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Archive for the ‘Quizzes’ Category

60-second quiz

Posted by Cathy

Over the past year, we’ve been running a series called 60-second fix in our monthly e-bulletin. Now it’s time to find out whether you’ve been paying attention. Challenge your colleagues to a quick round …

Which spellings are mainly only used in the UK, and therefore best avoided when you’re writing for an international audience?



Which of the following is usually only used in American English?




Which of the following describes a rounded board used by a painter?




Which of the following is used to express similarity?




In British English, there are two spellings of this word. Which one describes the legal sense?




Which of the following means ‘be patient with me’?




Which of the following means ‘carried’, in the past tense?




Which of the following means ‘free of charge’?






 

How did you get on? Full marks, we hope! Feel free to show off in the comments field below. Also, let us know if you have a quandary you’d like us to do a 60-second fix for in future.

And if you got any wrong and want to revisit the articles, here’s a handy index:

Bear/bare
Compare to/compare with
Complimentary/complementary
Different to/from/than
Judgement/judgment
Palate/palette/pallet
Spelt/spelled, learnt/learned and dreamt/dreamed
Substitute for/with.

<<Read the September 2012 e-bulletin

Posted September 5th, 2012 in Grammar, Quizzes, Spellings | 5 Comments »

Test your trademark knowledge

Posted by em-admin

How much attention do you pay to trademarks? Mistakenly use one to refer to a generic product, and you can land yourself with a letter from the company concerned’s trademark lawyers, and the need to write embarrassing apologies, writes Cathy Relf.

While it’s OK to tweak trademarks slightly to bring them into line with standard English (for example More Than, rather than MORE TH>N), it’s not OK to use a trademarked name to describe a product not made by that company.

In some cases, the horse has already bolted – ‘Hoover’ is now almost synonymous with ‘vacuum cleaner’, for example, regardless of the brand. But use ‘Thermos’ to describe a vacuum flask not made by Thermos and you’re on dodgy ground.

Take our quiz to see how trademark-aware you are. For each item, decide whether it’s a current trademark, a lapsed trademark or a red herring. To make it more difficult, we’ve written them all with an initial capital.

After you submit your answers, you’ll get an explanation of each one.

Please go to Test your trademark knowledge to view the quiz

How did you do? Let us know below, and if you know of any other trademark trivia, please share.

<<Read the May 2012 e-bulletin

Posted May 1st, 2012 in Quizzes | 5 Comments »

Helicopter parents, noobs and brain candy

Posted by em-admin

As a new year begins, you can’t help but look back on the one just passed: its gains and losses, its highs and lows, the memorable moments and those best forgotten.

So why not do the same for the words and terms that entered our lives – or at least the dictionaries – in 2011?* You can make your own mind up about which of those categories these words fall into, but – more to the point – can you pick the correct definition for each from the choices below?

Please go to Helicopter parents, noobs and brain candy to view the quiz

Let us know how you got on. Have you used any of the terms? (We’ve already heard from a keen cricketer about an alternative meaning for one of them.) If not, will you be adding any of them to your vocabulary? And which ones (if any) are you hoping to forget long before the year is out?

* Words taken from 2011 entries in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Concise Oxford English Dictionary and Collins English Dictionary

And if that’s put you in a quizzing mood, why not pit yourself against our fiendish spelling test?

<<Read the February 2012 e-bulletin

Posted January 25th, 2012 in Choose your words wisely, Quizzes, Wordplay | 7 Comments »

Release the geek!

Posted by em-admin

Below are the correct and incorrect versions of some of the most commonly misspelt words. Can you unmask the criminal mistakes? They’ll get away with it if not for you meddling kids.

Go on, let your inner geek out to play. Share this link and challenge your colleagues to a spell-off. You know you want to …

Please go to Release the geek! to view the quiz

Once you have your score, why not leave us a message in the comments section below to let us know how you got on? And if you have any spelling tips you’d like to share, such as mnemonics, we’d love to hear them.

Posted November 29th, 2011 in Quizzes, Spellings | 27 Comments »

Making Words Work