19. Noah Webster’s bestselling book during his lifetime was not his dictionary but a spelling book, The Blue-Backed Speller, which was published in 1783 and which, by 1800, had sold more than a million copies.
20. Contrary to popular belief, Abraham Lincoln did not write the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope while riding a train to Gettysburg. In fact, he began the first draft for the speech on November 8, 1862, eleven days before the event. Indeed, there were five drafts of the speech, each on White House stationery. Further, the Associated Press had been given an advance copy of the speech so that they could print it in the newspapers.
Quiz 11
Astronomy
1. What object created by people can be seen from the moon?
2. Which country landed the first craft on the moon?
3. What planet in our solar system has the hottest mean surface temperature?
4. Which is farther from the sun, Neptune or Pluto?
5. What is the brightest star in the night sky of the Northern Hemisphere?
6. What causes Earth’s seasons?
7. Although a few moons of Uranus are named after characters in Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock,” most are named after what?
8. What is the English adjective to describe the planet Jupiter?
9. What is the English adjective now generally used to describe the planet Venus and its hypothetical inhabitants?
10. Who was the first person to assert that Earth orbits around the sun?
11. What is true about the landing temperature of most meteorites?
12. What is the difference between the Evening Star and the Morning Star?
Quiz 11 Answers
Astronomy
1. No humanly created object, including the Great Wall of China, can be seen from the moon, more than 200,000 miles from Earth. In 1969, astronaut Alan Bean, who walked on the moon during the Apollo 12 mission, wrote that all he could see when looking at Earth was a beautiful sphere, which was mostly white (clouds), some blue (oceans), patches of yellow (deserts), and spots of green (vegetation).
2. The country that first landed a craft on the moon was not the United States of America, which can boast all twelve moon walkers, but the former Soviet Union, whose Luna 2 became in 1959 the first unmanned space probe to crash-land on the moon. In February 1966, after soft-landing Luna 9 on the moon, the former Soviet Union relayed the first pictures directly from the lunar surface. In June 1966, the America’s Surveyor I became the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on the moon. In July 1969, the United States landed the first human being on the moon, Neil Armstrong.
3. The planet in our solar system with the highest mean surface temperature is not Mercury (the closest to the sun) but Venus (whose gases, mostly carbon dioxide, trap the heat).
4. Pluto is usually farther from the sun than Neptune is, but not always; Pluto’s highly eccentric (elliptical) orbit shows that a small region of Pluto’s orbit lies closer to the sun than Neptune’s orbit. For example, Pluto was interior to Neptune’s orbit between February 7, 1979, and February 11, 1999. The last period in which Pluto was in that portion of its orbit lasted only fourteen years, from July 11, 1935, to September 15, 1949.
5. The brightest star in the night sky of the Northern Hemisphere is not the North Star (Polaris) but Sirius (the Dog Star).
6. Earth’s seasons are determined not by its distance from the sun but by its tilted axis. In July, when it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, Earth is farthest from the sun, but the northern part of the planet is tilted toward the sun, giving longer days and more direct sunlight. In winter, Earth is tilted away. The seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere, which is tilted toward the sun in January and away from it in July.
7. Most of Uranus’s moons are named after Shakespearean characters. Uranus has more than two dozen moons, including Titania, Oberon, and Puck (all from A Midsummer Night’s Dream); Cordelia (from King Lear); Ophelia (from Hamlet); Portia (from The Merchant of Venice ); and Rosalind (from As You Like It).
8. The English adjective for the planet Jupiter is Jovian.
9. The English adjective now generally used to describe the planet Venus and its hypothetical inhabitants is not Venusian but Cytherean, from Cytheria , a small island now part of Greece where Aphrodite emerged on a seashell. By the way, the expression venereal disease pays homage to Venus, the Roman goddess of love.
10. The first person to assert that Earth revolves around the sun was not Copernicus (1473-1543), but some unnamed ancient thinkers. The heliocentric theory appeared in Sanskrit texts dating from the seventh century BCE. Further, some ancient Greeks theorized about it in the third and fourth centuries BCE. What’s more, an Arab astronomer suggested the heliocentric theory in the fourteenth century, a hundred years before Copernicus was born. Copernicus became famous not only because of his assertion of the heliocentric theory but also because of his mathematical calculations offered as proof of the theory.
11. Most meteorites are not hot upon landing. In fact, many have frost on them. A meteor’s speed during atmospheric reentry is enough to melt or vaporize its outermost layer, quickly blowing off any molten material. The interior of the meteor does not have time to heat up because rocks are poor conductors of heat. What is more, atmospheric drag can slow down earthbound meteors, giving their surface time to cool down.
12. Both the Evening Star and the Morning Star refer to the planet Venus, depending on which time of day it is dominating the darkness. Throughout the fall and winter of 2008-2009, Venus was the most notable object in the evening sky in the west to southwest.
