League of the Lexicon: the ultimate word game – exclusive Christmas quiz

Roget the badger, a character card from the League of the Lexicon board game, illustrated by Stavros Damos for the Observer. Photograph: Credits to follow

1. Three of these are real festive occasions – the other is entirely fictitious. Which one?

   1. Merlinpeen

   2. Winterlude

   3. Gravy Day

   4. Newtonmas

2. Before the Grinch stole Christmas, what did he do?

   1. Can canaries

   2. Pluck porcupines

   3. Farm gravel

   4. Sell wire

3. Who coined the word “Crimble”?

   1. Comedian Tommy Trinder

   2. Journalist Clive James

   3. Beatle John Lennon

   4. Ad agency Lowe Howard-Spink

4. Which word has never been a name for Christmas?

   1. X’temmas

   2. Xmastyde

   3. Chrissie

   4. Nowell

5. 

   In Regency England, what would one find in a Yorkshire Christmas pie?

   1. Marzipan, custard and glacé cherries

   2. Thirty-six larks and a pound of beef

   3. A jellied sheep’s head

   4. One turkey, one goose, two ducks, six woodcocks, a hare, three grouse and six game hens

6. What’s eggnog in French?

   1. Lait de poule (chicken milk)

   2. Oeuf ivre (drunken egg)

   3. Hoquet de Noël (Christmas hiccup)

   4. Tempête de neige (snowstorm)

7. Which yule is not found in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language?

   1. Yule-hole (belt-loosening after Christmas lunch)

   2. Yule-skrep (chastising a child on Christmas Day)

   3. Yule-yagger (having no nice clothes to wear at Christmas)

   4. Yule-tashed (weariness following Christmas celebrations)

8. Which of these is not a traditional Christmas character?

   1. Hans Trapp, the child-eating scarecrow

   2. Père Fouettard, the whipping father

   3. Lidérc, the miracle chicken

   4. Jólakötturinn, the hungry cat

9. Which satirical religious group celebrates “Holiday” in December?

   1. Dinkoists

   2. Dudeists

   3. Kopimists

   4. Pastafarians

10. Baubles may hang from Christmas trees, but what’s a “baubling”?

    1. A moment of confusion

    2. An empty compliment

    3. A pointless activity

    4. A cry of pain

11. 

    Speaking of baubles, where does the word come from?

    1. Dutch "baubel" (a worthless trinket)

    2. Old German "beuble" (a small word carving)

    3. Middle English “bawble” (a jewel)

    4. Old French "babel" (a child’s toy)

12. Who might perform a “Christmas hold”?

    1. A pickpocket

    2. A wrestler

    3. A priest

    4. A magician

Solutions

1:A - Merlinpeen was a made-up festival featured in the Secret Santa episode of TV comedy 30 Rock. Winterlude is celebrated in the Canadian cities of Ottawa and Gatineau at the start of February. Gravy Day is enjoyed by Australians around the world on 21 December. Finally, Newtonmas is a secular celebration commemorating the birth of Sir Isaac Newton on Christmas Day 1642., 2:D - Before stealing Christmas, the Grinch appeared in a short poem, The Hoobub and the Grinch (1955). In the poem, the fast-talking Grinch sells a witless Hoobub a length of wire he doesn’t need. The poem concludes: “And I’m sorry to say / That Grinches sell Hoobubs such things every day.”, 3:C - John Lennon, who coined “Crimble” in a Beatles fanclub recording released in 1963. Speaking on the flexi disc, Lennon says: “Garry Crimble to you, Garry Crimble to you, Garry Bable, Dear Christmas, Happy Birthday, me too!” Lennon’s only other first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the verb “primal”, as in “We primal”., 4:B - Xmastyde has never been a name for Christmas. X’temmas is cited in the OED in a 16th-century work, Chrissie – along with Crimbo and Crimble – are contemporary slang terms and Nowell is a 14th century word for the Christmas feast., 5:D - The Yorkshire Christmas pie is a tall pie made with a thick crust capable of withstanding a weighty menagerie of cooked fowl. The recipe could be customised, as seen in the pie served by the 2nd Earl Grosvenor in 1808, which contained three geese, three turkeys, seven hares, 12 partridges, a ham and a leg of veal. The pie was said to weigh 70kg (154lbs)., 6:A - Other countries have their own take on this boozy pudding in a glass. Scotland has auld man’s milk, the Danes enjoy Æggekop and in Panama it’s Ron Ponche. In Holland, advocaat isn’t just the name of a drink but the word for lawyer, so the expression “advocaat van de duivel” (devil’s advocate) is an apt pun. , 7:D - Yule-tashed is not a real word, although should be. Yule-hole is defined as “the hole in the waist-belt to which the buckle is adjusted to allow for repletion after the feasting at Christmas”. Ideal if you’re feeling the weight of your “yule gut”, a 17th-century coinage recorded in the OED., 8:C - Lidérc, the miracle chicken, is a character from Hungarian folklore, whose exploits are unrelated to Christmas. Hans Trapp, a Christmas bogeyman found in eastern France, kidnaps and eats badly behaved children. Père Fouettard, also French, merely beats those on the naughty list. And Jólakötturinn the yule cat is an Icelandic moggy as tall as a house who eats children who haven’t finished their chores., 9:D - Pastafarianism, founded in Kansas in 2005 in opposition to the teaching of intelligent design in schools, celebrates the holiday known as Holiday sometime around Hanukah, Kwanzaa and Christmas. Pastafarians, affiliated with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, are encouraged to celebrate Holiday in any way they please and believe the widespread use of “Happy Holidays” (rather than “Happy Christmas”) is an acknowledgment of their faith., 10:C - A baubling is a sadly forgotten word defined as an “unimportant, purposeless activity”. Baubling also refers to anything trifling or insignificant, as well as being the name of a less than seaworthy boat. As in: “I’m not getting into that baubling thing.” , 11:D - People have enjoyed baubles, cheap attractive ornaments, since the 14th century. The word is borrowed from the Old French “babel” or “baubel”, meaning a trinket or small present for a child, although its roots might further lie in the Latin “babulus” (one who babbles)., 12:B - A Christmas hold is Australian slang for grabbing someone by the balls (“a handful of nuts”), a move familiar to wrestlers and barroom brawlers alike. Also known as the “Christmas grip” or “Father Christmas hold”. Further festive slang includes “Christmas crackers” for “knackers” (testicles), “Christmas Eve” (believe) and “Christmas log” (dog).

Scores

1. 12 and above.

   Absolute word beater

2. 11 and above.

   Absolute word beater

3. 10 and above.

   Word up!

4. 9 and above.

   Word up!

5. 8 and above.

   Word up!

6. 7 and above.

   The definition of average

7. 6 and above.

   The definition of average

8. 5 and above.

   The definition of average

9. 4 and above.

   Someone have a word

10. 3 and above.

    Someone have a word

11. 2 and above.

    Words fail me

12. 0 and above.

    Words fail me

13. 1 and above.

    Words fail me

League of the Lexicon is a new quiz game about language created by Joshua Blackburn. He says his ambition was “to make the ultimate game about words and language”, and the game’s 2,000 questions – divided into two levels of difficulty – cover everything from slang and archaic words to definitions, etymology, usage and trivia. To compile the questions, Blackburn sourced contributions from experts around the world, including dictionary editors, etymologists, linguists and celebrated writers including Lynne Truss, Michael Rosen and Ben Schott. 

After launching on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter in June, the game raised about £380,000 from more than 5,600 backers, making it the most successful word game on the platform to date. Its fans include Stephen Fry, who has described it as “a logophile’s dream”. It is available at Waterstones, where it was game of the month in November. 

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• League of the Lexicon is available in-store at Waterstones