"English mathematician; philosopher; co-author od Principia Mathematica"

I fixed the typo and added single quotes around the 'Principia Mathematica'.

Happy WAI Correction Trivia!

I had Nicholas Montserrat today. The question gave two of his book titles and that his initials are NM. As this was in the 'hard set', it was a giveaway. I'm not sure what the rules are, but I don't think having the initials is necessary.

I'm not sure why these 'gimmie' entries show up in hard sets, but they do with some regularity. There are currently about 80 'initials are XX' cases of the 9300+ entries in the game database. I started to add these when some of my favorite people began showing up with low percent correct values. I had the option of replacing them or making them easier to guess. I chose the latter path and gave some breaks to newer players. One possibility for why they show up in hard sets is that Terry lets some of the 15 questions in a hard set have any percent correct value. I don't know whether this is true or not. A reason some 'initials are XX' show up in hard sets is that any entry that I edit is thrown back into the hard set pool with a 0.0 percent correct value. This is not the case for Nicholas Montserrat's entry, since I haven't touched it in a long time.

For the time being just be happy that you and the rest of your set got a gift question, although I've managed to miss two 'initials are XX' over time.

I keep track of the initials I use, but there may be other entries in the database that have the same initials as the 'gimmie' entry. Nicholas Meyer in this case could have shown up in the wrong answer selections. I'm sure that Terry doesn't check initials to eliminate candidates for a question. I've seen three cases of this myself over time.

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No problem. As I said, I wasn't sure if this needed to be brought up. I suppose it's a case of 'the ones you know are the easy ones', so 'author of "The Cruel Sea"' was more than enough for me. For so many questions, I have to use the 'who am I not' route!

Just a simple typo in the answer portion of:

Henry Corden

Your answer: Canadian-borm American film, voice & TV actor; took over role of Fred Flintstone


Should be "Canadian-born" not borm.

The Henry Corden correction has been made. The amended entry will show up after today.

Thanks for catching that.

Happy WAI Trivia!

Noticed this small typo today:

Russian-borm American choreographer; balletmaster
Your answer: George Balanchine

Thanks!

Hmmm... "Borm" seems to be a frequent typo of mine. George Balanchine's entry has been corrected. Thanks for catching the error.

Happy WAI Typo Trivia!

1. Star-duckweed

Your answer: cosmopolitan in temperate regions except north america

This definition would seem to need "plant" or something like it added.

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Obviously, this is in the wrong place.

Just a small typo in Question Set 3 today:

English-born American Oscar-winning film actress; married many times; ' BUtterfield 8' & 'Cleopatra'

Of course, it should be "Butterfield", not "BUtterfield". I copied and pasted, so that space after the ' before Butterfield should also be mistakenly there.

EDIT: To say the entry is for Elizabeth Taylor.

Actually, "BUtterfield 8", with a capital U is the correct title, as it refers to an old-style telephone exchange in which the two capitalised letters indicate the first two digits of the phone number.

Edited to say I'm speaking with my Movie editor's hat on, as well as giving away my age...

"BUtterfield 8" referred to a phone exchange in New York city at the time the movie was set. The phone number would have begun 288 - B = 2, and U = 8. I am sure that is why the first two letters were capitalized. The film is listed with cap BU on both IMDB and Wikipedia.

The film is actually called "BUtterfield 8" not "Butterfield 8" - the entry is correct. The title is capitalised that way to demonstrate that it takes its name from a telephone exchange code (BU8).

Edit: Oops! Hadn't noticed that there were already replies on this page.

I apologize for chiming in so late on this one, but I believe the author's last name is Monsarrat rather than Montserrat. The latter name jumped out of the post at me since I'm a speaker of Catalan, and I then verified the spelling of the writer's name in multiple sources, including the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

If "Montserrat" is just a typo here, and the name is spelled correctly in Who Am I itself, then I apologize again!



Yours aye,
Lochalsh

I apologize for chiming in so late on this one, but I believe the author's last name is Monsarrat rather than Montserrat. The latter name jumped out of the post at me since I'm a speaker of Catalan, and I then verified the spelling of the writer's name in multiple sources, including the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

If "Montserrat" is just a typo here, and the name is spelled correctly in Who Am I itself, I apologize again!



Yours aye,
Lochalsh

No need for apology. The name is spelled correctly in the database. I should have noted the discrepancy in the previous notes.

Happy WAI Trivia!

Reeshy was correct that there was an extra space in Elizabeth Taylor's entry. I've removed it. The title, "BUtterfield 8", is correct, as others have noted.

Sorry that I'm so late in responding to these comments.

Happy WAI Trivia!

Wow, I had no idea about the "BUtterfield" thing, and as I thought it was a typo, I didn't look it up. Ah, well, you learn something new every day, right?

Thank you, JM.

Yours aye,
Lochalsh

Entirely my fault for spelling the name wrongly in my original post. Mea culpa.

For the 'Butterfield8' question, is Elizabeth Taylor the correct name to use? Shouldn't it be Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Taylor Burton Warner Fortenski Taylor Mehaul?


On the phone dialing code with the BU: That's a correct way to refer to the system in use back then but, there was no space between the d and 8 on the end The phone number was 288, BU8 or BUtterfield8. I know wiki has it with a space between but look at the poster for the movie that accompanies the article, no space between the d and 8. My old number was ESsex6. A whole phone number would have been IChabod2-2555 with no spaces. The space break was indicated by a hyphen and came after the third digit. There was no such number as IC 2-2555, it was IC2-2555.

In fact there was a carpet cleaning company in Boston who used to advertise with a jingle of "How many cookies did Andrew eat? ANdrew8-8000" which they accompanied with a print campaign and that is how I remember seeing their number presented.

More on BUtterfield: It was based on a story written by John O'Hara in the 30's around the mysterious death of a man on Long Island and the local exchange was BU8.

The title of the work I have seen in Microsoft Encarta is Butterfield 8. In the library database iBistro it is listed as Butterfield 8 (ISBN 0394711904), at Alibris internet bookstore with 4 different versions for sale it is listed as BUtterfield 8, Butterfield 8 and once as a two line entry Butterfield on top and 8 below. Those last were confusing because while the entry said Butt... you could see the cover said BUtt.. and on an entry that read BUtt... the cover looked to read Butt... but usually the 8 was apart from the name. Any one have a copy of the Library of Congress?

Slight misspelling

American female physical therapist; inventor; forensic scientist
Your answer: Bessie Blount Giffin

Should be "Griffin"

Entry corrected. The change will show up tomorrow. Thanks for noting the typo.

Happy WAI Correction Trivia!

That was a tough one!

US LGBT rights advocate; writer; actress; musician; daughter of Sonny & Cher
Your answer: Chastity Bono

Chas Bono is transgender and is now living as male. He's had an official name change too, so I think the entry should be changed to match this.

Entry updated to Chaz Bono and corrected. Thanks for the notification.

Happy WAI Trivia!

11. British scientst; worked on the discovery of the structure of DNA

Typo corrected. Entry updated. Changes will show up tomorrow.

Happy WAI Trivia!

Yukio Hatoyama
Your answer: Japanese politician; current Prime Minister

This question might go stale within a few years. It is advisable to include the year he became PM.

Your answer: African-American civil rights activist

African-American civil rights activist was: Rosa Parks

Was Rosa really an activist? I've the impression she was chosen as an icon for the civil rights movement without being active in this movement at that time.

Rosa Parks was actively involved in the Civil Rights movement before the famous bus seat incident, and continued to be politically active for many years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks