Mr. Squint and Mr. Chalk

I'm sorry, but this is surely (and I mean this quite literally) an insult to the intelligence of the vast majority of Quiz League contestants?

And in any case, these names and occupations are by no means written in stone. Happy Families was developed in 1851 to coincide with the Great Exhibition, and is now considered to be a traditional game. The patent has no doubt run out long ago, and I would imagine that anyone can publish an edition and call the families anything they like. This does not, IMHO, make a good subject for a quiz question.

Wikipedia lists both of these examples among over 150 "family names, which vary from edition to edition"; many of them are duplicated (more than one name for the same occupation, and more than one occupation for the same name).

Wikipedia's list includes the eleven characters whose families were includes in the very first edition. There might possibly be a case for asking about one or two of these, but some of them sound rather arcane now (Mr. Block the Barber, Mr. Mugg the Milkman).

Wikipedia notes that there is no citation for this section of its Happy Families page, and it also accepts that its list is not exhaustive ("Family names ... include:"). I just hope and pray that Happy Families does not become the new Phobias, or the new Collective Nouns.

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