#tuxford

[miamaimania]

Barn Fire ~ Tuxford, Saskatchewan (July 1959) ◆ A figure approaches—to fight or to witness?

[yesterdaysprint]

Barn fire, Tuxford, Saskatchewan, July 1959

[spencersarc]

Happy month of love all. Valentine’s Day is fast approaching. Have you ordered your gifts yet? #tuxford #retford #giftshop #florists #eastmidlands #coffeeshop (at Chillipetals) https://www.instagram.com/p/CZbyu9oM_81/?utm_medium=tumblr

[spencersarc]

Enjoying a quiet cuppa in the new courtyard at @chillipetals while these two have a nap and the others help do jobs at grandmas. Saturdays are normally family time. But lately @spencersarc.daddy and the big kids have been heading over to help at grandmas while I’ve been seeing to these two. I know it will be worth the effort. But I can’t wait to get back to having family breakfasts and outings. #twins #sleepingbabies #cuppa #saturday #courtyard #coffeeshop #nottinghmashire #tuxford #dayoutintuxford #twinstergram #channelmumvillage #mumsnetparents #snaphappybritmums (at Chillipetals)

[moonshot5]

Tuxford, Saskatchewan

[spazhammer]

Wedding tonight at tuxford windmill. Started raining just as we arrived, but it was made better by this lovely view! http://nottsdj.co.uk

[alexandertbaer]

Facts and Figures

[henryhitchings]

Quiz quoz

I’ve recently been investigating the history of the word quiz. It’s not exactly untrodden ground, but I have found some details I’ve not seen documented elsewhere. 

To illustrate the most common modern sense of quiz (noun), the OED quotes the following: ‘Tuxford Young Farmers A team defeated their B team in the third round of the county Inter-Club Quiz to reach the semi-finals.’ That sounds familiar, not to say dull; for what it’s worth, Tuxford is a village in Nottinghamshire, probably best known for its windmill. 

But in the late eighteenth century the word usually signified an odd-looking person. An item in the London Magazine in 1783 explains that ‘A Quiz, in the common acceptation of the word, signifies one who thinks, speaks, or acts differently from the rest of the world in general.’ It could also denote an odd-looking object; for instance, in Northanger Abbey boorish John Thorpe asks his mother, ‘Where did you get that quiz of a hat?’, and tells her that it makes her look like an old witch.

Discussion of the word’s etymology often reproduces a story about Richard Daly, a Dublin theatre manager, who in 1791 allegedly wagered that he could within twenty-four hours make any word the talk of the town. Daly won the bet after choosing quiz, which he then had urchins daub on walls and windows. It’s an appealing story but a doubtful one.

While doing some further digging, I turned up Charles Dibdin’s song ‘Etymology of Quiz’, which dates from 1792 and affords a different perspective on the word’s vogue status at that time:

The word Quiz is a sort of a kind of a word That people apply to some being absurd; One who seems, as ’twere, oddly your fancy to strike, In a sort of a fashion you somehow don’t like; A mixture of odd, and of queer, and all that, Which one hates, just, you know, as some folks hate a cat; A comical, whimsical, strange, droll — that is, You know what I mean; ’tis — in short, ’tis a quiz!