Total Trivia

[fire_breeze]

The colour blue is considered unlucky, unless countered by wearing silver. As blue dye was once very costly; a failing acting company would dye some of their garments blue in the hopes of pleasing the audience. As for the silver to counter it, one would know that the acting company was truly wealthy, so to enable actors to wear real silver.

The colour green is also considered to be unlucky. This is said to date from the time when most performances were given out-of-doors. Wearing green would make it hard to distinguish the actor from grass/trees/bushes in the natural setting beyond the performing area. Despite this superstition, the off-stage waiting area for actors is referred to as the green room.

The colour yellow is another that is considered unlucky. This is said to date from the days of the religious plays. Yellow was the colour worn by the actor playing the devil.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

If you're ever in the theatre, don't you dare say the M-word AKA the Scottish word.

The Shakespearean play is said to be cursed, so actors avoid saying its name. Actors also avoid even quoting the lines from Macbeth inside a theatre, particularly the Witches incantations. Outside of a theatre the play can be spoken of openly. If an actor speaks the name Macbeth in a theatre, he or she is required to leave the theatre building, spin around three times, spit, curse, and then knock to be allowed back in. There are several possible origins for this superstition. One is the assumption that the song of the Weird Sisters is an actual spell that will bring about evil spirits. Another is that there is more swordplay in it than most other Shakespeare plays, and the more swordplay must be rehearsed and performed, the more chances there are for someone to get injured. Yet another option is that the play is often run by theatres that are in debt and looking to increase patronage.
There is also a legend that the play itself was cursed because the first time it was ever performed, the actor playing Macbeth died shortly before or after the production (accounts vary). It is also said that the original production of the play used actual witches and witchcraft, and so the play is cursed.



Just to be the safe side, I rarely, if ever, say it. Even outside a performance space.

This is an absolute must-watch for you my love, you'll love it!

Blackadder the Third on the BBC with the Macbeth sketch...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h--HR7PWfp0

 

[fire_breeze]

This is an absolute must-watch for you my love, you'll love it!

Blackadder the Third on the BBC with the Macbeth sketch...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h--HR7PWfp0

*snort* Brilliant!!

Reminds me of the Simpsons' episode where they went to London and met Iam McKellan outside of a theatre, giving a Scottish play performance. But this is so much better!

 

[rbijon]

*snort* Brilliant!!

Reminds me of the Simpsons' episode where they went to London and met Iam McKellan outside of a theatre, giving a Scottish play performance. But this is so much better!

Black Adder and Homer are cousins! How's that for trivia?

 

[fire_breeze]

Some key things said to be about Homer:

Although there are multiple accounts of Homer’s origins and life, scholars have been unable to validate the historical accuracy of any of them.

Homer’s reputation in the classical period reached its apex when a religious following of the poet emerged. These followers believed Homer to have been divinely inspired in his writing.

The name Homer sounds like Greek dialectical words meaning “hostage” ὅμερος (hómēros) and/or “blind,” τυφλός (tuphlós) which may have influenced the characterization of Homer as a former slave that became a blind bard.

For many centuries, Homer’s work remained somewhat obscure. It was only during the neo-classical movement of the Renaissance that his writing regained prominence.

The Trojan War, which provides the basis for The Iliad, may not have happened. While it is probably based on an actual war, many believe Homer’s account of it to be a fictionalization.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Some key things said to be about Homer:

Although there are multiple accounts of Homer’s origins and life, scholars have been unable to validate the historical accuracy of any of them.

Homer’s reputation in the classical period reached its apex when a religious following of the poet emerged. These followers believed Homer to have been divinely inspired in his writing.

The name Homer sounds like Greek dialectical words meaning “hostage” ὅμερος (hómēros) and/or “blind,” τυφλός (tuphlós) which may have influenced the characterization of Homer as a former slave that became a blind bard.

