HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gopher@yar.cs.wisc.edu (Chris Bovitz)
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
Subject: Re: THE CANADIAN FLAG
Date: 17 Nov 92 03:23:56 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Madison -- Computer Sciences Dept.

In article <BxIsvB.4Bn@cs.dal.ca> lazarus@ug.cs.dal.ca (Chuck Turner) writes:
>In article <1992Nov10.191824.6272@newscan.canada.sun.com> ptaylor@airfarce.Canada.Sun.COM writes:
>>
>>Why were Red & White chosen as the colours for the Canadian Flag back
>>in '65?
>
>I have no idea why red & white were chosen as the colours, if there even is
>a reason.  The flag was chosen from several submitted for competition, to
>be judged and decided on by a parliamentary competition.  If you can find
>their report...you'll have your answer, I imagine.
>
>The current flag wasn't even the most popular choice.  At the time, the
>public favoured a flag with red ends, white center and blue tri-leaf in
>the center.  The red, white and blue signified the ties that Canada held
>with Britain and France.  There are still several places in Nova Scotia
>that fly this flag.

I know that the points on the maple leaf represent the provinces and 
territories, but I counted 12 provinces & territories and only 11 points.
Is this right, or did I miscount?  Is Quebec the stem?  :)

Chris

-- 
Chris Bovitz              |    "I demand that you shoot me now!"
Department of Meteorology |    
Univ of Wisc - Madison    |       -- Daffy Duck
moonunit@meteor.wisc.edu  |
From: subrahma@usc.edu (Sudhakar Subrahmanyam)
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
Subject: TRIVIA QUIZ III
Date: 19 Nov 1992 12:49:45 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: phakt.usc.edu

I guess my previous quiz created a lot of controversy about REDIVIDER being 
the longest palindrome. Well, the question does not necessarily pertain to 
dictionary words but to the English language as a whole.  

Here goes my next set:

1. Which country's national flag features a  Kalashnikov rifle?
2. Which film personality was once imrisoned in the maximum security Casa 
Circondarialli prison in Italy?
3. What game was invented by Charles Darrow?
4. What concoction is attributed to the physicist Dr. Calab Bradham?
5. What is keranothenatophobia?
Have fun! Answers in a couple of days. 
- sudhakar
---------------------------
subrahma@aludra.usc.edu
---------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
From: dant@techbook.com (Dan Tilque)
Subject: Palindromes (was Re: Answers to Trivia Quiz II
Organization: Pseudopolis Yard
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 10:44:27 GMT

880126b@dragon.acadiau.ca (Chris Butler) writes:
>
>I read somewhere that the longest english palindrome was:
>evitative
>This matches the length of 'redivider', and it's in the dictionary.

They didn't happen to mention which dictionary this word is in, did
they?  I know of no dictionary that has it, but would be interested in
finding it in one.

There are a couple nine-letter palindromes that are in dictionaries, but
they are both capitalized (and hence invalid for the question that
started this thread).

  Malayalam  -- a Dravidian language spoken in SW India.  Found in most
  medium-sized dictionaries.

  Rotavator  -- the British equivalent of Rototiller.  It's a trademark
  which is why it's capitalized.  Found in Chambers Dictionary and the
  OED.

Besides these, you can find "semitime" in Webster's Second in a list of
undefined words starting with semi-.  Assuming it's a noun, its plural
is a palindrome.  You can also find "tat-tat-tat" and "pip-pip-pip" in
various places, but the hyphens are major flaws in my opinion.

---
Dan Tilque    --     dant@techbook.com
From: cindy@solan10.solan.unit.no (Cynthia Kandolf)
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
Subject: Re: Peanuts Doctoral Exam
Date: 16 Nov 92 21:42:29 GMT
Organization: /home/ludviga/cindy/.organization

Please e-mail the answers to this "exam" to me, too!  I think i was in
California when they were posted...

-Cindy Kandolf
 cindy@solan.unit.no
 Trondheim, Norway
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
From: lazarus@ug.cs.dal.ca (Chuck Turner)
Subject: Chuck's Music Quiz #5
Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 04:34:47 GMT

Here's quiz #5.  Its due midnight (AST) of the 29th of November.  As of
yet, I don't know how many quizzes there will be in total, but I'm going
at least until Christmas.  I *am* sure that there will be no prize for 
the overall winner (no material prize anyway).  Sorry, I'm cheap.

