Monday, May 12, 2008 | 2:37 a.m.

Trivia Bits by Stan Newman

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  • Trivia Bits, May 12
    Word of the week: "paraph." It is a handwritten flourish made under a person's signature, once popularly used as a forgery deterrent. Some famous Americans whose autograph often included a paraph: John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, Sam …

  • Trivia Bits, May 10
    STAN'S WEEKLY TRIVIA CHALLENGE CONTEST NO. 84 What famous name from 19th-century world history was once the president of three countries simultaneously? HOW TO WIN: Send your answer, with your full name and address, either by e-mail to TriviaBits@…

  • Trivia Bits, May 9
    The word "fiasco," as in "spectacular failure," means "flask" in Italian. Specifically, the flask commonly used for Chianti that is enclosed in a straw basket. The word took on its unpleasant connotation as an Italian …

  • Trivia Bits, May 8
    Small-town celebrity birthplace of the week: Byron, in northern Illinois (current population about 4,000). Baseball Hall of Famer and sporting-goods entrepreneur Albert Goodwill Spalding was born there in 1850. Impressionist painter Wilson Irvine …

Trivia Bits, March 31

Word of the week: "CamelCase." It is the practice of writing compound words or phrases with a capital letter somewhere within them. The word is derived from the camel-like "bumps" formed by the internal uppercase letters as compared to the surrounding lowercase letters. Many well-known trade names use CamelCase, like iPhone, eBay, FedEx and BlackBerry.

Sorry to be so late on this, but we were very amused to discover that media celebrity Paris Hilton was engaged for a time in 2005 to a fellow with the same first name, shipping heir Paris Latsis. It reminded us of when Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz were an item a few years before that. If you can think of any other celebrity couples with an interesting name relationship, please let us know.

On three occasions in Academy Award history, one film yielded three of the five nominees for Best Supporting Actor.
Coincidentally, all three films won a Best Picture Oscar. Two of the films are "On the Waterfront" and "The Godfather." What is the third?
A) "The Godfather Part II"
B) "Gone With the Wind"
C) "Forrest Gump"
D) "Rocky"

Previous answer: The lyrics of the pirate song that begins "15 men on a dead man's chest" were written by Robert Louis Stevenson as a fictional pirates’ work song for his novel "Treasure Island."

TRIVIA FANS: Send the trivia questions you've always wanted answered, or original TriviaBits ideas of your own, with your full name and hometown, to Stan Newman at StanTrivia@aol.com or on a postcard to P.O. Box 69, Massapequa Park, NY 11762.


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Originally Published on Monday March 31, 2008

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Click on the title to read Stanley Newman's article from Newsday, "Exercise Your Puzzle Muscles", which explores the ways that puzzles can keep you mentally fit as you age.

Also, see the Editors's Note from this edition of Newsday recounting the history of the Newsday crossword puzzle and Stanley Newman's pivotal role in revolutionizing it.
 
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