Yorrike

I love french, j’adore le français. But the numbers are insane. They start out OK, un, deux, trois, etc. And they’re good up to 69 (yes), with soixante neuf (sixty nine).

What’s wrong with seventy? It’s soixante dix or sixty ten. 72? Soixante douze (sixty twelve), and this continues all the way up to 79, soixante dix neuf (sixty ten nine).

So what’s eighty? Soixante vingt (sixty twenty)? No, of course not. At eighty you switch to quatre vingt, or four twenty. Quantre vingt un, quatre vingt deux… all the way up to 99, which is quatre vingt dix neuf (four twenty ten nine).

This leads to speaking dates in the latter part of last century. In English we’d say nineteen ninety seven. In french it’s deep breath un mil neuf cent quatre vingt dix sept (one thousand nine hundred four twenty ten seven. (At least deux mil vingt, 2020, is easy).

I’m sure this seems perfectly natural to a native speaker, but as someone learning it for the first time it’s seems absolument fou.

Every day of the nation-wide Aotearoa quarantine, I’m posting a quiz as something for people to look forward to. Here’s today’s (Spaced Out Aotearoa Day 16). There’s a meta puzzle too, see if you can piece it together from the 3rd to the 22nd of April. All previous quizzes can be found here.

This is the final quarantine quiz.

1. Name the movie: After stealing stolen goods, a disillusioned boy from the desert teams up with a wanted terrorist and later kills hundreds of thousands at a government facility.
2. How many stars are there on the flag of the European Union?
3. What is the New Zealand name of the star formation the Japanese call Subaru?
4. Which drink has the nickname la fée verte?
5. The Greeks fought a war of independence in the early 1800s against which empire?
6. Which planet hosts the tallest planetary mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons?
7. Which country is refers to its mainland area as The Hexagon?
8. What day of the year is the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere?
9. What is the official language of the South American country Guyana?
10. In which year did Shortland Street premiere on TV2, 1992, 1994 or 1996?

Answers for 29 May 2020

1. Star Wars
2. 12
3. Matariki
4. Absinthe, the green fairy
5. The Ottoman Empire
6. Mars - Olympus Mons 2.5 x taller than Everest
7. France - it’s roughly a hexagon
8. 20th or 21st of June
9. English
10. 1992

Every day of the nation-wide Aotearoa quarantine, I’m posting a quiz as something for people to look forward to. Here’s today’s (Spaced Out Aotearoa Day 15). There’s a meta puzzle too, see if you can piece it together from the 3rd to the 22nd of April. All previous quizzes can be found here.

1. Complete the lyrics to this 1987 Was Not Was song: Open the door, get on the floor, everybody …?
2. Saint Pierre and Miquelon is a French territory off the coast of which country?
3. Which is the longer bridge - Auckland Harbour Bridge, Thorndon Over-bridges or the Rakaia River bridge?
4. Perry is a cider-like drink made from which fruit?
5. The LIGO experiment was the first to measure what cosmic phenomenon in 2016?
6. On a standard dart board, what number is between 13 and 10?
7. Dion Reynolds and Jessica O’Connor were rescued yesterday, after being lost for 13 days, in which national park near Nelson?
8. What is the main grain used to make bourbon whiskey?
9. Most of the world calls them abalone, what do we call them?
10. What weather phenomenon is the Freemantle Doctor?

Answers for 25 May 2020

1. Walk the dinosaur
2. Canada
3. Raikia River bridge (1.7 km, Auckland harbour is ~1km and Thorndon over-bridges are ~1.3 km)
4. Pears
5. Gravitational waves (from 2 black holes merging)
6. 6
7. Kahurangi National Park
8. Corn or Maize
9. Paua
10. A sea breeze

Every day of the nation-wide Aotearoa quarantine, I’m posting a quiz as something for people to look forward to. Here’s today’s (Spaced Out Aotearoa Day 14). There’s a meta puzzle too, see if you can piece it together from the 3rd to the 22nd of April. All previous quizzes can be found here.

1. Who hosted After School, the NZ children’s TV from 1980–1986?
2. Speaking of After School, which iconic character hatched from their egg when Jason Gunn hosted After School in 1987?
3. In which year did Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain die?
4. Who was the rival band of Jem and the Holograms?
5. What was the Spice Girls’ debut single?
6. The disastrously mismanaged Sesqui festival was held in Wellington in which year?
7. The band OMC had an international hit “How Bizarre” in 1995. What does OMC stand for?
8. Super Mario World was the launch title for which Nintendo home console?
9. Which non-alcoholic, non-carbonated drink was marketed in Australia and New Zealand in the 1970s and 1980s as “The drink you have when you’re not having a drink”?
10. Which actor played the character Woody in the TV sitcom Cheers?

