Saturday, October 08, 2011

rec.games.trivia - 8 new messages in 2 topics - digest

rec.games.trivia
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trivia?hl=en

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Today's topics:

* Rotating Quiz #35 - Unlucky for some. - 7 messages, 4 authors
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trivia/t/f86408d2bcdec606?hl=en
* Calvin's Quiz #167 - 1 messages, 1 author
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trivia/t/af9382b3130e5c43?hl=en

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TOPIC: Rotating Quiz #35 - Unlucky for some.
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trivia/t/f86408d2bcdec606?hl=en
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== 1 of 7 ==
Date: Thurs, Oct 6 2011 7:25 pm
From: Marc Dashevsky


In article <j6k28m$f59$1@dont-email.me>, askforEmail@gmail.com says...
> 1. The Pompidou Centre in Paris is known locally as what due to its location?
>
> 2. What is an Oud?
A stringed instrument from the middle east.

> 3. What is special about minus 40 degrees?
-40C == -40F

> 4. Which is the highest mountain in England?
>
> 5. What is Ras El Hanout?
>
> 6. What are the bones of fingers and toes called?
phalanges

> 7. What is baccanalia?
festivals in honor of Bacchus

> 8. Who famously died on Mont Ventoux?
>
> 9. From where/what does Pashana Bedhi come from?
>
> 10. Which famous novel is told through the eyes of a sixteen year girl who
> thinks she's a eunuch?
>
> 11. What are the three ingredients to gunpowder?
carbon, sulfur, potassium nitrate

> 12. What disease is Sydenham's chorea more commonly known?
>
> 13. Which band had the pseudonym "The Dukes of Stratosphear"?
>
> Tie Breaker
> What is pi in decimal notation to as many significant figures as you know?
3.14159


--
Go to http://MarcDashevsky.com to send me e-mail.


== 2 of 7 ==
Date: Fri, Oct 7 2011 8:10 am
From: Jeffrey Turner


On 10/6/2011 7:09 AM, David Brown wrote:
>
> 1. The Pompidou Centre in Paris is known locally as what due to its
> location?
>
> 2. What is an Oud?
>
> 3. What is special about minus 40 degrees?

Celsius or Fahrenheit? Oh, right, doesn't matter.

> 4. Which is the highest mountain in England?

The workers control the means of production...

> 5. What is Ras El Hanout?
>
> 6. What are the bones of fingers and toes called?

Tarsals and phlanges.

> 7. What is baccanalia?

a drunken party

> 8. Who famously died on Mont Ventoux?
>
> 9. From where/what does Pashana Bedhi come from?
>
> 10. Which famous novel is told through the eyes of a sixteen year girl
> who thinks she's a eunuch?
>
> 11. What are the three ingredients to gunpowder?
>
> 12. What disease is Sydenham's chorea more commonly known?
>
> 13. Which band had the pseudonym 'The Dukes of Stratosphear'?
>
>
> Tie Breaker
> What is pi in decimal notation to as many significant figures as you know?

3.1415

--Jeff


== 3 of 7 ==
Date: Fri, Oct 7 2011 8:53 am
From: msb@vex.net (Mark Brader)


David Brown:
> > 11. What are the three ingredients to gunpowder?

Erland Sommarskog:
> Kalium nitrate, carbon and sulphur

FYI, "kalium" is the name for potassium in Swedish as well in Latin.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "If we gave people a choice, there would be chaos."
msb@vex.net | -- Dick McDonald


== 4 of 7 ==
Date: Fri, Oct 7 2011 1:43 pm
From: Erland Sommarskog


Mark Brader (msb@vex.net) writes:
> Erland Sommarskog:
>> Kalium nitrate, carbon and sulphur
>
> FYI, "kalium" is the name for potassium in Swedish as well in Latin.

Thanks Mark!

It's a little deceivable with those elements where the initial letter
agrees with the symbol in Swedish, but not in English.

You had this question in a quiz some time back, and I was surprised that
there were only 12 elements where the English name did not start with
the first letter in the symbol. Then I realised that there are a couple
where the Swedish name is different, and does not agree with the symbol
and the name is completely different from English: H (v�te), O (syre), N
(kv�ve), Si (kisel), Hg (kvicksilver), Pb (bly). There are also a couple
where the deviation is mainly a spelling issue: Cl (klor), I (jod), Ca
(Kalcium), Cr (Krom), P (Fosfor), C (kol), Cu (koppar).

But then are also the cases where the Swedish name agrees with the
symbol and English has a different name: Na (Natrium), K (Kalium),
W (Wolfram). The latter is particularly ironic, as the English name
is a Swedish word.

--
Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, esquel@sommarskog.se


== 5 of 7 ==
Date: Fri, Oct 7 2011 2:13 pm
From: msb@vex.net (Mark Brader)


Erland Sommarskog:
> You had this question in a quiz some time back, and I was surprised that
> there were only 12 elements where the English name did not start with
> the first letter in the symbol. Then I realised that there are a couple
> where the Swedish name is different, and does not agree with the symbol
> and the name is completely different from English: H (v�te), O (syre), N
> (kv�ve), Si (kisel), Hg (kvicksilver), Pb (bly)...

