent oral fixations.
Id X and Y.
AnswerX = The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun Y = Francis Dolarhyde
Q - 19The word X was adopted in English language from the French language. The French word is a 16th Century permutation of the Italian word Y, which was the name of a particular Venetian coin. The word Y literally means “little magpie”.
The word Y became an epithet for _____________ during the early and middle 16th century, because the first Venetian _____________ costed only one Y.
Id X.
AnswerX = Gazette
Q - 20The word X originated in medieval Europe. Back then, castles were prone to attacks by enemies. To keep themselves safe, the powerful owners had their castles built with vertical arrow slits known as Xs. These Xs enabled guards in the castle to strike down enemies with little exposure to danger. Although Xs were narrow on the outside, they were much wider on the inside, enabling archers to strike from different angles. Their length varied from 1 to 3 meters. A X also served as a source for letting light into the castle. With the invention of the crossbow in the 12th century, horizontal slits were added to the Xs to enable accuracy and efficiency. The Xs were built in the form of crosses and were known as crosslets.
Over a period of time, the literal meaning of the word was eventually replaced with its metaphoric definition - “gaps that can be exploited to avoid consequences”.
Id X.
AnswerX = Loophole
Q - 21The word X may have been derived from the Scottish term for clothes, Y. The term X was first used in print in 1876, in Putnam's Magazine, to mock how a woman was dressed. The use of the word X for clothing in English goes as far back 1567.
In the popular press of the 1880s and 1890s, X was a new word for "dandy" – an extremely well-dressed male, a man who paid particular importance to how he appeared.
The word was used to refer to Easterners and referred to a man with "store bought clothes". The word X may have been derived from the Spanish phrase “lo ______” meaning “doubtful". The word was used by cowboys to unfavourably refer to the city dwellers.
Id X.
AnswerX = Dude
Q - 22A X worm is an extremely rapidly propagating computer worm that spreads as fast as physically possible, infecting all vulnerable machines on the entire Internet in ____________ or less. The term is based on X's remark that "In the future, everyone will have ____________ of fame".
The SQL Slammer worm was the first observed example of a X worm. In spite of deficiencies in its implementation, the randomised attack was highly effective. 90% of all vulnerable machines were infected within 10 minutes, showing that the original estimate for infection speed was roughly correct.
Id X.
AnswerX = Warhol
Q - 23In medieval Spain, during the rule of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, the Moorish and Jewish people in Spain were given an ultimatum to convert to Christianity or leave the country. All those who stayed had to convert to Christianity to be accepted as citizens of the country.
By they early 19th century, members of oldest and most powerful royal family, which had refused to interbreed with these other races, began to claim that their blood was pure and _____. The ostensible reason for their prejudiced logic was that since they were fairer than the Moors and Jews, who were mostly peasants who worked under the Sun, their visible veins had a hue of _____.
The phrase soon spread to Britain, where it became popular.
What phrase am I talking about?
AnswerBlue blood
Q - 24There is a famous puzzle. 9 dots are arranged in a square, like in the image shown. The objective of this puzzle is to connect all of the dots using only 4 straight lines without lifting your hand off the paper, crossing each dot only once.
This puzzle is the origin of a phrase. What?
AnswerOut of the box thinking
(The only way to solve the puzzle is to extend at least one of the lines beyond the perimeter of the "box". This solution never occurs to most people. They see a box, and their thinking is limited by that.)
Q - 25This Google Doodle was created as a tribute to X, on X’s 121st birth anniversary on October 25, 2002.
Id X.
AnswerX = Pablo Picasso
Q - 26After accepting the commission for the painting X, the artist Y expected that Z would be sitting for the study, but Z refused point blank, not only on the basis that Z disliked sitting but also because Z believed that the painting should be a representation of Z’s character rather than his physical appearance. Here is how their conversation went -
Z - Sit? For what good? Do you think that the great men of Antiquity for whom we have images sat?Y - But Citizen First Consul, I am painting you for your century, for the men who have seen you, who know you, they will want to find a resemblance. Z - A resemblance? It isn't the exactness of the features, a wart on the nose which gives the resemblance. It is the character that dictates what must be painted. Nobody knows if the portraits of the great men resemble them, it is enough that their genius lives there.
Unable to convince Z to sit for the picture, Y took a bust as a starting point for Z’s features, and made his son perch on top of a ladder as a model for the posture.
The refusal to attend a sitting marked a break in the portraiture of Z in general, with realism abandoned for political iconography. After this point the portraits captured an ideal rather than a physical likeness.
Id the famous painting X.
