Quiz answers

[chickenfeet]

You lot should do really well in an education system that values imagination and creativity over actually knowing anything. Well, I got a good laugh out of some of the answers. Anyway, I realise that some of the nicknames I used may have more than one usage so the following is what I intended when I devised the thing.

Pongo: British and Australian navy slang for a soldier. "Where the army goes, the pong goes". I don't think it's derived from the genus of the orangutan. No-one got this one which surprised me. The closest was perhaps ajhalluk with "military policeman". However, in my experience the normal slang for an MP is "redcap" though several less polite terms may also be used.

Monsters of the Midway: As albionwood says, the Chicago Bears of the NFL.

The Grey Funnel Line: Lots of you got this one. It's the Royal Navy. It's a sort of play on the fact that many merchant shipping lines are/were known by their funnel decorations, eg the White Star line of Titanic fame.

Los Merengues: rhythmaning claims there is a Peruvian soccer team with this nick name. He may well be right. I was thinking of the rather better known Real Madrid.

Toonie: A Canadian two dollar coin, as many of you know. The one dollar coin has a loon on the reverse and rapidly became known as a "loonie", so when they introduced a two dollar coin it was inevitable.

Nobody: Odysseus is an erudite and excellent suggestion but it wasn't the sneaky Greek that I had in mind. lunar_affinity got what I was driving at; John Eales, former Australian rugby captain, who was so called because Nobody's perfect.

The Tart with the Cart: Almost everyone got this which amazed me. It's a statue of Molly Malone near the Ha'penny Bridge in Dublin.

The Silver Ferns: The NZ netball team as most of the southrons knew. FWIW, the cricket team is "The Blackcaps" (and who came up with a stupid name like that) {ETA the men are the "blackcaps", the women are the "White (not siver) Ferns"} and the rugby team is the "All Blacks". The Silver Ferns are famous for being the only major sports team to sell advertising space on their underwear.

Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard: rhythmaning was so close but not quite with "The Royal Scots Guards". Unfortunately there is no such regiment. The correct answer is The Royal Scots, formerly the 1st of Foot, and in continuous existence since 1633 though apocryphally descended from Caledonians in Roman service. The Scots Guards are something quite different. As of this year the Royal Scots will cease to exist as they are to merge with KSOB to form a battalion of the new Royal Regiment of Scotland.

The Hedgehogs: Noone got this. It's the Seattle Supersonics of the NBA. Geddit?

Comments

[klig.livejournal.com]

Further on the NZ business: The basketball team are known as the "Tall Blacks" and the badminton team are reportedly referred to as the "Black Cocks".