							- Chuck 

-------------------------------------------------------- 
1)  What movies did the following songs appear in? [1 pt each]

   i> Heretic (Soundgarden)
  ii> Tears In Heaven (Eric Clapton)
 iii> Wicked Game (Chris Isaak) 
  iv> International Bright Young Thing (Jesus Jones) 
   v> What A Feeling (Irene Cara)

2) According to legend, who was it that gave the members of Led Zeppelin
   the idea for their name? [4 pts] 

3) What song did (now) president-elect Bill Clinton play on his saxaphone
   when he appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show? [3 pts] 

4) This Queen single was released in October of 1981 and reached the top of
   the UK charts.  In 1990, the piano and bass were sampled in another artist's
   song, and there made it to the top of the US charts.
   a) What is the original single by Queen? [2 pts]
   b) What song was the piano and bass sampled in, 
      and who was the artist? [2 pts] 

5) What bands has Eric Clapton been a member of? [4 pts]
   NOTE:  The question is worth 4 pts, but that doesn't mean there are
     four bands that I am looking for.  There could be more or less.  
-------------------------------------------------------

 _______________________________________ 
|                                       | '..err..of course I suck blood.' 
| "--whether you are quiet and ALIVE or | 'I don't believe you.' 
| quiet and DEAD makes no difference to | 'I've got a straw right here PAL! 
| Cerebus."                             |  You want a demonstration?!'
|       - Cerebus the Aardvark          |                   - The Tick 
|_______________________________________| Chuck Turner -> lazarus@ug.cs.dal.ca
From: mcsweinberg@memstvx1.memst.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
Subject: Movie Quote Quiz
Date: 19 Nov 92 11:29:42 -0600
Organization: Memphis State University

Rai's Movie Trivia Quiz

- Answers to be posted DEC 1. 1992
- Not in any order
- Please return both the Quote and Answer and I will tell you if an answer is
incorrect.


1. " the baby has a a father what we need is a husband."
	" A husband, A husband where will we find a husband."
 

2. " But ____, my mother lives in Hackansack."

3. " Red means stop. Green means go. Yellow means go very fast."

4. " We will not be the instigators of war, on the eve of universal peace."

5. " Look, I found my smile."
	"Where was it?"
   " Colorado."

6. " Go between them, are you crazy?"

7. " I've got 4 years invested in this rig."
	"and only 3 years invested in me"
   " Got to have priorities."

8. " Listen ________, Al Capone is doing 25 years for tax evasion."

9. " Take off the nun thing. "

10. "He coughs up blood?"
	"Well not like he used to."

____ denotes a name omitted.
From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
Subject: Re: THE CANADIAN FLAG
Date: 18 Nov 92 03:42:37 GMT
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada

>>>Why were Red & White chosen as the colours for the Canadian Flag back
>>>in '65?
>>
>>The current flag wasn't even the most popular choice.

As I recall (note, I was only 9 at the time), the current flag wasn't
even *mentioned* as an option until it was finally announced as the choice.
And I think it looks a lot better than any of the versions that were.

Incidentally, Canadian government department often use a letterhead logo
which has the maple leaf and one bar of the flag, about the height of
two lines of type, and the department name beginning where the other
bar would be.  I like this too.  Something like this...

	[]  *  Statistics  Statistique
	[]  |  Canada      Canada

Formerly the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, but that's another story.
Sorry about the wimpy maple leaf. :-)

>>At the time, the
>>public favoured a flag with red ends, white center and blue tri-leaf in
>>the center.  The red, white and blue signified the ties that Canada held
>>with Britain and France.  ...

Well, the one I remember being cited as the leading contender had the red
and blue the other way around from that, and it was a light blue.  Red maple
leaves of fall, and the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, you see.  I also recall
that two slightly different versions of this flag were put forward, as a
trick to split the vote (in Parliament or a committee, I forget) in case
it would have favored this design.

It is a fact that red and white are the colors of the political party that
was in power at the time the flag was chosen, and some have advanced this as
a reason for rejecting the 3-color versions.  It is of course possible
that it was a contributory reason but not the only one.  But I certainly
didn't hear about it at the time, only years later; I don't even know that
they were using those colors then.

