Spring Quiz Competition

Tommoz starts with ...
What with the first day of Spring arriving on Sunday I thought I would liven up the forum with a competition.

Around midday on Sunday I will post a quiz of 25 short riddles where you have to guess the fruit. I have written it myself and purposely made it very difficult so that one can't cheat by using the internet. I think only fruit aficionados and riddle-solvers will do well.

Comp will be open for a week, email your answers in at any time - the entry with the most correct answers submitted earliest will get a prize to be announced on Sunday.

Pictures - Click to enlarge
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John Mc says...
I'm hopeless at quizzes but will be looking with interest.

Julie says...
John - 'I'm hopeless at quizzes but will be looking with interest.'

If the questions are about fruit I'm sure you'll do well! You (and Mike) seem to have a wide knowledge of fruit growing.

John Mc says...
I'm out already after reading that answer from Mike.

Julie says...
I think I got 7 out of 25. I won't be entering!

peter 1000 says...
ive got one i think
no. 20

Tommoz says...
I don't do any crossword puzzles. I am not good at them, but maybe would make a good question writer.

I liked that old show "Catch Phrase." Unfortunately these days that is too intellectual for mainstream tv, now game shows are based around pure chance (Deal or No Deal) or pop culture trivia (Millionaire Hotseat).

VF says...
Very clever Tommoz, I'll have a crack if it's not too late.

Tommoz says...
Ok Folks the competition is now closed. Thanks to those who participated. There were only three entries, although it was a hard quiz which I am guessing stopped a few from entering. Only four questions were not solved by anyone. I will announce the winner soon.

Here are my answers. As to be expected, it wasn’t a perfect quiz , so I adjusted the solutions a little by making more than one answer acceptable. It was a learning experience for me too as I’ve never heard of Kola Nut for instance. If people have any queries I will look into them in the spirit of fairness.

1. A flightless berry – Kiwifruit. Yes, it is technically a berry. The kiwi (bird) is of course flightless. I accepted kiwiberry (hardy kiwi) too.

2. You can’t eat just the one – Pear (homophone of ‘pair’)

3. China’s fruit of the year for 2012. – Dragonfruit. According the Chinese calendar, 2012 was the year of the dragon.

4. The noggin of a balding petrologist – Rockmelon. A ‘melon’ is an insult for a balding head while a petrologist is someone who studies rocks.

5. Confucius say, “Man go crazy for this fruit!” - Mango. Helps to read the question out loud.

6. A fruit for Steven Hawking – Starfruit/carambola. He is the world's most renown astrophysicist and a celebrity too I suppose.

7. Edison and Tesla fought over this - Currant. I even started a thread recently and had it titled ‘War of the currants.’ Edison and Tesla fought over whether DC or AC should be used large scale. Tesla won.

8. Cola and pistachios – Coconut or Kola Nut. Haven’t heard of the second one but accepted it.

9. Without a bee bananas would be this fruit – Pineapple. By ‘bee’ I was referring to the letter ‘b’ and you had to take it away from the word ‘bananas’ which would leave ‘ananas.’ That is the latin name for pineapple. People who know another language would have benefited here, as that is what all other languages use, the English for some bizarre reason had to name it a ‘pine apple.’

10. While inspecting the ‘beach’ I noticed it was Brazilian - Nectarin. You had to read ‘beach’ as [peach] and ‘Brazilian’ as [hairless] (fuzzless). Nobody got this one.

11. The Latin plural would be ‘pla’ – Plum. One stadium, two stadia. One baculum, two bacula.

12. You’ll need to chew over this one: a juicy fruit – Jackfruit. It is also known as ‘bubblegum fruit’ and the flavour of jackfruit is used in Juicy Fruit chewing gum.

13. An apple Alexander could have brought back – Peach. By Alexander I meant Alexander the Great of course, who is known for conquering the ancient world, notably Persia. A nickname of the peach is ‘persian apple’ and latin name is also ‘prunus persica’ even though it originally came from China. Nobody got this one.

14. A pear of alligator shoes – Avocado. The nickname of this fruit in America is the ‘alligator pear’ because of the rough peel.