Quiz 12
Names (Part I)
1. How did mobile homes get their name?
2. After what animals were the Canary Islands named?
3. At Stanford University, the term Stanford cardinal refers to what?
4. Why are bloodhounds called bloodhounds?
5. How did the bird called the Baltimore oriole get its name?
6. How did the American bald eagle get its name?
7. What was the complete name used by Mr. Cooper, the man who hijacked a Boeing 727 in 1977 and who took $200,000?
8. Why are hangnails so named?
9. What is the official name of the world’s largest train station, which is at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York?
10. What are the residents of Lawrence, Kansas, called?
11. What are the residents of Leavenworth, Kansas, called? Spell the name.
12. What was President Coolidge’s first name?
13. What was President Wilson’s first name?
14. What are the residents of Norfolk, England, called?
15. What are the residents of Norfolk, Nebraska, called?
16. What are the residents of Norfolk, Virginia, called?
17. What are the residents of Phoenix, Arizona, called?
18. What are the residents of Charlestown, Massachusetts, called?
19. What are the residents of Oxford, England, called?
20. What are the residents of Cambridge, England, called?
21. What are the residents of Moscow, Idaho, called?
22. What are the residents of New Orleans, Louisiana, called?
23. What is the official name of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?
24. What are the residents of Richmond, California, called?
25. What are the residents of Richmond, Virginia, called?
Quiz 12 Answers
Names (Part I)
1. Mobile homes did not get their name from their mobility but from Mobile, Alabama, the city where the houses first boomed. Invented by James and Laura Sweet to solve housing problems after World War II, mobile homes were originally known as Sweet homes. During the 1950s, many firms set up in Mobile, Alabama, to take advantage of cheap labor. Mobile homes were mass-produced, and the name stuck. (Note, however, that the name of the Alabama city is pronounced moh-BEEL.)
2. The Canary Islands were not named
after canary birds but after dogs. Located in the Atlantic Ocean off northwest Africa, the Canary Islands were named for the extinct race of large dogs (Latin Canis) that once roamed the island. It is believed that the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, who called one of the islands “Canaria,” was responsible for their names. In any event, the canary bird is so named because it comes from the Canary Islands; the islands did not acquire their name from the canary bird.
3. The term Stanford cardinal refers not to a bird but to the school color of Stanford University.
4. Bloodhounds are so named not because of any special ability to smell blood but because they were the first breed of dog whose blood, or breeding, records were maintained.
5. The name of the bird called the Baltimore oriole does not come from the city of Baltimore, which was settled decades after the bird acquired its name; instead, the bird derived its name from the adopted name of the founder of Maryland in 1632, George Calvert, who assumed the title of Lord Baltimore and took black and orange as the family’s colors. The Baltimore oriole derived its name because its colors matched those of the Baltimore family. Although the city was founded in 1729, the bird had already been known as the Baltimore bird by 1669.
6. The American bald eagle does not get its name from being bald, which it is not; rather, the eagle’s name was originally the balded eagle, referring to the Middle English word balded (“white” or “having white fur or feathers”). The eagle has slicked-down white feathers covering its head.
7. Cooper never referred to himself as “D. B. Cooper” but as “Dan Cooper.”
8. Hangnails are so named not because anything about them hangs but because they hurt; ang in Old English meant “pain.”
9. The official name of the world’s largest train station is not Grand Central Station, which is the name of the nearby post office as well as the name of a previous station on the site and the name of a Manhattan subway station at the same location. The technically correct term for the world’s largest train station is Grand Central Terminal.
10. The residents of Lawrence, Kansas, are Lawrentians, as distinguished from Lawrencians, who are residents of Lawrence, Massachusetts.
11. The residents of Leavenworth, Kansas, are Leavenwortheans.
12. President Coolidge’s first name was not Calvin but John; he was John Calvin Coolidge.
13. President Woodrow Wilson’s first name was not Woodrow but Thomas; he was Thomas Woodrow Wilson.
14. The residents of Norfolk, England, are North Anglians.
15. The residents of Norfolk, Nebraska, are Norfolkans.
16. The residents of Norfolk, Virginia, are Norfolkians.
17. The residents of Phoenix, Arizona, are Phoenicians.
18. The residents of Charlestown, Massachusetts, are Townies.
19. The residents of Oxford, England, are Oxonians, as are graduates of Oxford University.
20. The residents of Cambridge, England, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and graduates of Cambridge University are all Cantabrigians.
21. The residents of Moscow, Idaho, are Moscowites.
22. The residents of New Orleans are Orleanians.
23. The official name of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America.
24. The residents of Richmond, California, are Richmondites.
25. The residents of Richmond, Virginia, are Richmonders.
Quiz 13
Names (Part II)
