Figurative Words & Language
Word up! Do you know the difference between an oxymoron and onomatopoeia? See what your trivia players know about these figurative words.
15 questions · Published June 28, 2021
Trivia questions (5 of 15)
- Multiple Choice
1. In language, giving human characteristics to inanimate objects is known as ____________.
EXAMPLE
James Stephens: "The wind stood up and gave a shout."
- Multiple Choice
2. Which of the following describes words that imitate the sound they denote, such as "splash," "bang", and "moo"?
FUN FACT
True to form, the word "onomatopoeia" comes from the Greek for "word-making."
- Multiple Choice
3. Perhaps the most famous pun in all of literature, "Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York", opens which Shakespeare play?
- Multiple Choice
4. Which of these is NOT a backronym, an acronym intentionally formed from the letters of an existing word, name, or abbreviation?
The FBI's motto of "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity" was fitted to the organization's name, making it a backronym.
Likewise, the common distress signal of S.O.S. doesn't actually stand for anything (it was simply an easy-to-remember signal in Morse Code). The commonly used "Save Our Ship" came later.
"Seasonal Affective Disorder" was intetionally designed to spell SAD.
SCUBA, on the other hand, is a true acronym, derived from the equipment's initials.
- Multiple Choice
5. Which of the following refers to a phrase, such as "piece of cake" meaning "something easy", whose greater meaning cannot be deduced from its individual words?
Although the words "idiom" and "cliche" or often used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. A cliche is an expression that has been overused to the point that it has lost its effectiveness. Idioms generally have their root in sound (although sometimes old-fashioned) linguistics.
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