Welcome to Trivia Factorial!
Maybe you’re reading this in your living room on your phone. Perhaps that room has a couch in it; maybe a chair as well. Those items might be on a table, and your feet might be on a carpet. Phone, couch, chair, table, carpet: Those are all around you, but what else do those words have in common that, say, a dresser or a television or a cabinet in the same room does not? The answer is at the bottom of this page.1
In an effort to study trivia in October 2021, I started writing sets of questions and sending them around to friends and family. In an attempt to make the sets more interesting and gettable, I based some of them upon a theme, and quickly realized that folks found the effort of deriving the themes just as interesting as the questions themselves (and often moreso). Since then, we’ve published over 150 editions for our hundreds of subscribers.
We currently publish two editions a week, each featuring six questions. Question #6 in each newsletter generally requires that readers identify a connection that pervades throughout that edition. Each edition often features a recap of the previous edition, and those recaps explore facts about our answers.
The best way to get an idea of what we’re all about is to check out our archives, accessible by clicking the below button. In addition, below is a list of a few editions that I am particularly proud of.
Sometimes we play with the format. One time we did a newsletter stylized as clickbait. One of our newsletters was written (almost) entirely without using the letter “e.” For Groundhog Day in 2023, we duplicated questions in part to lead to two different themes. We often do newsletters based on the word game Wordle—links to those are at the end of this page. We even made a rudimentary escape room set 15,000 years in the future once.
Each newsletter contains a link to a leaderboard where we track correct answers to Question #6. If you submit answers (more on that below) and would like to play along, you should not use any external resources to help you answer any questions. Our leaderboards typically track 20 editions at a time (about 2-3 months’ worth), so even if you’re a newcomer, there will soon be a new leaderboard for you to seek glory.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who are you?
My name is Ryan and I’m a dog person. I’m a lawyer in my free time and am working on improving my trivia prowess by, in part, maintaining this newsletter.
What is the deadline for submitting answers?
Newsletters are currently published at 6:00 AM Central Time on Tuesdays and Fridays. Answers can be submitted at any time before the next newsletter is published.
Do I need to submit guesses?
Absolutely not! Most of our readers follow along and never formally submit guesses, and that’s completely fine.
How do I submit answers?
Generally you can reply directly to the e-mail you receive in your inbox. Currently, each newsletter also includes a link to Google Forms with further instructions on how to submit.
For my guesses, are just last names acceptable/does spelling count/how are scoring decisions made?
The answers to Questions #1 through #5 are not formally graded, but for your purposes, you can assume that last names are sufficient and that spelling is not critical as long as it’s clear what you were going for (unless the question states otherwise). As for Question #6, scoring is entirely at my discretion and subject to change at any time, though I encourage anyone to reach out if they feel that an unfair decision has been made or that I’ve missed their submission.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE: Although only part of a name or phrase may be required for a particular answer, the full name (or additional context about that name) may sometimes be helpful for the newsletter’s theme. Here’s an example. A question may ask who the president of the United States was in 1983. “Reagan” would be an acceptable answer, but if the other questions in that newsletter ask about a facial expression denoting disgust or pain, the singer associated with Lounge Against the Machine, and the golf score that is one under par, you might want to remember that Reagan’s first name is Ronald, even if the question doesn’t ask for his first name. (Why? Check the footnotes on this page.)2
I already submitted my answers, but then I realized the right answer. Can I change my answer?
No. Just from an administrative standpoint, your submission must be considered final as soon as you transmit it to me.
I didn’t get the newsletter in my inbox after I subscribed!
That’s not a question, but I recommend re-subscribing and then making sure the newsletters are not going to your spam folder.
Why “Trivia Factorial”?
We made a name change in Trivia Newsletter LXXXII in August 2022. To quote that newsletter:
Up until now, this newsletter technically has been called Trivia! because I had to write something and not leave the name field blank when I was making my small friends-and-family trivia newsletter. As of today, though, the name of this newsletter is Trivia Factorial. Why that name?
In mathematics, the factorial of an integer is the product of all positive integers less than or equal to it. The factorial of 4, for example, is 24, because 4 times 3 times 2 times 1 equals 24. The factorial function is denoted by an exclamation point: 4! = 24. In a way, the name hasn’t changed; Trivia Factorial is just how you’d say Trivia! out loud.
Factorials, to oversimplify, make things bigger. 10 minutes is roughly how long it takes to read this newsletter, but 10! minutes is almost seven years. That embiggening is what we’re trying to do with trivia. Each Trivia Factorial question asks about a discrete fact, but also builds towards an overarching theme. The most fun part of trivia, at least for me, is going from the question mark (“How would anyone know this? How are these connected?”) to the exclamation point (“Aha!”), and that’s what Trivia Factorial is all about.
Wordle Newsletters
Here is a list of the “Wordle newsletters” we’ve done in the past:
Guest Posts
Check out our fantastic guest posts here:
Phone, couch, chair, table, and carpet are all verbs.
A newsletter that asks for Reagan, a facial expression denoting disgust or pain (“grimace”), the singer associated with Lounge Against the Machine (“Richard Cheese”), and the golf score that is one under par (“birdie”) is probably trying to get you to the theme of CHARACTERS ASSOCIATED WITH MCDONALD’S (Ronald McDonald, Grimace, Mayor McCheese, and Birdie).
