One of my favorite things to eat is pasta. I could eat fettuccine, linguine, penne and farfalle every day and not ever get tired of it!

Stewart Edelstein, the author of Dubious Doublets: A Delightful Compendium of Unlikely Word Pairs of Common Origin, from Aardvark/Porcelain to Zodiac/Whiskey has created a fun pasta quiz on Merriam-Webster online. As you take the quiz, you’ll notice that the origins of many of the Italian words for the various pastas derive from Latin. This is because Italian is a Romance language. Other Romance languages include Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Romance languages come from Vulgar Latin (vulgus is a Latin noun that means “common people” or “general public”), a form of Latin that was spoken by commoners in Rome during the 2nd – 4th centuries.

Take the quiz and be sure to let me know how you did!