Answers for 25 May 2020

1. Olly Ohlson
2. Thingee
3. 1994
4. The Misfits. Who were, frankly, a better band
5. Wannabe
6. 1990
7. Otara Millionaires Club
8. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)
9. Claytons
10. Woody Harrelson

Every day of the nation-wide Aotearoa quarantine, I’m posting a quiz as something for people to look forward to. Here’s today’s (Spaced Out Aotearoa Day 10). There’s a meta puzzle too, see if you can piece it together from the 3rd to the 22nd of April. All previous quizzes can be found here.

1. The French nursery rhyme Alouette (gentille alouette) is concerned with doing what to a bird?
2. In computing, what does the acronym CPU stand for?
3. Which region goes further north, Marlborough, Tasman or Greater Wellington?
4. Basketballer Magic Johnson played for which American West Coast team?
5. In the cartoon The Flintstones, who was Betty’s husband?
6. How old is Donald Trump, 71, 73, 75 or 77?
7. What is the collective noun for a group of wild cats?
8. In terms of calories per kilometre, which is more efficient; walking, bicycling or skateboarding?
9. Who was Prime Minister before Jacinda Ardern?
10. Who hosts TVNZ’s political show Q&A?

Answers for 25 May 2020

1. Plucking its feathers (Je te plumerai means “I will pluck your feathers” in French)
2. Central Processing Unit
3. Tasman - Farewell Spit is further north than Ōtaki and Stephens Island
4. Los Angeles Lakers
5. Barney
6. 73
7. A destruction
8. Bicycling (~26 Cal/km, walking ~52, skating ~35)
9. Bill English
10. Jack Tame

Every day of the nation-wide Aotearoa quarantine, I’m posting a quiz as something for people to look forward to. Here’s today’s (Spaced Out Aotearoa Day 12). There’s a meta puzzle too, see if you can piece it together from the 3rd to the 22nd of April. All previous quizzes can be found here.

1. Which two countries are completely surrounded by Italy?
2. What popular soft drink was originally called “Brad’s Drink”?
3. What is the stage name of Dylan Kwabena Mills?
4. In architecture, a gargoyle is a sculpted creature with a spout for water to run through. What are gargoyles without a spout called?
5. What was the magnitude of this morning’s earthquake?
6. Taranaki, Ruapehu and Ngarahoe are all what type of volcano (as in their shape), stratovolcanoes, shield volcanoes or compound volcanoes?
7. Which HBO current affairs comedy show does British comedian John Oliver host?
8. Who authored The Catcher in the Rye?
9. In which country are the Nazca Lines?
10. Which beloved Wellington restaurant right next to the urban Motorway has had to permanently close due to Covid-19?

Answers for 25 May 2020

1. San Marino and the Vatican
2. Pepsi
3. Dizzee Rascal
4. Grotesques
5. 5.8. But I’ll accept anything in the 5.6-6.0 range.
6. Stratovolcanoes
7. Last Week Tonight
8. J. D. Salinger
9. Peru
10. The Bresolin (RIP)

Every day of the nation-wide Aotearoa quarantine, I’m posting a quiz as something for people to look forward to. Here’s today’s (Spaced Out Aotearoa Day 10). There’s a meta puzzle too, see if you can piece it together from the 3rd to the 22nd of April. All previous quizzes can be found here. It’s Sunday, so there’s a theme: traveling arond the North Island.

1. What is on the side of the road as you drive out of Bulls on State Highway 3?
2. What is on the side of the road as your drive into Taihape on State Highway 1?
3. There is a statue of a giant what in Ohakune?
4. A white, 14 metre high statue of which religious figure can be seen as one drives south on State Highway 1 through Paraparaumu?
5. Tirau has three side-by-side buildings made of corrugated iron shaped like which animals?
6. Which town has a statue of a giant soft drink bottle?
7. Which lower North Island town once described itself as “The Fox Town”
8. Ruapehu has three ski fields on it. What are they called?
9. On which North island peninsula is New Zealand’s only rocket launch site?
10. What lake is the settlement of Lake Ferry on the shore of? Ferry, Wairarapa or Onoke?

Answers for 24 May 2020

1. A life-sized bull statue
2. A giant gumboot made of corrugated iron
3. Carrot
4. The Virgin Mary (Our Lady of Lourdes)
5. A ewe, a ram and a dog
6. Paeroa
7. Foxton
8. Whakapapa, Turoa and Tukino
9. Mahia Peninsula
10. Lake Onoke