For many centuries, Homer’s work remained somewhat obscure. It was only during the neo-classical movement of the Renaissance that his writing regained prominence.

The Trojan War, which provides the basis for The Iliad, may not have happened. While it is probably based on an actual war, many believe Homer’s account of it to be a fictionalization.

The Iliad (or Song of Ilion) is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set in the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of Ilium by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege.

Along with the Odyssey, also attributed to Homer, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the eighth century BC. The Iliad contains over 25,000 lines, and is written in a literary amalgam of several Greek dialects.

 

[fire_breeze]

The Iliad (or Song of Ilion) is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set in the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of Ilium by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege.

Along with the Odyssey, also attributed to Homer, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the eighth century BC. The Iliad contains over 25,000 lines, and is written in a literary amalgam of several Greek dialects.

Sing, oh Muse, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus
and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaeans, etc etc

Helen of Sparta (or Troy) was the 'face that launched a thousand ships' when she ran away/was kidnapped by Paris, the youngest son of Priam, king of Troy.

The origins of Helen's myth date back to the Mycenaean age. Her name first appears in the poems of Homer, but scholars assume that such myths invented or received by the Mycenaean Greeks made their way to Homer. Her mythological birthplace was the Sparta of the Age of Heroes, which features prominently in the canon of Greek myth: in later ancient Greek memory, the Mycenaean Bronze Age became the age of the Greek heroes


She also had a cult - The major centres were in Laconia. At Sparta, the urban sanctuary of Helen was located near the Platanistas, so called for the plane-trees planted there. Ancient sources associate Helen with gymnastic exercises or/and choral dances of maidens near the Evrotas River

 

[Honeyjar]

Wow! Gosh we are a knowledgable bunch aren't we!

I have been tracing our family tree and discovered that one of my ancestors killed Macbeth, well Macbeth killed one of my ancestors first, so another ancestor killed macbeth. Ahh such violence.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Super Mario (created by Nintendo) has raked in more money than Harry Potter. Created in 1981 as the 'Jumpman' in Donkey Kong he has since appeared in more than 200 computer games which have sold 240 million copies worldwide.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

"THE CLOCK"

YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS. CHECK THIS MIND BOGGLING
INFORMATION.

You've never seen a clock like this one.

http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

 

[fire_breeze]

"THE CLOCK"

YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS. CHECK THIS MIND BOGGLING
INFORMATION.

You've never seen a clock like this one.

http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

It puts things in perspective. Thank you

 

[fire_breeze]

Now some random facts about the clock

The operation of a clock depends on a stable mechanical oscillator, such as a swinging pendulum or a mass connected to a spring, by means of which the energy stored in a raised weight or coiled spring advances a pointer or other indicating device at a controlled rate. It is not definitely known when the first mechanical clocks were invented. Some authorities attribute the first weight-driven clock to Pacificus, archdeacon of Verona in the 9th cent. Gerbert, a learned monk who became Pope Sylvester II, is often credited with the invention of a mechanical clock, c.996.

Electric clocks were made in the second half of the 19th cent. but were not used extensively in homes until after c.1930.

The quartz clock, invented c.1929, uses the vibrations of a quartz crystal to drive a synchronous motor at a very precise rate. Some quartz clocks have an error of less than one thousandth of a second per day.

A state of the art atomic clock, such as the NIST-F1 (which is the U.S. time frequency standard clock), neither gains nor loses a second in 20 million years.

