Thursday 22 November 2007

Quizzing the Quizmaster

We had a quiz in our village hall last weekend. Not many people came because the date had been rearranged at the last moment. However, there were enough people for four teams, and a quizmaster who must have collected every unknown piece of information he could find anywhere.

As is usual at these events, the Mobile Fish and Chip van arrived, and freshly made portions were handed around. While we enjoyed our meal the Quizmaster entertained us with questions selected from a book he was rifling through in a seemingly random way.

Most of the questions were pretty obscure, but we all had a guess at the answers. But one question flummoxed everybody. It was, "What is the meaning of pornology?" You can imagine the various guesses people made, but the Quizmaster assured us it had nothing to do with naughty pictures or the birds and bees. No connection with art, photography, filmmaking and any other thing we could think of.

We all gave up in the end, and he finally gave us the answer. "Pornology is the study of fruit!" (!!!!!!?)

Well I looked the word up, I searched the internet, I looked in every dictionary I could lay my hands on, and the word 'pornology', with that definition, didn't seem to exist anywhere. But I kept on looking and finally found the word 'pomology' - meaning, 'the study of fruit'.

Conclusion? Either the Quizmaster misread his book, or the book in question has a serious typo!

2 comments:

Anne Lyken-Garner said...

Or maybe he just had pornography on his mind?

Sandy said...

Rofl @ PORNology.

Oh my Gosh, mobile fish 'n' chips!!! I haven't seen a mobile fish 'n' chip van for absolute donkey's years. I had forgotten all about those, lol.