> I know that the points on the maple leaf represent the provinces and 
> territories, but I counted 12 provinces & territories and only 11 points.
> Is this right, or did I miscount?  Is Quebec the stem?  :)

Well, it had to be an odd number to match the symmetry of the actual leaf!
11 is justified as 10 for the provinces and 1 for the country as a whole.
We also had 11 elements in our Centennial celebration logo of 1967:
that was a hexagram tesselated into 12 equilateral triangles, with one
outer triangle removed and replaced by a stem, forming a 5-pointed maple
leaf -- again, I rather liked it.  And our dollar has 11 sides also.

As for Quebec, well, if you do a figure-ground reversal on the flag and
look at the white parts "northwest" and "northeast" of the maple leaf,
you will see the faces of two people arguing... it is believed that this
was unintentional...
-- 
Mark Brader		     "A real Canadian science-fiction plot would be
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto	      about whether alien visitors were a federal or a
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com      provincial responsibility."  -- Duncan Thornton

This article is in the public domain.
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
From: amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog)
Subject: Re: Movie Quote Quiz Part II
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 19:40:30 GMT

In article <1eovi2INNh8d@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu> 
  hammond@css.itd.umich.edu (Steve Hammond) writes:

>Gee, Thanks guys, you really have the idea of a quiz down.  Just shout out
>The answers as soon as you know them.  Too bad you werent in my calculus
>Class, I could have really used it then

A lot of people post question but aren't interested in keeping track of
the email replies, etc.  Nowhere on this quiz did it say "Email me your
answers, DON'T POST" so what is your problem?

C Frog
From: mcsweinberg@memstvx1.memst.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
Subject: Movie Quote Quiz Part III
Date: 23 Nov 92 16:54:55 -0600
Organization: Memphis State University

Movie Quote Quiz Part III

- DO NOT POST
- Replies should include the quote, and Movie title.
- All replies will be scored and replied to.
- No one so far has correctly answered Parts I and II (or even completed)
- Guessing is recommended.
- These are in no particular order.


1. " I want to spend the night with you."
	"You mean sleep over?"
   	
2. " Let's play Global Thermal Nuclear War."

3. " Noids don't do it with Doodles. "

4. " You send that many men you'd better have a good supply of one thing..."
	" What's that. "
   " Body Bags."

5. " Eugene, You can't marry your first cousin you'll have babies with 
     nine heads."

6. " I would kill for her, I would die for her, either way what bliss."
(hint: This film is also quoted in Part I.)

7. " I don't know if we are going to prom or to hell."

8. " No wonder your president is an actor he has to look good on TV."

9. " You slept with the Boss."
	" You slept with the Boss' wife"
   " He seduced me."
	" She seduced me."

10. " You want me to have a special hearing on the admissibility of the
      word 'ass'?"

Rai.
	
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Oscar/Nobel prize
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 14:26:50 GMT


G. B. Shaw won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

He won the Oscaqr for best Screen Play (adaptation) -- for Pygmalion.

Mark

Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
From: clamen+@CS.CMU.EDU (Stewart Clamen)
Subject: Re: THE CANADIAN FLAG
Originator: clamen@BYRON.SP.CS.CMU.EDU
Reply-To: clamen+@CS.CMU.EDU
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
	<1992Nov18.034237.24390@sq.sq.com> <1992Nov19.120216.16821@sq.sq.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 02:48:55 GMT

In article <1992Nov19.120216.16821@sq.sq.com> msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) writes:

   >>>> Why were Red & White chosen as the colours for the Canadian Flag back
   >>>> in '65?

   Further research -- in the form of my friend Owen Leibman -- has pointed
   me to the actual answer.  Red and white are Canada's official colors!

   If I ever knew that, I must have assumed that this was because of the
   flag.  Not so; apparently they go back to the time of the creation of
   the national coat-of-arms in 1921.

   Have a look at a Canadian $20 bill (before they get around to issuing
   the new design where the coat-of-arms is in monochrome, which has now
   afflicted all other denominations).  You will see that one of those
   parts of the coat-of-arms not given over to British or French symbols
   shows a cluster of 3 red maple leaves on a white background.  Voila:
   not only the national colors, but also the very symbol that was on
   the failed flag proposal that we were talking about.

Hmmm.  Both the Ontario and Quebec coat-of-arms also feature the
three-leaf symbol.  I wonder if they have official colours as well?

