Test your knowledge of these famous phrases
Many PR pros have a love-hate relationship with language.
We love to discover new words and new meanings; yet, there are many words we would wish away if we could. Many of these unwanted words and catchphrases have been around for decades and are here to stay.
Catchphrases come from a variety of sources: TV, movies, sports, politics or advertising. Some catchphrases might be so familiar, that you don’t think twice about where they came from. For example, I never knew the menacing phrase “It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your children are?” came from PSAs that aired after news broadcasts in the 1960s.
Catchphrases are now so catchy that there are TV game shows and board games designed to test participant’s knowledge of cultural touchstones such as “I pity the fool!” or “You talkin’ to me?”
For this post, let’s go in a different direction and test your knowledge of catchphrases from fiction and literature. So, make your English teacher proud and match these famous snippets with their original works. (Check your answers at the end.)
Catchphrase
1. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”
2. “All that glitters is not gold.”
3. “Big Brother is watching you.”
4. “Don’t panic!”
5. “Exit, pursued by a bear.”
6. “Four legs good, two legs bad!”>
7. “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”
8. “It was a pleasure to burn.”
9. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that . . .”
10. “Not all those who wander are lost”
11. “So it goes.”
12. “Nevermore.’”
13. “Nothing comes from nothing.”
14. “Now is the winter of my discontent”
15. “Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.”
Where it came from
A. “Animal Farm” by George Orwell
B. “Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel” by Kurt Vonnegut
C. “Richard III” by William Shakespeare
D. “1984” by George Orwell
E. “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe
F. “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost
G. “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” by Salman Rushdie
H. “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” by J.K. Rowling
I. “The Merchant of Venice” by William Shakespeare
J. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams
K. “Inferno” by Dante Alighieri
L. “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury
M. “The Fellowship of the Ring” by JRR Tolkien
N. “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen
O. “The Winter’s Tale” by William Shakespeare
Answers
1. K.
2. I.
3. D.
4. J.
5. O.
6. A.
7. H.
8. L.
9. N.
10. M.
11. B.
12. E.
13. G.
14. C.
15. F.
How did you do readers?
This post was also published on Ragan Communication’s PR Daily.