AnswerX = Napoleon Crossing The Alps
Q - 27X is the Greek word for blood. The ancient Greek scholars theorized that an excess of blood in a person made him happier and more playful. And so the word Y has come to mean cheerful and enthusiastic in the English language.
Id Y.
AnswerY = Sanguine
Q - 28During the World War 2, the Japanese Generals were facing crushing defeat at the hands of USA. They had run out of fighter planes and boats. As a last resort, they deployed a depraved tactic called X. A pilot would fly a plane loaded with arms directly into enemy territories and crash on the enemy's ship with the intention of causing maximum damage. Though such pilots were glorified and honored, there are evidences that a lot of coercion was involved.
Nowadays the word X, imported to English, means something reckless and often suicidal.
Id X.
AnswerX = Kamikaze
Q - 29The etymological origins of the phrase X is highly disputed and various theories have been made to explain it. Some of them are -
1. The earliest known English language work on magic, or what was then known as "legerdemain", was published anonymously in 1635 under the title “X Junior: The Anatomie of Legerdemain”. Further research suggests that X was the stage name of a well known magician of the era. This may be William Vincent, who is recorded as having been granted a license to perform magic in England in 1619.
2. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term X originates from the phrase “hax pax max Deus adimax", a pseudo-Latin phrase used as a magic formula by conjurors.
3. Some people believe that the term X has been derived from Y, a magician and demon of the north in Norse mythology.
4. Many people believe that X is a nonsense word. 5. X may have been coined by Protestants to mock the Catholic transubstantiation
incantation used to turn bread and wine into flesh and blood, “________________”.
Id X.
AnswerX = Hocus Pocus
Q - 30“The Empire of Light” is a series of paintings (images on the next slide) by the famous Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte painted between 1953 and 1954.
These paintings depict the paradoxical image of a nighttime street, lit only by a single street light, beneath a daytime sky.
These paintings inspired a famous scene in the 1973 film X. This scene was also used on posters as well as home video releases of X.
Id X.
AnswerX = The Exorcist
Q - 31In any war, when a battalion is engaged in a gun battle there are times when an emergency surgery is needed - legs have to come off or deeply-buried bullets need to come out. And sometimes, there's no time for anaesthesia, especially when the enemy is bearing down.
So, in order to distract the patient from the extreme pain of a surgical procedure, the surgeon would supposedly shove a X in his Y and ask him to _____ down. Of course, the surgeon could also use a belt or shirt but even in the throes of death it's important for a man to look like a badass.
Which phrase traces it’s etymological origins to this practice?
AnswerBite the bullet
Q - 32In the 1500s, homes had thatched roofs in which domestic animals such as X and Y liked to hide. The animals would keep themselves warm in the little nooks in the thatching on the roofs and store their food. However, these thatched roofs did not had the ability to repel strong winds.
When an especially ______ day came along, the animals would either get washed off of the roof or would come leaping down looking for better cover.
The story goes that the townsfolk would look out of their windows, and proclaim it to be Z.
Id Z.
AnswerZ = Raining cats and dogs
Q - 33This is an 8-foot-tall bronze statue situated on a hill overlooking Ashland, Pennsylvania (image on the next slide).
It was built by the Ashland Boys Association in 1938, during the Great Depression, as a tribute to mothers everywhere. The pedestal of this monument quotes the famous poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, reading "A Mother is the Holiest Thing Alive.”
What was the inspiration behind this bronze statue?
AnswerWhistler’s Mother
Q - 34In April 2013, the slogan “Our Heroes are Back” was used to announce that, after an absence of one decade, all major art pieces in the Rijksmuseum's collection were back where they belonged. A flashmob, staged in a shopping mall, was used to promote this by recreating the famous painting X by Y.
Id X and Y.
AnswerX = The Night Watch, Y = Rembrandt
Q - 35X is an American visionary artist whose body of work spans a variety of forms including performance art, process art, installation art, sculpture, visionary art, and painting.
While in college, X had a series of entheogenically induced mystical experiences, due to psychedelic drugs. X would frequently trip on LSD and DMT. X then spent five years at Harvard Medical School working in the Anatomy department studying the human body and preparing cadavers for dissection. X also conducted scientific experiments to investigate subtle healing energies.
X is best known for his paintings of glowing anatomical human bodies, images that “x-ray” the multiple layers of reality. The themes of death and transcendence weave throughout X's artworks. X's art is a complex integration of body, mind, and spirit. X's paintings examines in detail the physical and metaphysical anatomy of the individual. Many of X's paintings include detailed representations of the skeleton, nervous system, cardiovascular system, and lymphatic system. X's work incorporates many religious symbols, including auras, chakras, and icons with geometric shapes. More recent work explores the subject of consciousness from the perspective of "universal beings".
