10Q (Apr 23, 2024)

1. Occurring 12 times in the singing of the Portuguese version of a well-known seasonal song, what does the line "Uma perdiz numa pereira" translate to in English?

2. This question is linked in a way to the previous one. Siphonophorae (from Greek siphōn 'tube' + pherein 'to bear') is an order of marine creatures that appear to be individual organisms. But each specimen of a siphonophore is in fact composed of multiple zooids that have independent but symbiotic functions. Carl Linnaeus described the first siphonophore in 1758,and named it after a type of warship that he felt the visible part above the water resembled. What did he call it?

3.  The visual below shows a chart drawn up in 1930s Germany to categorise the population into Germans, 'mixed blood: first degree', 'mixed blood: second degree', and Jews. Citizens had different rights and duties depending on which of these categories they fell in. The rules were known as the [X] Laws, after the city in which they were decreed in 1935, a city that was the scene of actions of a redeeming nature a decade later. Name the city [X].

4.  Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is a transparent thermoplastic, commonly known as acrylic. The material was developed in 1928 in various laboratories, but was first brought to market in 1933 by the Rohm and Haas Company, under the trademark [X]. It has since been sold under many different names, including Acrylite, Lucite and Perspex. What was the original trade name [X]?

5. Vasco da Gama gave this region the name [X] because he sailed parallel to its coast around Christmas in 1497, while searching for a route from Europe to India. A city established there by Europeans in 1824 was first called Port [X], and later renamed after the man referenced in the pic below, who was the governor of the Cape Colony at the time. That made it one of those unusual place names with an apostrophe in it, but that was dropped later. What was the remaining 6-letter name of the city, which is now the 3rd most populous in its country?

6. Deriving from a corresponding term where two people are involved, what 5-letter neologism refers to such showdowns as the one between Blondie, Angel Eyes and Tuco at the end of 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; the climactic ending to 'Reservoir Dogs' involving the characters Mr. White, Nice Guy Eddie, and Joe Cabot; and the swordfight between Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, and James Norrington in 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest'?

7. At the end of the monsoon months of Septermber and October, especially on moonless and foggy dark evenings, hundreds of disoriented birds descend on this village in Assam, many of them crashing to earth and dying. Until recent efforts at education reduced the practice, those that survived were often beaten to death with bamboo poles by locals who believed the phenomenon to be the harbinger of evil spirits. Name the village.

8. Which 1995 movie that won 5 Academy Awards was based on an epic poem by 15th-century British minstrel Blind Harry, titled “The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace”?

9. This 11-letter French word, which made its way as it is into English in the 19th century,  literally means 'clear-seeing'. Separated into two approximately equal parts, and with an 'e' then added at the end of the first part, it was the name of a medium who became the Black Widow, the first costumed, superpowered female protagonist in comic books, making her first appearance in August 1940 [pic below]. The character is not related to later versions of the Black Widow. What's the word?

10. There is no evidence of any Native Americans actually having used this 3-word phrase in reference to the afterlife. Its earliest appearance is in the last chapter of James Fenimore Cooper's most famous novel, 'The Last of the Mohicans', published in 1826. The title character Chingachgook says (after the death of his son Uncas), "Why do my brothers mourn? why do my daughters weep? that a young man has gone to the _____ _______ _______; that a chief has filled his time with honor?" Fill in the blanks.

10Q (Apr 8, 2024)

1. Tune Group Sdn Bhd (Sendirian Berhad, meaning 'private limited') is a corporation founded in 2001 by [A] and Kamarudin Meranun. It has subsidiaries in the telecommunication, financial services, hotel, airlines, sports, media and other creative industries. We know [A] mainly for his involvement in one of those subsidiaries. The son of a Goan doctor and an Asian-Portuguese mother, who is [A]?

2. [B] is credited with the earliest known use of the word 'neologize': “Necessity obliges us to neologize,” he wrote in an 1813 letter to the grammarian John Waldo. “I am a friend to neology,” he told John Adams seven years later. “It is the only way to give to a language copiousness and euphony.” Name this US President, who contributed such words to  the English language as 'belittle', 'Anglophobia', pedicure, and 'odometer'.

