Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Ken Jennings Tuesday Trivia - November 29
THIS WEEK'S QUESTIONS
1. What annual sports event is nicknamed "the Frozen Four"? NCAA hockey championships
2. What is the national fruit of China, despite its close association in the West with a different nationality? my guess - kiwi (aka Chinese gooseberry)
3. Who was the first U.S. president voted for by women nationwide, leading critics of suffrage to claim that his good looks had won him the election? I believe that women got the right to vote in 1920. I think that Coolidge won that year.
4. What organization uses an E-meter in its auditing? Church of Scientology (thanks for the Scientology education, South Park)
5. What Iberian dance, mentioned in a Queen song, also provided the original title for Maurice Ravel's Bolero? Scaramouche, Scaramouche will you do the fandango
6. Besides white, what color is on every national flag of Central America? Mexico's colors are white, red and green. I seem to recall Costa Rica is red, white and blue. I'll say red.
7. What unusual distinction is shared by all these actors? Roberto Benigni, Kate Capshaw, Johnny Depp, Hugh Grant, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Lee, Rebecca Pidgeon, Meg Ryan.
LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. What common household item was made of "All-Cotton Elastic" when Oscar Schwidetzky invented it in 1918? This is how the "ACE bandage" got its acronymic name. dadgummit. I know that KJ loves acronyms and I still did not pick up on the clue.
2. James Sullivan's 2008 book The Hardest Working Man tells, according to its subtitle, "How" what man "Saved Soul the America"? Sullivan's book is about the famous concert James Brown gave in Boston the night of the Martin Luther King assassination. correct
3. What's the only U.S. state to have a chronic vog problem? Vog is a portmanteau word, like smog--it means "volcanic fog." In the U.S., only the Big Island of Hawaii has vog issues. I thought vog might be an animal or an alien race like the bad poetry-writing Vogons
4. What two actors share the same first name *and* share the screen in three Coen brothers films: Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, and O Brother Where Are Thou? These are two Johns: Goodman and Turturro. Say what you like about the tenets of Tuesday Trivia, at least it's an ethos. correct
5. What is the last part of Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat to disappear? His smile goes last. correct
6. Thanks to the efforts of five different tennis champions, what country has won 11 of the last 19 men's singles titles at the French Open? Thanks to Sergi Bruguera, Carlos Moya, Albert Costa, Juan Carlos Ferrero, and now Rafael Nadal, Spain has a chokehold on the French Open. Not literally, of course. That's a misconduct penalty. correct
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these countries, and no others? Bolivia, Brunei, Eritrea, Kuwait, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Samoa, Vatican City, and--probably most famously--Israel? These are all the world's countries that are officially the "State of" their short names: the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, the State of Israel, and so on. I was in a State of Cluelessness on this Q7
1. What annual sports event is nicknamed "the Frozen Four"? NCAA hockey championships
2. What is the national fruit of China, despite its close association in the West with a different nationality? my guess - kiwi (aka Chinese gooseberry)
3. Who was the first U.S. president voted for by women nationwide, leading critics of suffrage to claim that his good looks had won him the election? I believe that women got the right to vote in 1920. I think that Coolidge won that year.
4. What organization uses an E-meter in its auditing? Church of Scientology (thanks for the Scientology education, South Park)
5. What Iberian dance, mentioned in a Queen song, also provided the original title for Maurice Ravel's Bolero? Scaramouche, Scaramouche will you do the fandango
6. Besides white, what color is on every national flag of Central America? Mexico's colors are white, red and green. I seem to recall Costa Rica is red, white and blue. I'll say red.
7. What unusual distinction is shared by all these actors? Roberto Benigni, Kate Capshaw, Johnny Depp, Hugh Grant, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Lee, Rebecca Pidgeon, Meg Ryan.
LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. What common household item was made of "All-Cotton Elastic" when Oscar Schwidetzky invented it in 1918? This is how the "ACE bandage" got its acronymic name. dadgummit. I know that KJ loves acronyms and I still did not pick up on the clue.
2. James Sullivan's 2008 book The Hardest Working Man tells, according to its subtitle, "How" what man "Saved Soul the America"? Sullivan's book is about the famous concert James Brown gave in Boston the night of the Martin Luther King assassination. correct
3. What's the only U.S. state to have a chronic vog problem? Vog is a portmanteau word, like smog--it means "volcanic fog." In the U.S., only the Big Island of Hawaii has vog issues. I thought vog might be an animal or an alien race like the bad poetry-writing Vogons
4. What two actors share the same first name *and* share the screen in three Coen brothers films: Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, and O Brother Where Are Thou? These are two Johns: Goodman and Turturro. Say what you like about the tenets of Tuesday Trivia, at least it's an ethos. correct
5. What is the last part of Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat to disappear? His smile goes last. correct
6. Thanks to the efforts of five different tennis champions, what country has won 11 of the last 19 men's singles titles at the French Open? Thanks to Sergi Bruguera, Carlos Moya, Albert Costa, Juan Carlos Ferrero, and now Rafael Nadal, Spain has a chokehold on the French Open. Not literally, of course. That's a misconduct penalty. correct
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these countries, and no others? Bolivia, Brunei, Eritrea, Kuwait, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Samoa, Vatican City, and--probably most famously--Israel? These are all the world's countries that are officially the "State of" their short names: the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, the State of Israel, and so on. I was in a State of Cluelessness on this Q7
