Quiz me this, quiz-face.

   So, for this post I was going to be telling the story that I had heard about the origin of the word quiz, which was that in 1791, a Dublin theatre owner called James or Richard Daly created the word as part of a bet that he could introduce a nonsense word into the common English vocabulary. So he took the word quiz, which previously had meant nothing, and paid some street urchins to spread it around, then created an event around it. Which is all quite interesting, and has an Irish interest and all that, EXCEPT, that there is NO known evidence to support this story.

  

 So, setting aside that someone at some stage in history went to the trouble of creating a fake etymology for quiz (perhaps; winning a bet of their own?) , there are a few reasonably interesting other answers.

   Quiz has a recorded use from 1782, meaning an "odd or eccentric person". By the mid 19th century however, it was being used in its current form, (to question or interrogate), with the following explanations suggested. An 1843 reference spells it "She come back an quiesed us". This spelling suggested either that it's a corruption of the Latin "Qui es?" (who are you), or of the English dialect verb quiset, meaning to question.

It is quite likely to be from the same origin as question or inquisitive.

Post #2

Playground terms.

  I was thinking a couple of weeks back about seemingly meaningless words that come up in children's games, and their origins. 

Tax: This one may be particular to my primary school in Ireland, but if you were running out of breath in a chasing game, you were allowed to cross your fingers and shout out TAX, to give yourself a brief reprieve. Didn't even have to be in the safe zone or anything. (This caused fights when people abused the power). ANYWAY, I read somewhere that in someone else's school days, they called out Pax to start a ceasefire, obviously from the Latin, Peace. Obviously the kids in my schoolyard just got the word mixed up down the years.

Nigs: So, with this Latin connection in mind, I thought that Nigs would have come from Nix, which is Latin for No, or a strong word of veto/denial. (If you're not familiar with the word Nigs, it's the opposite to dibs.)
Urban dictionary argues that Nigs is really an acronym for Not.In.Goal. In the case of any group of friends getting together for a game of football, they can all shout NIGS, and the last to do so is stuck in goal. Urban Dictionary also admits that it has only heard this word in Dublin, Ireland. (Which threw me. I thought Urban Dictionary was an entirely American affair. Who knew?)

Dibs: With all this Latin floating around, I was sure that Dibs would be something Latiny as well. After all, deber is the Spanish verb for ought/must/should, so maybe it could be something like "those things should be/must be mine" (Note: Author admits to having no etymology training, or indeed any relevant training.)
 But Mr Internet begged to differ.

One theory for the origin of the word comes from markings made with chalk on the back of livestock up for sale in cattle yards throughout the southern states of the USA. Each potential customer would register their unique mark with a registrar at the meet, who would record this information in a "Dealer Identification Book". These books themselves came to be known collectively as DIBS.

Another claim for the origin of the term can be found in The Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten. Rosten claims the word derives from the Yiddish phrase fin dibsy, which means to lay claim on something. Additionally, the 1967 edition of Dictionary of American Slang states that the word "dibs" comes from the verb to divvy. A third possible origin for the term can be found in Webster's Dictionary, Second Edition, dated 1937, in which the term "dibs" refers to jacks, an old children's game played with jackstones and a small ball that dates back to 1812.

(Authors note: Another source claims that the game "dibstones" goes back as far as the 17th century.)

Essentially, "to dib" as a verb has to do with "looking down, bending down, or delving into water"

So really, I have no idea. Maybe it's a combination of all of them? Maybe some Jewish cattle dealer kids with a basic grounding in Latin were playing a game of jacks. And history was made.

Did you know? #1

  Tally-ho and Loolooloo, the quintessential British hunting phrases, were actually imported from France, along with some French hunting dogs, by Queen Anne, wife of James 1. 
       They are Provencale bastardisations of Arabic falconry terms.