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Friday, February 25, 2005

This week's Friday Brain-Teaser from xrefer. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (known to its fans as "Brewer") is a legendary reference work, first published in 1870. It has most recently been updated as the "Millennium Edition" and is available to Xreferplus users. See if you can solve these questions - all the answers are in Brewer's. Answers here.

1. "The Fab Four" was a nickname for which musical group?
2. "Macbeth" is one of Shakespeare's best-known plays. But was there a real Scottish king named Macbeth - yes or no?
3. Who received the warning "Beware the Ides of March" before he was assassinated?
4. The song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" refers to "four colly birds". What bird does this refer to?
5. What stage name was assumed by the Dutch dancer Margaretha Gertruida MacLeod and used when she was a spy?
6. We often say that "time flies." It is an English translation of which Latin phrase?
7. Which invention takes its name from the surname of an Italian-born American (first name: Candido), who devised the invention for his son, a victim of rheumatoid arthritis?
8. What was the former name for Tasmania, before 1853?
9. Name six of the seven dwarfs in the 1937 film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
10. Who wrote the poem "The Rolling English Road" which includes the line "The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head?"

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