These Words Spell Trouble by Rob Kyff on Creators.com

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These Words Spell Trouble

Talkin' 'bout bad boys (and girls)! See whether you can select the correct origin of each word for a miscreant:

1. vandal — A. a corruption of "sandal," the footwear often worn by Elizabethan troublemakers; B. from Vandalia, Ill., a town once plagued by hooligans; C. after a Germanic tribe that plundered Rome; D. after Georg van Daal, a Dutch delinquent of the 1500s.

2. hooligan — A. from British bobbies telling truant adolescents they would send them to "school again"; B. from Patrick Hooligan, a notorious ruffian who plagued London during the late 1800s; C. from New York city policemen saying, "Oh, you again!" as they arrested chronic troublemakers; D. for the rowdies who lived in Hoovervilles during the Great Depression.

3. thug — A. from "thud," the sound of being conked on the head; B. from the Indian cult of Thuggee; C. from "Nasty Jack" Thugg, a notorious British hoodlum; D. an acronym for "Terrible Hooligans Under Gateshead," referring to brutes who laid in wait under a bridge in London.

4. Peck's bad boy — A. from a rascal played by adolescent actor Gregory Peck in a 1931 film; B. from the notion that young boys caused "a peck of trouble"; C. from the mischievous son of Seth Pecksniff, a character in Charles Dickens' novel "Martin Chuzzlewit"; D.

a prankster created by journalist George Peck in a series of newspaper sketches.

Answers:

1. C. "Vandal" was first used generically in English to mean any destroyer or defacer of property during the 1600s. The Vandals also left their name on a region they conquered in Spain: "Andalusia."

2. B. Many bullies roamed London during the Victorian era, and there's some dispute about the exact identity of the original hooligan. But most authorities believe it was Patrick Hooligan who, according to one contemporary account, "walked to and fro among his fellow men ... robbing them and occasionally bashing them."

3. B. To honor the goddess Kali, the Thuggee cult strangled victims with scarves, mutilated their bodies and took their possessions. They assaulted travelers in India for over 500 years before being suppressed in the mid-1800s.

4. D. Peck, a newspaperman who also served as mayor of Milwaukee and governor of Wisconsin, compiled his newspaper pieces about a fictional troublemaker into books, such as "Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa" (1883) and "Peck's Bad Boy with the Cowboys" (1907).

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045. To find out more about Rob Kyff and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.