The daily trivia question airs every weekday at 5:30pm. If you missed any of this week's questions of answers, here's a recap!
FRIDAY, September 16
Q: Tonight is a full moon, the so called "Harvest Moon". What is the Harvest Moon?
A: The Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the Autumnal Equinox. But it's so much more than that! More here and here.
THURSDAY, September 15
Q: Who is the best-selling fiction writer of all time?
a) Stephen King
b) J.K. Rowling
c) Agatha Christie
A: c) Agatha Christie, by a long shot: 85 novels, in 44 languages, with over two billion (!!) sold to date.
WEDNESDAY, September 14
Q: Today in 1814 Francis Scott Key penned "Defense of Fort McHenry," a four-versed lyric poem more commonly known today as "The Star-Spangled Banner" - our National Anthem. The tune for the National Anthem is not by Francis Scott Key. Was the tune of the National Anthem,
a) Originally a drinking song
b) Originally a church hymn
c) Newly composed specifically for the National Anthem.
A: a) Originally a drinking song. Sort of. The tune was originally titled "Anacreon in Heaven" and was the theme song of the Anacreonic Society of London, an upper class gentleman's amateur music club dedicated to the poetry and writings of the Greek poet Anacreon. Apparently the surviving works by Anacreon largely focus on the Goddess of Love (Venus) and the God of Wine (Bacchus). With those two deities as idols, you can imagine much drinking occured at The Society. Does that make "Anacreon in Heaven" a drinking song? Maybe. It's certainly not a church hymn.
The Anacreon in Heaven tune was also quite popular in the U.S. Army camps of the War of 1812, and many, many different lyrics were set to the tune. And Army camps not being hot beds for piety, you can imagine some of these songs were a little blue.
More about the National Anthem's origins can be found here.
TUESDAY, September 13
Q: Listener-submitted trivia from Mary, who asked, "What are the differences between a road, a street, an avenue, and a boulevard."
A: Well... there is no hard and fast rule. Nowadays the terms are used with reckless abandon. That said, generally speaking...
- A road connects two distant places, as in, two towns.
- A street connects places within a town (Main Street for example).
- An avenue is a wide long street, sort of a grander version of a normal street. To make it an SAT question: Ballroom is to regular room as Avenue is to street.
- A boulevard is an elegant tree-lined avenue, with a center median.
The examples of non-textbook roads, streets, avenues, and boulevards abound (Commonwealth Avenue, with its center median and plentiful trees is really more of a boulevard; Seaside Boulevard has no trees to be found), but very generally speaking that's how they're defined. Read more about the definitions here, here, and here.
MONDAY, September 12
Q: What is an "aglet"?
a) The armhole of your shirt
b) The tip of your shoelace
c) A small plot of farmed land, i.e. a bit of agriculture
A: b. The tip of your shoelace. Who knew! The word is derived from the French word for "needle," (aiguille) according to cool folks at Wonderopolis.
P.S. An armhole is an "armscye."
If you would like to submit a trivia question, do so by sending me a message via Twitter.
