Below are six trivia questions. If you’d like to participate, you can either reply to this e-mail or submit your answers via Google Forms by using the button below. Like most trivia, the answers can be readily found via Google, so you’re on the honor system (i.e., do not use external resources to help you answer any of the questions). The SIXTH question of each set is generally designed to be a question that cannot be easily Googled; correct answers to those will be tracked and recognized in the next newsletter. The answers, and the next set of questions, will be published on Mondays and Thursdays.
1) In cooking, a “drop” is defined as 1/96th of a teaspoon, a “smidgen” is defined as 1/32nd of a teaspoon, and a “pinch” is defined as 1/16th of a teaspoon. WHAT unit of measurement is defined as 1/8th of a teaspoon?
2) WHAT is the one-word title (in English) of the below painting by Henri Matisse? Doubling it, in a sense, gives you the name of a Fall Out Boy song released in 2005 that went triple platinum.
3) Dr. Mary Walker, a surgeon and prisoner of war during the American Civil War, is the only woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. Some academics speculate that Walker was the inspiration for WHAT character in Henry James’s The Bostonians? The character’s surname is, loosely, a more upbeat synonym for part of Walker’s surname.
4) WHAT is the ticker symbol (and common name) for the volatility index promulgated by the Chicago Board Options Exchange? It is sometimes called the “fear index” and, at least in theory, reflects the market’s estimate of future volatility— that is, how fast prices will change—30 days in advance.
5) On January 1, 1985, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) created seven “generic top-level domains”; for example, “.net” is one of the seven. WHICH of the seven generic top-level domains created by ICANN is first, alphabetically?
6) Each of the answers to Questions #1-5 alludes to a member of a finite set. NAME any of the three (four?) other members of that set.
Trivia Newsletter CX Recap
This recap is even shorter than usual due to ongoing holiday/end-of-year obligations. We’ll also (still) catch up on the Brazil-Croatia question challenge in the near future.
1) Also a word for a shade of green and a (perhaps outdated) first name, WHAT six-letter word describes a specific family of plants whose members include eucalyptus, guava, rose apple, Surinam cherry, and feijoa? Allspice, clove, and oil of bay rum are spices derived from plants of this family.
This is MYRTLE.
Including Ferris wheels that have been decommissioned, the Myrtle Beach SkyWheel is the ninth-tallest Ferris wheel in the United States. IN WHAT CITY is the tallest Ferris wheel in the United States (which is operational today)? The answer is at the end of this newsletter.1
2) Firm, united let us be,
Rallying round our liberty,
As a band of brothers joined,
Peace and safety we shall find.
These words are the chorus of WHAT patriotic song, now primarily used as the ceremonial entrance march of the vice president of the United States?
This is “HAIL, COLUMBIA.” “Columbia” is the name of the national personification of the United States that was at one time more popular (today, “Uncle Sam” has probably taken the mantle), similar to “John Bull” for the United Kingdom or “Deutscher Michel” for the German people.
3) Of the fifty U.S. state capital cities, seventeen are the most populous cities in their states (based upon the most recent census). For example, Atlanta, GA is one of these seventeen cities (as no city in Georgia has more people than Atlanta), but Raleigh, NC is not (as Charlotte has more people than Raleigh does). NAME the two capital cities that are the least populous of those seventeen; they start with the same letter.
This was CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA and CHEYENNE, WYOMING. There are three capital cities that are not within the top-ten most populous cities of their states (considering the population of the city proper, without regard to metropolitan area): Frankfort, KY (15th), Jefferson City, MO (15th), and Olympia, WA (23rd).
4) Hỏa Lò Prison, originally used by French colonists in Indochina for political prisoners, at various times held captives such as Nguyễn Chí Thiện and Floyd James Thompson. WHAT two-word alliterative name was sometimes used to sardonically refer to the prison? The phrase was reportedly first written down by Navy aviator Robert H. Shumaker.
This is the HANOI HILTON. 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain is likely its most famous detainee. Somewhat unbelievably to me, there’s now a museum there, where you can go look at John McCain’s flight suit and parachute:
5) NAME the university that is the reigning NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship winner; the school won its first such championship in 2017 and its second in 2022.
This is the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA. Mentioning that South Carolina won its second championship this year was meant to walk you off of historically successful women’s basketball programs such as UConn (11 championships; last won in 2016) and Tennessee (8 championships; last won in 2008).
6) NAME the distinction, related to the theme of this newsletter, shared by each of the following films at least in part: The Big Chill (1983), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Glory (1989), Magic Mike XXL (2015), The Notebook (2004), The Patriot (2000), The Secret Life of Bees (2008).
Each of these films is, at least to some extent, SET IN SOUTH CAROLINA.
Question #1: “Myrtle” pointed towards Myrtle Beach.
Question #2: “Hail, Columbia” pointed towards Columbia, South Carolina’s capital.
Question #3: Charleston, WV pointed towards South Carolina’s Charleston, its most populous city.
Question #4: “Hanoi Hilton” was meant to lead you to Hilton Head Island.
Question #5: The University of South Carolina was meant to point towards—well, you get it.
Newsletter Title: “Reedy and Sabal” was a pun on “ready and able”—the Reedy River flows through Greenville, SC, and “Sabal” is a genus of palm trees—the “sabal palmetto” is the state tree of South Carolina.
Question #6 Leaderboard
The Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA (the “HIGH ROLLER”).