3. Having conducted business in much of southern India in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Australian horse breeder Henry Madden bought a mansion in Melbourne in around 1906-7. He named his estate after a region in India with which he had business ties, which is why there is in present-day Melbourne a suburb named for a now non-existent Indian princely state. The pic below shows a few of the streets there (the name of the area is blanked out in one of them). What is the name of the suburb, that has been listed as a heritage site by the Australian Government called the __________ Conservation Area?

4. Shown below is a Persian dish called tah-deeg, which consists of rice that has formed a golden crispy crust but hasn’t burnt – made possible by factoring in the right amount of oil, the right amount of time, the right temperature, the type of rice, etc. A reference to the location in the cooking vessel where it forms, what does the term 'tah-deeg' mean?

5. Considered a form of ancestor worship, this ritual performance, also known as Kaḷiyāṭṭaṁ or Tiṟa, differs from village to village in terms of masks and costumes, movements and chants. Some households have their own specific variants. Studies have documented up to 456 types of performances. What is this ritual art form of nothern Kerala and southern Karnataka?

6. In his groundbreaking essay ‘Zur Psychologie des Unheimlichen’ (1906) – conventionally translated into English as ‘On the Psychology of the [X]’ – German psychiatrist Ernst Jentsch  made the case that when we regard a thing as creepy, it’s because we are uncertain about what kind of thing it is. Jentsch’s most compelling example turns on uncertainty about whether a thing is animate or inanimate. Jentsch’s theory of creepiness faded into obscurity until Masahiro Mori, then a professor of engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, rediscovered it more than half a century later. Mori wrote a short but immensely influential article entitled ‘Bukimi No Tan’ (1970), which later appeared in English under the title ‘The [XY]’. What phrase [XY], associated with both robotics and animated films, came into existence thus?

7. Smitten by the beauty of tatreez embroidery from the very first time she laid eyes on samples some 20 years ago – as worn by Maali Siam, the wife of the then ___________ ambassador to Japan [in photo below] – Japanese designer Maki Yamamoto started the ___________ Embroidery Obi Project in 2014, a social enterprise in which she collaborates with women from the relevant region of the world to embroider tatreez-inspired obis to be worn with kimonos in Japan. What demonym fills the blanks (both blanks are the same)? Tatreez is the name of the style of embroidery used in the region in question.

8. (a) The first part of the word '____stone' comes from an Old English word which means 'way, journey, course'. What is the full 9-letter word that refers to magnetite, an oxide of iron that forms a natural magnet, but is also used in a more general sense for anything that strongly attracts?
(b) An associated 8-letter word with the same first part originally referred to Polaris, but is used in a metaphorical sense for anything that serves as an inspiration, model, or guide. What is that word?

9. The ______ghosh-class submarines are Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines in active service with the Indian Navy. The individual names of all the subs begin with the part blanked out. The class has been particularly disaster-prone.
-- On January 10, 2008, the class lead ship ______ghosh [pic below] collided with a cargo ship and was out of service for a month.
-- On February 26, 2010, a fire on board INS ______rakshak, caused by a defective battery, killed one sailor and injured two others.
-- On August 14, 2013, an explosion followed by a fire occurred on the ship above (the ______rakshak),which sank in the dock.
-- On January 17, 2014, the ______ghosh ran aground while returning to the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai.
-- On February 26, 2014, smoke was detected on board INS ______ratna resulting in 7 sailors being rendered unconscious and 2 killed.
What word – a Sanskrit word for the environment in which the subs operate, but perhaps most familiar to us as the name of a player of racket sports – fills the blank?

10. First published in 1866, "Chanson d'automne" ("Autumn Song") by Paul Verlaine is one of the best known poems in the French language. Nearly 8 decades later after it was written, the opening lines from the poem were used to 'forecast' what? The lines were:
"Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne..." (meaning "The long sobs of violins of autumn...")
and
"Blessent mon cœur / D'une langueur / Monotone." (meaning "Wound my heart with a monotonous languor."