With one of those, no one will have an excuse that they are late

 

[fire_breeze]

During the Siege of Nándorfehérvár (the old Hungarian name of Belgrade) in 1456, Hungarian noblemen John Hunyadi (leader of the Hungarian royal army) and Mihály Szilágyi (Captain of the Castle of Nándorfehérvár/ Belgrade) defended the city against the onslaught of the Ottoman. During the siege, Pope Callixtus III ordered the bells of every church to be rung every day at noon, as a call for believers to pray for the defenders of the city. However, in many countries (like England and Spanish Kingdoms), news of the victory arrived before the order, and the ringing of the church bells at noon thus transformed into a commemoration of the victory.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The Ottoman Empire (Turkish: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu) was an imperial power that existed from 1299 to 1923 (634 years), one of the largest empires to rule the borders of the Mediterranean Sea. At the height of its power, it included Anatolia, the Middle East, part of North Africa, and south-eastern Europe. It was established by a tribe of Oghuz Turks in western Anatolia and ruled by the Osmanlı dynasty.

Following World War I, during which most of its territories were captured by the Allies, Ottoman elites established modern Turkey during the Turkish War of Independence.

 

[fire_breeze]

Some facts about languages.


Number of living languages: 6912

Number of those languages that are nearly extinct: 516

Language with the greatest number of native speakers: Mandarin Chinese

Language spoken by the greatest number of non-native speakers: English (250 million to 350 million non-native speakers)

Country with the most languages spoken: Papua New Guinea has 820 living languages.

How long have languages existed: Since about 100,000 BCE

First language ever written: Sumerian or Egyptian (about 3200 BCE)

Oldest written language still in existence: Chinese or Greek (about 1500 BCE)

Language with the most words: English, approx. 250,000 distinct words

Language with the fewest words: Taki Taki (also called Sranan), 340 words. Taki Taki is an English-based Creole spoken by 120,000 in the South American country of Suriname.

Language with the largest alphabet: Khmer (74 letters). This Austro-Asiatic language is the official language of Cambodia, where approx.12 million people speak it. Minority speakers live in a handful of other countries.

Language with the shortest alphabet: Rotokas (12 letters). Approx. 4300 people speak this East Papuan language. They live primarily in the Bougainville Province of Papua New Guinea.

The language with the fewest sounds (phonemes): Rotokas (11 phonemes)

The language with the most sounds (phonemes): !Xóõ (112 phonemes). Approx. 4200 speak !Xóõ, the vast majority of whom live in the African country of Botswana.

Language with the fewest consonant sounds: Rotokas (6 consonants)

Language with the most consonant sounds: Ubyx (81 consonants). This language of the North Causasian Language family, once spoken in the Haci Osman village near Istanbul, has been extinct since 1992. Among living languages, !Xóõ has the most consonants (77).

Language with the fewest vowel sounds: Ubyx (2 vowels). The related language Abkhaz also has 2 vowels in some dialects. There are approximately 106,000 Abkhaz speakers living primarily in Georgia.

Language with the most vowel sounds: !Xóõ (31 vowels)

The most widely published language: English

Language with the fewest irregular verbs: Esperanto (none)

Language which has won the most Oscars: Italian (12 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film)

The most translated document: Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, written by the United Nations in 1948, has been translated into 321 languages and dialects.

The most common consonant sounds in the world's languages: /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/

Longest word in the English language: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters)
It means a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust, causing inflammation in the lungs, or silicosis.

 

[fire_breeze]

Some more interesting language facts:

According to Illinois state law, it is illegal to speak English. The officially recognized language is "American."

Widow is the only female form in the English language that is shorter than its corresponding male term (widower).

Victor Hugo's Les Miserables contains one of the longest sentences in the French language: 823 words without a period.



Luckily, I wasn't correcting his work; I absolutely detest long, run-on sentences.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Some more interesting language facts:

According to Illinois state law, it is illegal to speak English. The officially recognized language is "American."

Widow is the only female form in the English language that is shorter than its corresponding male term (widower).

Victor Hugo's Les Miserables contains one of the longest sentences in the French language: 823 words without a period.



Luckily, I wasn't correcting his work; I absolutely detest long, run-on sentences.

The Longest Sentence in Literature
Many people attribute the longest sentence in literature to Victor Hugo. The claim is that a sentence in Les Miserables, 823 words long, earns that title.