Okay, I recognize the hydrogen and oxygen words as cognates to "water"
and "sour", and also to the first part of the German name for each
element. These correspond to the meanings in Greek of the first part of
our names.

"Bly" is cognate to German "blei" (while French "plomb" is cognate to
the Latin "plumbum" that gives us the symbol). And mercury is cognate to
English "quicksilver", a traditional alternative name for the stuff --
just as, if Wikipedia is correct, in Swedish "potassium" was once an
alternative name for potassium (now "kalium").

"Kisel" looks like a rearrangement of the first part of "silicon", but is
it, or is that just a coincidence? The English word comes ultimately from
the Latin "silex", meaning flint.

And then there's the word for nitrogen, about whose meaning which I have
no clue. The French word is "azote", meaning "no life" (i.e. it'll
suffocate you), while the German one starts with "stick", and I don't
know why.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "When you say 'non-trivial', can you
msb@vex.net quantify that for me?" --Kate Hamilton

My text in this article is in the public domain.


== 6 of 7 ==
Date: Fri, Oct 7 2011 2:51 pm
From: Erland Sommarskog


Mark Brader (msb@vex.net) writes:
> Okay, I recognize the hydrogen and oxygen words as cognates to "water"
> and "sour", and also to the first part of the German name for each
> element. These correspond to the meanings in Greek of the first part of
> our names.

Yes, "v�te" is akin to "v�ta" - to make wet.

The really funny word for oxygen is the Danish "ilt" - I have no idea
where it comes from.

> "Kisel" looks like a rearrangement of the first part of "silicon", but is
> it, or is that just a coincidence? The English word comes ultimately from
> the Latin "silex", meaning flint.

It seems that "kisel" is older than the discovery of the element. It's
simply the name of the mineral that is used. According to the entry
in dictionary of the Swedish Academy a cognate in Old English is "cisel".
(Maybe that was the spelling then, but I would expect a pronounciation
like "chisel".)

> And then there's the word for nitrogen, about whose meaning which I have
> no clue. The French word is "azote", meaning "no life" (i.e. it'll
> suffocate you), while the German one starts with "stick", and I don't
> know why.

The verb "kv�va" in Swedish indeed means "to suffocate (someone)".

--
Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, esquel@sommarskog.se


== 7 of 7 ==
Date: Fri, Oct 7 2011 3:26 pm
From: msb@vex.net (Mark Brader)


Mark Brader:
>> "Kisel" looks like a rearrangement of the first part of "silicon", but is
>> it, or is that just a coincidence? The English word comes ultimately from
>> the Latin "silex", meaning flint.

Erland Sommarskog:
> It seems that "kisel" is older than the discovery of the element. It's
> simply the name of the mineral that is used. According to the entry
> in dictionary of the Swedish Academy a cognate in Old English is "cisel".
> (Maybe that was the spelling then, but I would expect a pronounciation
> like "chisel".)

The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) Online has this as "chesil" or "chisel",
a word that is "now chiefly dialectical, or retained in place-names".
It means small pebbles and in early usage a siliceous stone or pebble.
It apparently passed out of general use in the 17th century. It's a
Germanic word, so it's not surprising it has a cognate in Swedish;
it's unrelated to our word "chisel", which, like "silicon", is
ultimately from Latin. So the quasi-resemblance to "silicon" is
indeed apparently a coincidence.

>> And then there's the word for nitrogen, about whose meaning which I have
>> no clue. The French word is "azote", meaning "no life" (i.e. it'll
>> suffocate you), while the German one starts with "stick", and I don't
>> know why.
>
> The verb "kv�va" in Swedish indeed means "to suffocate (someone)".

That makes me think of English "quaff", which means drink, and "quash",
which means to annul, destroy, etc.; but the OED offers no etymology
for "quaff", and all the forms in the etymology of "quash" would have
an S or similar sound after the vowel. So, more coincidences, I guess.
--
Mark Brader | "... there is no such word as 'impossible' in
Toronto | my dictionary. In fact, everything between
msb@vex.net | 'herring' and 'marmalade' appears to be missing."
| -- Dirk Gently (Douglas Adams)

My text in this article is in the public domain.

==============================================================================
TOPIC: Calvin's Quiz #167
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trivia/t/af9382b3130e5c43?hl=en
==============================================================================

== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Fri, Oct 7 2011 8:48 am
From: Jeffrey Turner


On 10/5/2011 10:09 PM, Calvin wrote:
>
>
> 1 Which strait separates the North and South Islands of New Zealand?
Cook
> 2 Who portrayed Dian Fossey in the 1988 film Gorillas In The Mist?
Meryl Streep
> 3 What does the Russian word glasnost mean?
openness
> 4 Which author wrote the Chronicles of Narnia novels?
CS Lewis
> 5 Who played the female journalist in the 1986 film Crocodile Dundee?
> 6 What two colours are the stripes on the flag of Argentina?
blue and white
> 7 John Travolta and Uma Thurman co-starred in which 1994 film?
> 8 Suicide Blonde was a 1990 hit for which Australian rock band?
> 9 What does the health-related acronym BMI stand for?
body mass index
> 10 Which Beatle married Maureen Cox in 1965?
Ringo


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