Cream bun for Adelephant again. I was surprised how easily you lot got this one – I thought it was a real rotter. But it seems a bit of clever googling could help you find it without the lateral leap…
Click continue for the answer…
Earlier we posed the 13th RB Quiz question, namely:
What links a hack’s tool with Hernaria glabra, lucerne grass, Lancelot’s bastard, a balletic spin and every song you know?
The connection this week is a very lateral one, and the first clue is the key.
The writer’s tool is a typewriter – and all the other answers are amongst the longest English words – more than seven letters – that can be typed using only one row of a qwerty keyboard. ‘Typewriter’ itself is one of them – you can write it with just the top row.
Hernaria glabra is also known as ‘rupturewort’, which at eleven letters long, is the longest word that can be typed using only those letters in the top row of a typewriter, and also the most unpleasant-sounding.
Lucerne grass is also known as ‘alfalfa’ – which can be typed using only the middle row.
Lancelot’s bastard is ‘Galahad’ (middle row). According to the Malory version of the Arthurian legend, Galahad – the knight who finds the Holy Grail – was conceived when Elaine, the daughter of King Pelles, uses magic to trick Sir Lancelot into thinking that she is Queen Guinevere, whom Lancelot loves.
Finally, a balletic spin is a pirouette and every song you know is your repertoire (both top row of the keyboard).
D’oh! Repertoire! Why didn’t I get that??
Blimey, talk about lateral. I only got, rather pathetically, that they were were all anapests, though this was reliant on some (unspecified) dialect of French for the ballet move.