Answers
1. Tony Fernandes, the subsidiary in question being AirAsia
2. Thomas Jefferson
3. Travancore
4. Bottom of the pot
5. Theyyam
6. Uncanny Valley
7. Palestinian
8. (a) Lodestone
(b) Lodestar
9. Sindhu
10. D-Day – the lines were broadcast by the Allies over BBC Radio Londres as coded messages to the French Resistance to prepare for the Normandy landings

10Q (Apr 3, 2024)

1. The Portuguese word for 'stolen' is also a Goan surname, and the surname of this Canadian singer born of Portuguese parents [pic below]. Coincidentally, it also forms the name of India's biggest retailer of musical instruments, which has an outlet in Panjim. Name the singer you see below. [Half point if you get only the surname, a full point for the full name.]

2. The word / name in the question above originates from a Latin word for 'thief', which also gives rise to:
(a) an English adjective for someone acting in a secretive or guilty manner; and
(b) the English name for an animal from the family Mustelidae, which includes weasels, stoats, badgers, otters, martens, and wolverines.
What are (a) and (b)?

3. The Venezuelan city of Ciudad Bolivar used, till 1846, to be named [X], which gave its name to the Congress of [X] (1819), the [X] tree, and the House of [X], which is the maker of one of the most famous accompaniments to alcoholic drinks. What is [X]?

4. The title story of the anthology whose cover you see below formed the basis of which 2000 Bollywood movie, that was the debut film of two scions of famous Hindi film families?

5. In its native Swiss German, the word [A] meant 'knock' or 'thrust'. Its use in English grew during the reporting of the tumultuous Kapp [A] of 1920, in which Wolfgang Kapp and his right-wing supporters attempted to overthrow the German Weimar government. What's the word [A], that lends itself to punny headlines such as "When [A] comes to shove" and "One last [A]"? The correct spelling is important.

6. In 2019, Sri Lankan author and illustrator Sybil Wettasinghe enlisted the help of students from all across the country to contribute writings, drawings and poetry to complete the story in her new book, 'Wonder Crystal'. The outcome of that effort resulted in what world record for the novel, recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2020?

7. While performing religious rituals in the Panchganga River in October 1899, Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj of the princely state of Kolhapur noticed that the priests were not chanting mantras from the Vedas, but from the Puranas. The explanation given for this by the priests left such a mark on Shahu that it spurred the young Chhatrapati to action in a related aspect, leading to what first in India being introduced in Kolhapur in 1902?

8. This book [cover below] – the result of the authors' travels in the region in 1938 – was a personal recounting of which war, that began on July 7, 1937, with 'the Marco Polo Bridge incident', and was later subsumed into World War 2?

9. Signed by King Kalâkaua under threat of violence (and therefore known as the Bayonet Constitution), the 1887 Constitution adopted in 1877 in which Kingdom stripped the king of much of his authority, and introduced a property qualification for voting, which disenfranchised most locals and immigrant labourers, and favored the wealthier white settler community? It was the first step in the annexation of that Kingdom into its coloniser nation in 1898.

10. This statue [pic below] in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, is of someone born in that city in 1876, whose life saw a sea change at the age of 18, after she answered an advertisement in a Dutch newspaper placed by Dutch Colonial Army Captain Rudolf MacLeod who was living in the then Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and was looking for a wife. Who is it? You can give either her real name or the one we are more familiar with.

 

Answers
1. Nelly Furtado
2. (a) Furtive
(b) Ferret
3. Angostura

4. 'Refugee'

5. Putsch
6. Book with most alternative endings (it has 1,250 possible endings)
7. First caste-based job reservations in India. The priests had explained that only brahmins had the right to perform ‘Vedokta’ rituals and since Marathas were ‘shudras’, they could perform rituals only from the Puranas. The administrative order of 1902, decreed by Shahu, brought in reservations in government jobs for backward castes.
8. Sino-Japanese War
9. Kingdom of Hawaii
10. Mata Hari