1. What are the residents of Rochester, New York, called?
2. What are the residents of Rochester, Indiana, called?
3. How did the software company Adobe get its name?
4. How did Xerox get its name?
5. What are the residents of Arkansas City, Arkansas, called?
6. What was the official name of the bed created by the Murphy Door Bed Company?
7. What is the official name of what we call the Congressional Medal of Honor?
8. How did bulldogs acquire their name?
9. What was Hitler’s original last name?
10. What is the king of the jungle?
11. What did the famous Hollywood sign on a hill originally say?
12. Why is the name Fido associated with dogs?
13. What is the difference between an Egyptian sphinx and a Greek sphinx?
14. How did San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge get its name?
15. How did the quarter horse get its name?
16. How did the monkey wrench get its name?
17. How did Wall Street get its name?
18. After whom was Pennsylvania named?
19. How did the world’s tallest waterfall, Angel Falls, which is in Venezuela, get its name?
20. How did Russia’s Red Square get its name?
21. What are the residents of Derbyshire, England, called?
22. What are the residents of Exeter, England, called?
23. What are the residents of Plains, Georgia (home of President Carter), called?
24. What are the residents of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, called?
25. What are the residents of Shropshire, England, called?
Quiz 13 Answers
Names (Part II)
1. The residents of Rochester, New York, are called Rochesterians.
2. The residents of Rochester, Indiana, are called Rochesterites.
3. The software company Adobe gets its name from the Adobe Creek, which ran behind the home of the company’s founder, John Warnock.
4. The name Xerox comes from its connection to dry copies. Unlike a mimeograph, which made wet copies, Xerox used xerography, the name of which comes from the Greek word for “dry” (xeros).
5. The residents of Arkansas City, Arkansas, are Arkansas Citians.
6. The official name of the bed created by the Murphy Door Bed Company was not Murphy bed but In-a-Door.
7. The official name of what we call the Congressional Medal of Honor is Medal of Honor, though it is presented “in the name of the Congress of the United States.”
8. Bulldogs acquired their name not because of their appearance but because of their use in the sport of bull-baiting in medieval England. The dogs were trained to fasten on a bull’s snout and hang on.
9. Hiedler was Adolf Hitler’s original last name, not Schicklgruber. Adolf Hitler’s father, Alois, was born to an unmarried woman named Anna Schicklgruber. When Alois was five years old, his mother married a miller named Johann George Hiedler, who signed papers saying that he was Alois’s father. Until his mid-thirties, Alois went by his mother’s maiden name and then decided to change his name to Hiedler, which he spelled Hitler. Alois’s third wife, Klara Pölzl, bore him three children. The third child was named Adolf Hitler at birth. Hitler’s enemies learned about Anna Schicklgruber and called him Schicklgruber as an insult.
10. Strictly speaking, there is no universally accepted king of the jungle. The lion is often considered the king of the jungle, but the king of the jungle cannot literally be the lion, which does not even live in the jungle but on the plains, where lionesses (not lions) usually hunt and kill. The males usually protect the den. Note further that, unlike lions, healthy, full-grown elephants have no natural enemies but human beings. Because male lions are “crowned,” “rule” the pride, and look majestic, it is understandable why people would call them kings.
11. The famous Hollywood sign originally said “Hollywoodland.” The sign was built in 1928 as an oversize novelty ad for Hollywood Realty. The “land” part fell off and was never replaced.
12. Fido is associated with dogs because dogs are associated with loyalty, and Fido is from the Latin word fidus (“faithful” or “loyal”).
13. An Egyptian sphinx was commonly presented as having a man’s head (usually that of a pharaoh but sometimes that of a ram or a hawk) and a lion’s body in a recumbent position; a Greek sphinx, in contrast, was a mythological creature having the head and chest of a woman, the body of a lion, and wings. Often depicted in a seated
position, a Greek sphinx would be no larger than an average lion.
14. The Golden Gate Bridge was not named after the Gold Rush. In fact, the bridge received its name two years before James W. Marshall discovered gold at John Sutter’s mill in the Sacramento Valley. Instead, the name of the bridge comes from explorer John C. Frémont, who named it after the Golden Horn, the inlet forming the harbor for Istanbul, Turkey, because the entrance to San Francisco reminded him of that harbor. By the way, Frémont became the first Republican nominee for the president of the United States.
15. The quarter horse acquired its name because it ran in quarter-mile races.
16. The monkey wrench was named after its inventor, Charles Moncky.
17. Wall Street got its name not from the tall buildings, which seem to wall it in, but a wall that used to be across Manhattan Island to keep out the Indians.
18. Pennsylvania was not named after Pennsylvania’s founder, William Penn (1644-1718), but after his father, Sir William Penn (1621-1670), who lent Charles II £16,000 and whose son asked that the debt be repaid with land north of Maryland.
19. Angel Falls gets its name not from association with angels but from American aviator Jimmie Angel, who flew over them on November 16, 1933, as he was searching for a valuable ore bed. Angel Falls had been sighted before; Venezuelan explorer Ernesto Sanchez La Cruz is said to have spotted the falls in 1912, though he did not publicize the discovery of them at the time.
20. Moscow’s Red Square did not get its name from Communist associations. Note that the name “Red Square” unlike Russian communism, has existed since the 1600s. Its Russian name includes the word krasnaya, translatable as either “beautiful” or “red” (though it originally meant “beautiful”), describing nearby Saint Basil’s Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible. Reportedly, Ivan blinded the architect responsible for the cathedral to ensure that he would never design anything equally beautiful.
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