Origins Quiz

Every year, I made a 6 question quiz that I pass out at our booth at Origins.  Those who answered correctly won a prize of some sort, usually a game.  This year, I am not attending Origins, but I made the quiz.  What the hell, I'll give to the the community of KR.  All who get all the answers correctl will get something. 

The first question is not strictly historical, but is one of trivia.

There is one "gimme"

The first person who submits all the answers gets dinner prepared Friday by Matt Magnus or Mars.  I was thinking of sirloin with veggies and potatoes.

Second gets a raffle ticket for Joe Bondi's project, for which I will pay.

Any others will recieve a cold piece of watermelon at Market Faire.

If none get all the answers, whoever gets the most wins,

PM me with your answers.  Honor system that there3 is no collaboration.  Google searches are considered cheating at Origins, but what the hell.  If you use google, let me know. 


The Questions

1 - who was George Gordon?

Give the meaning and origin of the following phrases, all of which are now part of the English language:

2 - Bite the dust.

3 - Turn a blind eye.

4 - Go off half cocked. (this is the gimme)

5 - Hoist on his own petard

6 - Red tape

One submission.  All answers acceptable, even though some of them were second choices of mine.  Extensive use of the internet, for which I subtract points, but fiven the speed of his reply, Andy will be having dinner on me.  I will allow for a second first place winner if I get mhy first choices in answers.

Did you learn the origin of "red tape" from me, DSW?

Im awesome.


-andy

As you may have guessed, Andy was the first to answer and was mostly on target.  He admitted that he cheated like all get go.  Stacey also made extensive use of the net, and some of her answers were less precise.  They will have the dubious pleasure of dining with me this coming Event Weekend.  Scallops, veggies (onion, mushrooms, squash and potatoes) and some sort of dessert.

BTW, I learned of the origin of Red tape from a book on Civil War Trivia.

The answers

1 - who was George Gordon?
Lord Byron

Give the meaning and origin of the following phrases, all of which are now part of the English language:

2 - Bite the dust.
To die, The Illiad

3 - Turn a blind eye.
Lord Nelson (Arguably the greatest admiral of all time, certainly of his era - germane to this expression is the fact that in service to his country he had previously lost an arm and the sight in one eye) at the battle of Copenhagen upon being told by his signals officer that the Admiral in charge had ordered the battle be broken off, held a telescope to his blind eye and told his officer that he could see no such signal.  He continued to press the attack and destroyed or captured almost the entire Dutch fleet.  England rewards success.  Had he failed, there is no doubt he would have been executed, thus denying us Trafalger.

4 - Go off half cocked. (this is the gimme)
Days when pistols and muskets could be fully cocked, which alloowed the weapon to go off with pressure on the trigger, or half cocked, which was supposed to prevent accidental discharge, but still allow the weapon to be primed.  Half cocked means when not ready, or wildly.

5 - Hoist on his own petard

Destroyed by your own devices, cleaverness.  When besieging a fortification, engineers would build a machine which allowed them to hoist a bomb to an appropriate spot.  on rare occasions the bombardier was hoist along with his bomb.  Much more common the bomb exploded early.

6 - Red tape
Bureaucratic delay.  The records of the ACW were kept in books bound with red tape.  To access the info, one had to cut through the red tape.