WEEK OF APRIL 21, 2008
Word of the week: "quadrumanous," pronounced "qua-DROO-ma-nuss." From the Latin for "four" and "hand," it means "four-handed." For example, a monkey's four feet are all adapted for use as hands. The word was used in the final rounds of the 2007 AARP National Senior Spelling Bee. This year's bee will be held June 13-14 in Cheyenne, Wyo. More info can be found at www.seniorspellingbee.com.
Exclave update: After seeing word of the week "exclave," Blake Amon of Danville, Calif., did some research and discovered two U.S. exclaves, geographically cut off from their states. Point Roberts, Wash., which borders British Columbia, is separated from the rest of the state by water. Similarly, Elm Point, Minn., bordering Ontario, is separated from the rest of the state by the Lake of the Woods.
Bad day for Adrian: At the Academy Awards ceremony in 1977, Best Actress nominee Talia Shire (for "Rocky") lost to Faye Dunaway (for "Network"). According to the book "Inside Oscar," Shire and her husband were left standing outside in the freezing cold afterward because their chauffeur couldn't find his way from the underground garage up to the front door.
Unlike most of us, baseball great and Hall of Famer Rod Carew can't ever return to his birthplace. Why? He was born on a moving train, in the Panama Canal Zone in 1945. Carew's first and middle names, Rodney Cline, honor Dr. Rodney Cline, the physician who just happened to be on the train and delivered him. (Thanks to Doug Lyons of Scarsdale, N.Y.)
The ice-cream brand known as Dreyer's in the Western United States and Texas is called Edy's elsewhere in the U.S. Wordplay detectives might suspect that "Edy's" is derived from "Dreyer's," since all of the letters of the former are found in the latter. But that's just a coincidence. The company was founded by Joseph Edy and William Dreyer in the 1920s.
An article in the SABR's latest Baseball Research Journal discusses the umpires that have held the major-league record for games worked in one season. The current record holder, Joe Paparella, worked 176 games in the 162-game season of 1962, which works out to only about five days off from April through September.
Small-town celebrity birthplace of the week: Green Cove Springs, in northeast Florida (current population about 6,000). Charles Merrill, who with Edmund Lynch founded Merrill Lynch in 1914, was born there in 1885. Merrill's grandson Peter Magowan is the managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants.
The island of Surtsey, located just off the southwest coast of Iceland, has been part of that nation since 1963. Why not earlier? The island didn't exist before that, having been created by a volcanic eruption that began below sea level. Although erosion has decreased its size by about half of its square-mile area, scientists expect Surtsey to hang around for many more centuries.
There's neither a "star" nor a "board" in the ancestry of the word "starboard." It's derived from German, where the word's literal meaning was "side on which a vessel is steered." Early Germanic people propelled and steered their crafts with paddles on the right side. The rhyming "larboard" is seldom used today but refers to the left or "port" side of a ship.
Czech-born actor Herbert Lom is best-known to trivia fans as the long-suffering Chief Inspector Dreyfus, Inspector Clouseau's boss in the "Pink Panther" films. But before that, Lom had numerous dramatic roles as authority figures, including Captain Nemo in "Mysterious Island" and Napoleon Bonaparte in two films. Lom also had the Yul Brynner starring role in the first London stage production of "The King and I."
TRIVIA
1) The oldest surviving brand name in recorded sound is Columbia Records, founded in 1888. Columbia, the first company to manufacture records, issued its first record catalog in 1890. The records in that first catalog consisted entirely of:
A) Operatic arias
B) Military band music
C) Spoken poems
D) Everyday sounds
2) Complete this quote from "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno: "You're not famous until . . ."
A) You're sitting on my couch
B) You make it past 15 minutes
C) My mother has heard of you
D) You're on a cereal box
3) Many trivia fans know that Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1935. The previous year, Tupelo made national headlines as the first city to receive electric power from the new Tennessee Valley Authority. Tupelo got its name from:
A) A Civil War general
B) An Indian tribe
C) A Greek god
D) A type of tree
4) According to the World Almanac, the letter of the alphabet that starts the most names of United Nations members is S, with 25. What vowel starts the name of only one U.N. member?
A) E
B) I
C) O
D) U
5) Golfer Tiger Woods was asked by a reporter recently if he has ever dreamed of a "perfect season" in which he wins every tournament. Woods answered, "No," but then admitted that he once did have a perfect season, in which he won how many tournaments?
A) 9
B) 14
C) 21
D) 36
ANSWERS
1) The world's first record catalog, issued by Columbia Records in 1890, consisted entirely of recordings of John Philip Sousa's U.S. Marine Band.
2) According to "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno, "You're not famous until my mother has heard of you."
3) Tupelo, Miss., was named for the tupelo trees that are abundant in the area.
4) According to the World Almanac, Oman is the only U.N. member whose name starts with O. There are seven "E" countries, eight "I"s, and seven "U"s.
5) Golfer Tiger Woods recently told a reporter that he won all 36 tournaments that he entered when he was 11 years old.
STAN'S WEEKLY TRIVIA CHALLENGE CONTEST NO. 82
Baseball great Joe DiMaggio holds one of the sport's best known records, having gotten a hit in 56 consecutive games in 1941. Though not publicized much at the time, the major leaguer that has gotten the closest to this record came within two games of breaking it over the 2006 and 2007 seasons, by getting a hit in 59 of 61 consecutive games. Who is this future Hall of Famer?
HOW TO WIN: Send your answer, with your full name and address, either by e-mail to TriviaBits@gmail.com, or on a postcard to Stan Newman's Trivia Challenge No. 82, P.O. Box 69, Massapequa Park, NY 11762. Only one submission per person, please. Answers must be received within seven days of publication. One winner will be chosen at random from all correct entries, who will receive a copy of Stan's new book "15,003 Answers: The Ultimate Trivia Encyclopedia," courtesy of Random House. Answer and winner will be announced in a future issue.
ANSWER TO TRIVIA CHALLENGE CONTEST NO. 75
Thanks to the magic of computer special effects, Sir Laurence Olivier got star billing in the 2004 film "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow," 15 years after he died. Winner: Craig Duckett of Shoreline, Wash.