--
Stewart M. Clamen			Internet:    clamen@cs.cmu.edu
School of Computer Science		UUCP: 	     uunet!"clamen@cs.cmu.edu"
Carnegie Mellon University		Phone: 	     +1 412 268 2145
5000 Forbes Avenue			Fax:	     +1 412 681 5739
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3891, USA
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: THE CANADIAN FLAG
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 12:02:16 GMT

>>>> Why were Red & White chosen as the colours for the Canadian Flag back
>>>> in '65?

Further research -- in the form of my friend Owen Leibman -- has pointed
me to the actual answer.  Red and white are Canada's official colors!

If I ever knew that, I must have assumed that this was because of the
flag.  Not so; apparently they go back to the time of the creation of
the national coat-of-arms in 1921.

Have a look at a Canadian $20 bill (before they get around to issuing
the new design where the coat-of-arms is in monochrome, which has now
afflicted all other denominations).  You will see that one of those
parts of the coat-of-arms not given over to British or French symbols
shows a cluster of 3 red maple leaves on a white background.  Voila:
not only the national colors, but also the very symbol that was on
the failed flag proposal that we were talking about.

Incidentally, as rendered on the $20 bill, each of the 4 maple leaves
in the coat-of-arms has 13 points.  This obviously represents a deck
of playing cards. :-)
-- 
Mark Brader			"Without nuclear weapons we will be nothing
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto		 more than a rich, powerful Canada...."
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com		-- A Walk in the Woods, by Lee Blessing

This article is in the public domain.
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
From: dant@techbook.com (Dan Tilque)
Subject: Re: Answers to Trivia Quiz II
Organization: Pseudopolis Yard
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 10:13:03 GMT

mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>
>dant@techbook.com (Dan Tilque) writes:
> 
>> subrahma@usc.edu (Sudhakar Subrahmanyam) writes:
>>> 4. Longest palindrome in the English language : Redivider
> 
>> I'll put this in the form of a challenge:  find a dictionary that has
>> "redivider" in it.  
> 
>It is a ludicrous challenge.  Sudhakar asked for palindromes in the English
>language -- not those that are in dictionaries.

[Argument about constructing words from prefixes and suffixes deleted.]

It's not ludicrous, I'd be genuinely interested to know of a dictionary
that lists it.  There's also the point that you can't really define
what is and is not an English word.  Here are some other coined
palindromes, none of which are in dictionaries.  Which of them are
Engish?

resuffuser
desuffused
detartrated

The advantage of finding a dictionary listing is that dictionaries
usually only list words that are or were used to some extent.  The
above three words, along with redivider, just aren't in use.

> 
>> Find two longer palindromes that are in English language dictionaries.
>> And, yes, I do know of two.
> 
>A counter-example will go a lot further in showing that Sudhakar's
>example is not the longest palindromic word than trying to convince us
>that it is not a valid word.

I was not trying to say that redivider was not a valid word.  The point
I would like to make is more subtle.  Depending on your individual
criteria, redivider and the others listed here may or may not be valid
words.  Not only that, but your criteria can change depending on
application.  Playing Scrabble, redivider would not be allowed; if you
set up your own game or contest, you can allow it.

The real point here is that just saying "English word" is not a good way
of indicating the allowed set of words.


Anyway, below are the two palindromes that are longer than redivider.
Are they English words or not?  You be the judge...

kinnikinnik  -- a variant spelling of kinnikinnick found in Webster's
Third.  Kinnikinnick is a blend of bark leaves and sometimes tobacco
smoked by Indians and early pioneers in the Ohio River area.

tattarrattat  -- a nonce word supposedly used by Joyce in Ulysses.
It's found in the OED (2nd Ed.) and means "rat-a-tat".  I've looked in
Ulysses on the indicated page and couldn't find it.


---
Dan Tilque    --     dant@techbook.com
Organization: Senior, English, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 11:23:21 -0500 
From: "Pamela J. Bernhardt" <pb2i+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: ANSWERS Childrens Books Quiz

Here they are folks and the winner is....
Patricia Evans -14

There was a total possiblitiy of 20 points.  If you wrote down all the
books in a certain series I gave you an extra point.
Hope you had fun.
Coming soon - Last Line Lyric Quiz

 Elizabeth Fike -9
Grizabella  - 13
Mark Anania Jr. -6
Joel B Levin -9
Ray Hamel -6
Derek G Bacon -12
Gracious Network Hostess -11
rocher -9
Kathryn Lawder -8
schierh -4
James Smith -7
Joseph R. Strickland -5
G.LEVINE -6

1)Sam I am

Green eggs and Ham -Dr. Seuss


2) Mary Lenox, Dickon

The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgsen(sp?) Burnett


3) Harriet Welch, Sport (Simon) Rocque

Harriet The Spy
Sport
The Long Secret
-Louise Fitzhugh


4) Peter Hatcher, Sheila Tubman

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
Otherwise known as Sheila The Great
Superfudge
Fudgeamania 
- Judy Blume


5) Edmund, Lucy

The Narnia series - CS Lewis


6) Meg Murray Calvin O'Keefe

A wrinkle in time
A wind in the Door
A swiftly tilting planet 
- Madeline L'engle


7) Linda Fischer   Wendy, 

Blubber - Judy Blume (Nobody got this, and many people thought I meant
Wendy to be with Wendy and Michael Darling.  Blubber was about a girl
who got teased a lot, and Wendy was her tormentor.)

8) Michael Darling, 

Peter Pan  - JM Barrie

9) The skin horse

The Velveteen Rabbit - Margery Williams Bianco 


10) Bilbo Baggins

The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkein
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
From: pa56680@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (P. Ialamanna)
Subject: Re: Nobel prize trivia question
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 11:35:18 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.055256.16195@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog) writes:
>A week or so ago, someone asked who the only person was to win both
>a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award.  I missed the answer and the
>question has been burning a hole in my brain every since.  If anyone
>knows could they please email me.
>
>C Frog
>amorgan@cs.stanford.edu

I too would like to know. Please post the answer.

-- 
--*****************************************************************************
- P. Ialamanna -      * "I think you hear me knocking, and I think I'm coming *
 GO FIGHTING ILLINI!! *   in, and I'm bringing my big, bad opinions with me"  *
 "Who cares about apathy anyway?"       <blah,blah, STANDARD DISCLAIMER, blah>
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
Subject: Last Line Lyric Quiz 
From: "Pamela J. Bernhardt" <pb2i+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 11:57:46 -0500 
Organization: Senior, English, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Hi guys.
This is a Lyric quiz with a bit of flavor.  These are the last lines (or
next to the last line of a song.  If the song ends with the title, it
will be the line before that one.  Example...

The song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,
It ends with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, How I wonder What you are.
The last line that doesn't contain this would be,
Like a diamond in the sky.

Get it?

Good.

Most but not all, are love songs.
They are in no particular order.
There might be more than one by the same performer.

DO NOT POST

Send the answers to me in Song/Singer form.
The answers will be posted after Thanksgiving.


1) And I can make you every promise that has ever been made
I can make all your demons be gone.

2) Take a look at me now.

3) I said I'm happy for you , I'm really happy for you.

4) Turn around bright eyes.

5) It's me, Cathy, I've come home, I'm so cold, Let me into your window.

6) Here them shout across the land,
From mountains in the north down to....

7) The girl with kalidescope eyes.

8) This will be the day that I die.

9)Reaching out to both of us
This love affair can't wait.

10)Who could it be
Believe it or not It's just me.

(Double points if you tell me who sings this song, because I have a 10
dollar bet riding on it.)

11)Nothing really matters, Anyone can see, 
Nothing really matters to me.
"Hit me where the wind blows"





Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Answers to Trivia Quiz II
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 18:37:27 GMT


dant@techbook.com (Dan Tilque) writes:
 
> subrahma@usc.edu (Sudhakar Subrahmanyam) writes:
>> 4. Longest palindrome in the English language : Redivider
 
> I emailed to Sudhakar about this, but he chose to ignore it.
 
> I'll put this in the form of a challenge:  find a dictionary that has
> "redivider" in it.  It must be a complete word in boldface type (either
> a headword or a run-in entry), not just derived from two or three
> separate entries.  This is a real challenge, since I don't know of any
> such dictionary.  I've looked in quite a few and can't find it.  I'd be
> happy to hear of one that has it.
 
I have a followup to my last response to this challenge.
 
"Redivider" is accepted as valid when using the UNIX command "spell"
and when using the spell-checker in IslandWrite, a desktop publishing
package.
 
Interestingly, IslandWrite's spell-checker will not accept "IslandWrite,"
suggesting "slandered" as an alternative.
 
 
Mark
 
Newsgroups: rec.games.trivia