X's paintings have been featured in the album art of artists like Tool, The String Cheese Incident, Meshuggah, the Beastie Boys and Nirvana (Images on the next slides).
Id X.
AnswerX = Alex Grey
Q - 36In the year 1880, Captain Charles X was managing land in Ireland when poor harvests struck. The Lord whose lands he was managing offered to reduce the rents of his tenants, but the offer was unsatisfactory. One landlord, Lord Erne, offered his tenants a 10% reduction on their rents. The tenants rejected this offer and demanded 25% reduction. This was refused by Lord Erne, and Charles X then attempted to evict some of the protestors.
This angered the tenants and so they then refused to have anything to do with Charles X. The lands were left untended, shops would not sell to his family, and post was not delivered to his house. Supplies were shipped to the estate from England since no one would deal with him in Ireland.
In the end the protest was successful and Charles X’s name became synonymous with targeted __________.
Id X.
AnswerX = Boycott
Q - 37This is a nighttime view of the city of Arles, in southern France. This scene inspired a famous artist to draw a particular painting.
Which famous artist and painting am I talking about?
AnswerStarry Night Over the Rhône by Vincent Van Gogh
Q - 38In the medieval times, people were very superstitious. It was believed that jealous forces, always present, are only too anxious to spoil any good venture. People believed that a good luck wish would alert and provoke them to do their evil work, whilst a curse will make them turn their attention elsewhere.
The underlying principle of a popular phrase is the belief that if you wish evil, then good will come.
What phrase am I talking about?
AnswerBreak a Leg
Q - 39X is an island in France, in the river Seine, at the very gates of Paris, in the locality of Neuilly (image on the next slide). It is 7 km far from the towers of Notre Dame and 3 km from the Etoile. It has about 4,000 inhabitants and is nearly 2 km long and nearly 200 m wide at its widest point. It’s name translates as "Island of the Bowl" or "Island of the Big Bowl”.
In 1818 Louis-Philippe acquired the château of Neuilly in order to house his family of ten children. He bought the land and created a park which encloses the island, reachable only by boat. He also put a temple on the northern point. Between 1850 and 1870 Napoléon III and Baron Haussmann further modified the island.
In the world of Arts, what is the significance of this island?
AnswerSetting for Georges Suerat’s painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte"
Q - 40This is a snippet (next slide) from the webcomic “Existential Comics”.
This particular comic strip is about the philosophical concept of “The Sublime”, which, in aesthetic theory, is something powerful and terrifying that arouses a strange feeling of pleasure in the subject. For example, when viewing a hurricane or a vast desert wasteland you can be overwhelmed by their awesome force, but exulted at the same time.
The third panel in this particular comic strip is a reference to Caspar David Friedrich's famous painting X, which is commonly used to portray “The Sublime” in art. Many of his other paintings had similar themes. Some art historians also say that the message conveyed by X is one of Kantian self-reflection. Some people also believe that X presents a metaphor for the unknown future.
Id X.
AnswerX = Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
Q - 41In June 1816, the warship X departed from France, bound for the Senegalese port of Saint-Louis. X headed a convoy of three other warships. Hugues Duroy De Chaumereys had been appointed captain of X despite having scarcely sailed in 20 years.
In an effort to make good time, X overtook the other warships, but due to poor navigation it drifted 100 miles off course. On 2 July, it ran aground on a sandbank off the West African coast.
At least 147 people were piled onto a hastily built raft, that partially submerged once it was loaded. After 13 days, the raft was rescued by a ship. By this time only 15 people were still alive. The others had been killed or thrown overboard by their comrades, died of starvation, or thrown themselves into the sea in despair.
The collision was widely blamed on the incompetence of De Chaumereys, who lacked experience and ability, but had been granted his commission as a result of an act of political preferment. This incident became a huge public embarrassment for the French monarchy.
Which famous painting commemorates this infamous incident?
AnswerThe Raft of the Medusa
Q - 42In 2014, Vincent Icke, a professor of theoretical astronomy at Leiden University inspected the famous painting X and published his conclusion in the scientific journal “New Scientist”.
Vincent Icke closely examined the Y present in the painting X and based on a number of observations he came to a surprising conclusion that Y is not actually made of _____, but maybe silver or polished pewter.
According to him - “A large part of the doubt, is caused by reflections which are visible in the Y. An actual bead consists of thin layers of calcite which scatter light of different wavelengths and break. This creates the famous soft white, _____y sheen. Instead, we see a bright reflection of light in the top left corner of the _____ and at the bottom to see a reflection of the white collar.”
Which famous painting am I talking about?
AnswerGirl with a Pearl Earring
So long, and thanks for all the quiz.
One more thing…
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