Having some fun on Cinco De Mayo

OK, so maybe Cinco De Mayo isn't the biggest holiday here on the East Coast, but don't tell that to any of friends back in San Diego. Not that we're ever at a loss to celebrate something, but we figured we'd take a break from our usual "stuff", and have a little bit of fun with a trivia contest.

Since I'll be giving the answers at the end of the column, there won't be any prizes if you get everything right, but some smug satisfaction of knowing that you know a lot of little-known facts. Test yourself out..some of these are a bit tricky (and depending on your political slant, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John McClain are not correct answers to any of these questions).

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward.

3. Of all vegetables (yuck!), only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perenial vegetables?

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5. In many liquors stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. How did the pear get in the bottle?

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters 'dw' and they are all common words. Name two of them.

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable (more vegetables???) or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet, that begin with the letter 's'.



Answers:
1. Boxing
2. Niagara Falls
3. Asparagus and rhubarb
4. Strawberry
5. It grew inside the bottle. The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small.
6. Dwarf, dwell and dwindle
7. Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces and ellipses.
8. Lettuce
9. Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts.


How'd you do? E-mail me the number of correct answers at Rich.Bradley@proforma.com. For the record, I got four right...but at least I know the names of the two actors who played Darren on "Bewitched." So there!!