15. When Emil looked into the mirror, his face turned green – Lime. You had to read ‘Emil’ backwards.

16. A supreme tongue to speak highly of the Emperor – Mandarin. It is the world’s most spoken language. One of the major mandarin cultivars is the ‘Emperor.’

17. On the Eve of their banishment, it didn’t go all the way down. – Apple. ‘Eve’ here was capitalized for good reason, referring to Genesis’ Adam and Eve of Garden of Eden fame. European folklore held that a man’s Adam’s apple was the inheritance of a piece of the forbidden fruit being lodged in the throat of the biblical Adam. Of course this is Eurocentric nonsense, even for superstition, because apples were domesticated much later and could not be the unidentified ‘forbidden fruit.’

18. Carlos Moya had a stella career – Cherimoya. ‘Stella’ is a well-known cherry cultivar, then add 'Moya.'

19. Envious on the plate, blushing in the flesh, obseedian residue – Watermelon. This was a parody of an old school-yard riddle: ‘What is green on the plate, red when you eat it and black when you spit it out?’ I decided to provide a twist: green[envy], red[blushing] and black[obseedian]. I decided to spell obsidian as obseedian to try and hint at the seed being black. Nobody got this one.

20. You won’t need the fruit to get the silk – Mulberry. Anyone who has read up on this fruit would know that the leaves are perfect for silk worms.

21. You’ll be face-palming if you are wrong about reincarnation – Buddha’s hand fruit. I don’t know anything about this fruit apart from the name.

22. Cue some Michael Jackson music and watch “White Men can’t jump” – Quince. I’m guessing nobody actually watched the film because nobody got the answer here. There is a scene where the girl appears on Jeopardy and the category is ‘Foods that start with the letter Q’ with one of the questions being about quince. The other clue is that most of Michael Jackson’s hits were written by Quincy Jones. Nobody got this.

23. If the seed of any fruit had to be cyan I’d pick this one – Apricot. You had to read ‘cyan I’d’ as [cyanide]. The seeds of apricots contain cyanide, in fact sometimes prison inmates are known to hoard the seeds and take an inglorious exit. Upon further research, apple and peach seeds also contain some cyanide and so I accepted an entry of ‘apple’ as the entrant also demonstrated they spotted the cyanide hint.

24. The agent’s plan went like a clockwork, sowing the seeds of a revolution – Orange. There were three links to this fruit(or colour) in the riddle. Agent Orange. Orange Revolution. A Clockwork Orange.

25. To have children, she sought the services of a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant – Fig. ‘White Anglo-Saxon Protestant’ is commonly shortened to its acronym ‘WASP.’ Figs need caprification by wasps in order to be pollinated.

Anonymous says...
Thanks for the competition.

Dang - how do you fix that anonymous - I was logged in properly.

Jenny says...
Thanks for the quiz Tommoz I enjoyed trying but didn't get that far! your questions were very tricky. I was pleased with what I did figure out. Will you post the answers?

Jenny says...
yes! sorry I see them now. I got 10 right :)

allybanana says...
Me and my partner had a lot of fun with this we forgot to submit but got 13. Thanks for the time you spent developing this Tommoz.

BJ says...
Sorry Tommoz, I meant I should have kept it simple. I overthought a few of them and tied myself in knots... Thanks for putting it together.

allybanana says...
Hi Tommoz

I lifted your quiz idea and created this for our open Garden Day at our community garden. I made it much easier and based it on our garden, hope you like it.

1. A New Zealand flightless bird fruit.

2. One rose eaten by lamb; the other with.

3. This weird fruit has seeds on the outside.

4. A fruit for the Passionate.

5. Some rocks are dead, some alive, glowing colour before our eyes.

6. A favourite Arabian drug, roasted ground right in your mug.

7. This mango cultivar sounds like a famous Star Wars astro-droid.

8. Bright red flower in pineapple family.

9. What’s up Doc “naw naw crunch crunch” ?

10. Two edible native lilies for ice cream.

11. Poor loser, sour ______.

12. A ginger for yellow Indian curry.

13. A delicious fruit with monster leaves.

14. A brown horse, a herb, a howling dog.

15. High altitude cold tolerant relative of the papaya.

16. Bouncing across the desert sand, goes this furry hand.

17. An equine substitute for wasabi.

18. The worst vegetable to have on a ship. L _ _ _.