text: who coined the term quiz and when?   in the 1700's or 1800's, these two englishmen were sitting around shooting the bull, and they got to arguing about who was more clever. one of them said, "i bet you i can introduce a new word into common usage in one day." the other guy laughed in his face and took the bet. the first guy spent an entire night sneaking around london with a bag of chalk, writing "quiz" all over the place. when people got up in the morning and saw "quiz" written everywhere, they started talking about it, asking each other, "what the heck does that mean, and who did it?" by the end of the day, the new word, "quiz", meant something that was puzzling or baffling. i swear that's how it happened.