The source most often given for this, if a source is given, is Timothy Fullerton's Triviata: A Compendium of Useless Information, published in 1975.

Unfortunately, Fullerton was in error. At best, it is the longest sentence in French literature. Traditionally, the longest sentence in English Literature has been said to be a sentence in Ullyses by James Joyce, which clocks in at 4,391 words. Past editions of The Guinness Book of World Records have listed this record.

However, Joyce's record has recently been surpassed. Jonathan Coe's The Rotters Club, published in 2001, contains a sentence with 13,955 words. It is believed he currently holds the record in "English Literature."

Where is the "Yawn" icon?

 

[ucleebo]

Burt Reynolds played the blacksmith on Rawhide.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Burt Reynolds played the blacksmith on Rawhide.

OMG! Really?
From acorns oak trees grow.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Clint Eastwood held various jobs and served in the U.S. Army before becoming a bit player in Hollywood. He first attracted notice as the second lead in the television western series Rawhide (1959–66). He achieved international stardom during this same period when he played “The Man With No Name”—

 

[CafeBleu]

The Lockheed SR71 Blackbird entered service in 1966 and upon its entry was the highest and fastest flying manned aircraft. It was withdrawn from service in 1998 at which time it remained the highest and fastest flying manned aircraft.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Chimborazo in Ecuador has an altitude of 6,310 meters (20,703 feet) which is less than both Mount Everest and Mauna Kea. However, Chimborazo has the distinction of being the highest mountain above Earth's center.

This is because Earth is not a sphere - it is an oblate spheroid. As an oblate spheroid, Earth is widest at it's equator. Chimborazo is just one degree south of Earth's equator and at that location it is 6,384 kilometers from Earth's center or about 2 kilometers farther from Earth's center than Mount Everest.

 

[fire_breeze]

It has been believed that Ethiopian ancestors of today's Oromo people were the first to discover and recognize the energizing effect of the coffee bean plant. However, no direct evidence has been found indicating where in Africa coffee grew or who among the natives might have used it, or even known about it, earlier than the 17th century.

The story of Kaldi, the 9th-century Ethiopian goatherd who discovered coffee, did not appear in writing until 1671 CE and is probably apocryphal. The earliest credible evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the fifteenth century, in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen. It was here in Arabia that coffee beans were first roasted and brewed, similar to modern preparation. By the 16th century, it had reached the rest of the Middle East, Persia, Turkey, and northern Africa. Coffee then spread to Italy, and to the rest of Europe, to Indonesia, and to the Americas.

Thank the sweet coffee Gods.

 

[fire_breeze]

In the 17th century, coffee appeared for the first time in Europe outside the Ottoman Empire, and coffeehouses were established and quickly became popular. The first coffeehouses reached Western Europe probably through the Kingdom of Hungary, (thus this was the mediator between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire).

Woo hoo!

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

A Few questions


Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are flat?

Why do banks charge a fee on "insufficient funds" when they know there is not enough in the account to pay?

Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?

Why doesn't glue stick to the bottle?

Why do they use sterilised needles for death by lethal injection?

Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?

Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him?

Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

Whose idea was it to put an "S" in the word "lisp"?

What is the speed of darkness?

Are there specially reserved parking spaces for "normal" people at the Special Olympics?

If you send someone 'Styrofoam', how do you pack it?

If the temperature is zero outside today and it's going to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold will it be?

If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?

If it's true that we are here to help others, what are the others doing here?

Do married people live longer than single ones or does it only seem longer?

If someone with a split personality threatens to commit suicide, is it a hostage situation?

Can you cry under water?

What level of importance must a person have, before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?

If money doesn't grow on trees then why do banks have branches?

Why does a round pizza come in a square box?

How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on bigger suitcases ?

Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake up every two hours?

If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?

Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?

Why do doctors, when they ask you to strip, leave the room or close the cubicle curtain while you change? .... They're still going to see you naked anyway.