What does the crack of dawn sound like?
According to Rudyard Kipling – “like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay!”
Fred Fairhead, Erindale, South Australia
• A gentle rumble of wind between the lips of night and day.
Sam Robinson, Noosa Heads, Queensland, Australia
• Like the crack of Dawn’s whip in the morning grey.
David Tucker, Halle, Germany
• A light version of the crack of doom.
Terence Webb, Sechelt, British Columbia, Canada
• In youth: a starting pistol. With age: a knee joint.
Stuart Powell, St Albans, UK
• A whip round for last drinks!
Malcolm Campbell, Brisbane, South Australia
• My neighbour’s cock crowing.
R De Braganza, Kilifi, Kenya
Grapple them to thy soul
If you could be credited/remembered for a famous quote, what would it be and why?
A word or two to those who continue to trash our planet: “Don’t let it be said to your shame, that beauty was here until you came.”
Richard Orlando, Westmount, Quebec, Canada
• “… human kind / Cannot bear very much reality.”: TS Eliot. Thus one escapes to science fiction, parallel worlds and even conspiracy theories.
Lizzie Wagner, Featherston, New Zealand
• As close friends are my family (actual kin being few) I would have uttered the advice that Polonius gave to his son, Laertes: “Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, / Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.”
Ursula Nixon, Bodalla, NSW, Australia
• All the world’s a stage...”, because it is a valid comment on politics.
Philip Stigger, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
• Virgil’s Omnia vincit amor (love conquers all). It’s almost true.
Simon Pleasance, Ribaute, France
• The one about a forgotten punchline being an indicator of the quality and complexity of the joke.
Margaret Wyeth, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
• As last words especially, Spike Milligan’s epitaph, “I told you I was ill”, would show faculties and a sense of humour still intact.
Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills, Victoria, Australia
All depends on the speaker
What is the most beautiful language? What makes it so?
Birdsong – the seemingly always friendly twittering of many varieties of birds as they flit between the trees outside my home enjoying the food and sunshine on a clear winter day.
David Sims, Herberton, Queensland, Australia
• It rather depends on who is speaking it. Estuary English is no recommendation for the language of Shakespeare, and other otherwise beautiful languages can suffer when delivered in cacophonous and incomprehensible patois. But then I’m a language snob.
Joan Dawson, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
• The language of true love when spoken with total sincerity.
Gillian Shenfield, Sydney, Australia
• The first real words spoken by a toddler, because they speak to the origins of language. Which language that is doesn’t really matter.
Noel Bird, Boreen Point, Queensland, Australia
Any answers?
Who make the best television weather presenters: men or women?
E Slack, L’Isle Jourdain, France
Could anything ever replace greed as the root of all evil?
Harvey Mitchell, Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia
Send answers to weekly.nandq@theguardian.com or Guardian Weekly, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK
