Fans of board and intellectual games often have a question about what quiz is. This Englishism did not take root in the CIS countries, where the game itself, however, has been known for a very long time and even won the hearts of fans.
Under such an unusual term is a regular quiz that is familiar to anyone who enjoys home games. The quiz mechanism is extremely simple - participants must answer questions from different fields of knowledge. But in fact, high variability makes the quiz one of the most difficult games, since it can differ significantly in rules, additional conditions, including those associated with the execution of actions, and a reward system. What is quiz really? Are such games relevant today?
The origin of Quiz
For the first time, the question of what quiz was raised in 1781. It was then that such a term began to be used in everyday life. Epithet was used to refer to a strange or extraordinary person.
A little later, the word began to be used to indicate the process of the game, to enjoy the competition. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word “quiz” literally means “interrogation,” “conversation through mutual questioning.” This value is older than the original, since it appeared in 1843. By combining these two terms, you can get the key to understanding the word in its modern form.
The "legendary" past
There is a legend that for the first time the answer to the question of what a quiz was was given by a certain Richard Daily, the owner of a theater in Dublin. In 1791, he argued that he could introduce a new word into English within 24 hours. Later, he hired a crowd of beggars who painted the whole of Dublin with the word “quiz”, and the perplexed townspeople tortured each other, asking what it means.
So a new term came into use. Later, they began to use the synonym for the survey as a common noun for a board game because of the specifics of the latter. Thus, the game quiz captivated the whole world.
Russian answer
The closest in meaning to "quiz" in the Russian language is the usual word "quiz". This term first appeared in 1928 in the magazine "Twinkle". Mikhail Koltsov, who at that time worked in the editorial office, came up with such a sonorous name for a special block in the magazine, full of puzzles, riddles, charades and crosswords. The author of the latter was a certain Victor Mikulin, who also worked in Ogonyok, and the word "quiz" happened on his behalf.
Later, the term also found slightly different roots - from Latin. "Victor" means "winner." The word quickly came into use and began to refer to various kinds of board games in which it was necessary to answer questions from different blocks of knowledge.
Game becoming
Since 1975, the quiz has been closely associated with the question-answer game. At first, such parties were held in closed companies, questions were recorded on cards, after which a group of people took turns trying to answer, thereby earning points.
Quiz later gained popularity on television. So the quiz gained a mass character and real, often quite expensive prizes. With the advent of the Internet, the quiz has moved to the online space, and now everyone has the opportunity to play a game with friends or strangers. For example, on the Web there is a website dedicated to logo quiz, where participants need to give the brand name based on a picture depicting its logo.
World record
According to the Guinness Book of Records, the largest quiz was held in the city of
Ghent, Belgium. Over 2 thousand people took part in it. The audience was divided into groups, after which, by selection, the participants were eliminated along the way to the final.
Today the number of quiz participants is unlimited. For example, tens and even hundreds of people can play simultaneously in jabber chat, not to mention entire sites with an audience of several tens of thousands of participants. Some supporters of quizzes gather in a kind of "interest clubs", creating groups in social networks. With constant Internet access, finding rivals for a quiz party is no longer a problem. The game "quiz logo", for example, has a considerable number of fans.
Rules and restrictions
The quiz provides the only indestructible rule - the question-answer mechanism is at the heart of the game. Depending on the specifics, the further process has a number of differences. So, for example, brainstorm means finding the answer by verbal meeting within the team.
There are other options when one person answers, and he is forced to use only his knowledge. There is, however, also a kind of quiz when the question and answers are riddles or players are forced to present their option to the presenter in a playful way.
In addition, quiz can vary significantly depending on the setting, prizes, players' abilities, their number, as well as prizes. In the end, there are a lot of varieties of the quiz, and this kind of games has no strict rules.
The popular program “What? Where? When?" also a quiz option. This board game may not have such an impressive history as, for example, chess, but it has no fewer adherents.
The quiz remains an interesting way of spending time to this day, being both friendly and quite professional competition.