A Beastly Quiz — more Regency slang

Anne here, and for your entertainment in the lead-up to the festive season, here's a baker's dozen of questions — a "beastly quiz" on Regency slang terms involving creatures of various kinds. You'll need a pen and paper to note down your answers, then at the end, there's a link that will take you to the correct answers. After that, come back and tell us how you went. Have fun.

 

1)   To cock up one's toes means:—  

        a) to trip

         b) to die

         c) to get ready to run

         d) to tread in bird droppings

 

2) Done to a cow's thumb means:—

        a) to be exhausted

        b) to be swindled   

        c) to be overcooked

        d) to be perfectly cooked

 

3) A bear leader is a person who:—

        a) supervises prisoners in gaol

        b) is a strong leader   

        c) takes schoolboys on tours  

        d) handles bears in bear-pits

 

4) An ape leader is:—

        a) a spinster

        b) a zoo-keeper 

        c) a heavy drinker

        d) a brawler

 

5) To be cock-a-hoop is:—

        a) to be nervous and jumpy

        b) to be confused   

        c) to be angry

        d) to be in high spirits

 

6) A chicken nabob is:—  

        a) a frightened man

        b) a man of moderate fortune 

        c) a man who sells chickens

        d) a gourmand

 

7) A toad eater is:—  

        a) obsequious

        b) stubborn  

        c) phlegmatic

        d) insensitive

 

8) To be under the cat's foot is:—

        a) to be a slave to your pets

        b) to be bedridden

        c) to be dominated by a woman

        d) to be lazy

 

9) To be a cat’s paw is:—

        a) to be persuasive

        b) to be used by someone else   

        c) to be a tease

        d) to be soft and gentle

 

10) To be foxed is:—

        a)  to be foolish

        b)  to be cunning   

        c)  to be drunk

        d)  to be hungry

 

11) A beak is:—  

        a) a schoolmaster

        b) a nosy person

        c) a gossip

        d) a magistrate

 

12) To kick up a lark means:—

        a) to brutalize a singer

        b) to play football

        c) to have fun

        d) to get into debt

 

13) To shoot the crow means:—

        a) to leave without paying

        b) to throw up

        c) to shoot a crow

        d) to cheat at cards

 

 

Now you've made your choices, click here to see the answers. Then come back and tell us how you went.

 

Comments

[Janice]

13 for 13. You made it too easy ;)

[Carol Knight]

11 out of 13. I chose the wrong choice in the 2 I missed. It was an either or answer.

[John Jackson]

11 out of 13
Quite pleased with myself.

[Mary T]

I had 4 wrong. Quite disappointed - thought I knew them all. I love these quizzes.

[Amy J]

Only 3 guessed wrong - I can live with that, but clearly need to read some more regencies.

[Christina Courtenay]

Aaargh, I got the second one wrong! Never heard that - you live and learn :-) Great fun, Anne, thank you!

[Christina Courtenay]

Correction - it was the third one I got wrong. Not that it matters but still ...

[Beverly Abney]

This is the first time I have gotten them all correctly. I have always thought my Regency knowledge was good after many years of the time period being my favorite, but YOU ALWAYS got me on one or two. Thanks for doing this.

[Kat Kimbriel]

Numbers 2 and 11 were new to me. Got the rest.

Thank you!

[Anne Gracie]

Heh heh, Janice. These quizzes are a bit like Goldilocks -- too hard, too easy or jusssst riiight. ;)

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Carol. Half the fun for me is in coming up with plausible but wrong choices, so I do like it when people fall into my cunning trap. *g*

[Anne Gracie]

Well done, John.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks Mary — I enjoy making them up, but I'm running short on Regency slang terms that are not ridiculously obscure. Still, I will persist.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks Amy, it's also fun for me, making them up, so I'm glad you enjoy them. And 10 out of 13 is pretty good.

[Anne Gracie]

Glad you enjoyed it Christina. Thanks for playing.

[Anne Gracie]

Well done, Beverley. Clearly, with you and Janice getting them all right, I need to up my game a little and keep you on your toes. *g*

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Kat — one of them is used in a Georgette Heyer novel, but I can't recall exactly which one. #11 appears in a number of works, but I always double check my sources.

[Marianne McA]

I got 11 wrong, but I blame Molesworth (very funny diaries of a schoolboy written by Geoffrey Williams) who does call his schoolmasters 'beaks'.

[Sue McCormick]

Are we losing posts again? I posted a score of 12 out of 13. I got the "Beaks" wrong, but that was offset by a lucky guess on the last one.

[Anne Gracie]

Marianne, sorry for the inadvertently misleading clue. You know that's maybe why I thought of that as a choice -- I might have read one of those books. They sound like something my brother might have had many many years ago.

[Anne Gracie]

Sue, I just checked and there's nothing in the spam trap, so I'm not sure what happened. Marianne (in the comment above) pointed out that one of my "wrong" clues was misleading in that it might have two meanings. so you can up your score, if that's what you chose. Sorry.

[Quantum]

9 out of 13 correct. I knew 7 but had to guess at the rest. Seems I need to read more Regency authors.

Great fun though .... much better than crosswords (where I am hopeless!} 😊

[Constance]

12 of 13 - doing great til the last one! But love learning a new phrase - and I ran into quite a few who “shot the crow” back in my college waitressing days! Wish I’d known it then! Thanks for the fun - love these quizzes!

[Maryellen Webber]

I only got 8 correct! I never heard of Beak or under the cat's paw. I do enjoy the quizzes though! Thanks Anne!

[Pat Dupuy]

I missed only one! The ape leader. Some of those I've heard, many I just guessed at but I must have heard some of that slang to have guessed so well! I think the real difficulty was making up the alternate answers for the quiz!

[Karin]

I missed three, done to a cow's thumb, chicken nabob, and to shoot the crow. I have never heard of a chicken nabob, but I've seen the other two expressions in my reading, I guess I've just been misinterpreting what was going on those stories!
Great quiz, I love these.

[Janet Gahagan]

I got 12 right, but the 13th tripped me up!

[Sue McCormick]

No need to even up my score, but I DID wish to have bragging rights. I've never been this close to getting them all before.

[Kareni]

I answered nine correctly; clearly I need to read a few more regencies! Thanks for a fun quiz, Anne.

[Teresa Broderick]

I got 11 out of 13. Delighted, I've never done so well before. I love quizzes of any sort and do enjoy these!!

[Anne Gracie]

Read more Regency authors? Oh that would be a hardship. *g* Still 9 out of 13 is pretty good. Glad you enjoyed it, Quantum.

[Anne Gracie]

Well done, Constance. And yes, people who skip out on their bill -- not nice! Glad you enjoyed the quiz.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Maryellen, I'm pleased you enjoyed it. I have fun making them up, but if people didn't like them I would have stopped ages ago.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Pat — it's an ugly term, isn't it? For me, though, making up the alternative answers is the real fun in doing these quizzes. *g*

[Anne Gracie]

" I have never heard of a chicken nabob"
Karin it's a fairly demeaning term, I think. I'm very pleased you enjoyed it -- thanks for letting me know.

[Anne Gracie]

Ah that last "baker's dozen extra" -- a kind of sting in the tail (she says mixing metaphors horribly. *g* Well done -- 12 is an excellent score.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks Kareni— as I said to Quantum, above "Read more Regency authors? Oh that would be a hardship. *g*"
And 9 is a very respectable score.

[Anne Gracie]

Well done, Teresa — I've used a couple of those terms in previous quizzes, so there, they are quite clearly educational. and not merely frivolous fun. *g*

[Janice]

I love these fun quizzes best when I lose. When I get a wrong answer, I learn something new.

I see a heavy Georgette Heyer influence here :)

I like their cheerful emphasis on shooting things, as in "shooting the crow". There is also "shooting the cat" - which I think means the same thing as "casting up one's accounts": barfing after overdrinking.

[Anne Gracie]

Yes, pleading guilty to a strong Heyer influence here. *g* As to the quizzes being too easy or too hard, I try for a balance — I don't want to discourage people, or make it so easy they don't bother. I also don't want to repeat terms too often, and it's getting harder to find slang that's well known enough to be guessable, but still be something of a challenge. There are heaps of terms in the various dictionaries of slang, for instance, that I've never seen anywhere in print, and I guess were only used in particular company in particular areas — eg thieves cant or dockside slang, but I don't use any of them. So it remains a challenge to find expressions that are used in Regencies, and haven't been done to death.

As for shooting things, there's also that American term, "shooting the breeze." And probably more we could think of.

[Vicki L]

Wow.....I got all 13 right! I've never ever done so well. I don't ever remember seeing chicken nabob before but I just figured it was one step down from Nabob so would be a moderately wealthy person compared to a Nabob.

I agree with everyone. These quizzes are fun and I do enjoy them even when you use very tricky words.

[Anne Gracie]

Congratulations, Vicki, that's a great result. And yes, good thinking about the chicken nabob. I'm pleased you enjoyed the quiz -- thanks.

[Faith]

Anne, I LOVE these quizzes!! The slang is so colorful and wry, and this time I only missed cow's thumb and bear leader.

They must be a lot of work, so thanks again.

Faith

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Faith. I'm so pleased you enjoy the quizzes. Well done on your result.

[Sharon Sherry]

I got 12/13 so not too bad. The bear one caught me out.

[Anne Gracie]

Yay Shazza -- well done. It's my aim in these quizzes to come up with alternatives that will lure you away from the correct answer, so . . . my work is done. ;)

[Patricia Levick]

Did very well - got them all. At 83 regrettably some of those terms were still in use in my youth in England - people in Oz have more sense
Trish

[Anne Gracie]

Well done, Trish. Some of those expressions are in use here, too, depending on the person, their age, where they came from and whether their parents used them. And whether they read Regencies or not. *g*