Remarkably Miscellaneous Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hiccups/Hiccoughs

Hiccups occur when the diaphragm involuntarily contracts suddenly, causing the vocal cords to close and produce a sound. Americans spell the sound a "hic"; the British spell it "cough." It is pronounced the same.

Hiccups may be caused by overeating, alcohol consumption, drinking carbonated beverages, excitement, smoking tobacco or cannabis. Most hiccups last only a few minutes or hours and resolve themselves. Numerous folk remedies reportedly work. Hiccups that last longer require medical intervention. The medical term "singultus" derives directly from the Latin noun "singultus", meaning speech broken by gasps or sobs. It found its way into English in the 18th century.

Answer: Alan Rickman

Enormously accomplished actor Alan Rickman played Severus Snape in the original "Harry Potter" films. He also played Harry in "Love Actually" (2003), Alexander Dane in "Galaxy Quest" (1999), and voiced Marvin the Paranoid Android in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (2005). Hans Gruber was his character's name in "Die Hard" (1988). Bill Nighy played Billy Mack in "Love Actually", and Ralph Fiennes played Lord Voldemort in four of the "Potter" motion pictures.

Answer: Boston, Massachusetts (1919)

On 15 January 1919, a gigantic (for its time) tank containing 2.3 million U.S. gallons (12,000 metric tons) burst. What came to be known as the Great Molasses Flood or the Boston Molasses Disaster ensued, destroying much of Boston's North End neighbourhood, killing 21 people, and injuring about 150. A wave of dense molasses moved at about 35 miles per hour, knocking down buildings and "drowning" (suffocating) victims in its path. This large quantity of molasses was kept by the Purity Distilling Company to ferment into beverage alcohol.

The USS Maine was a ship of the line of the United States Navy designated either an armoured cruiser or a second-class battleship. She was in Havana Harbour to protect American interests during the Cuban War of Independence. Maine exploded and sank to the harbour's bottom on 15 February 1898. 268 sailors were killed. Political interests argued that Spain was responsible by detonating a mine; other evidence tended to show a malfunction in an internal coal bunker which produced explosive methane.

There were numerous residential fires in and around New Orleans in the late 19th and early 20th century. One of these was the Great Algiers Fire of 1895. Algiers is a neighbourhood just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. Despite the presence of a great deal of water in the river, there were fewer than the necessary pumps and hoses to deliver it to extinguish this burn which destroyed 193 homes and deprived about 1200 people of shelter.

The Kattenburg Powder Magazine Explosion of 1822 occurred on one of Amsterdam's naval islands. On Valentine's Day, a store of explosive powders ignited accidentally. Dozens were killed. Kattenburg was one of the city's eastern islands; it was used for dockyard facilities. The detonating gunpowder destroyed much of the docks. The blast could be felt and heard all around Amsterdam. Fires resulted, which produced much additional damage.

Answer: Outback rock formations

There are two major rock formations in the Northern Territory of central Australia: Uluru/Ayers Rock and Kata Tjuta/Mount Olga. Each has two names because of the 1993 dual-naming policy, which combines the native/traditional name with the historical/English name. Mount Olga's name in the Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal dialect means "many heads." Kata Tjuta comprises 36 rock domes. This area has great value to tourists and is held as sacred by the Aboriginal people.

Answer: Occam's razor

William of Ockham was a 14th-century English philosopher and theologian who argued that philosophical problems should be solved by applying the law of parsimony: using the smallest number of assumptions possible. This is variously called Occam's Razor, Ocham's razor, or novacula Occami.

The original text was "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem", which translates as "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity." William of Ockham (c. 1287-1347) used his razor to cut away unnecessary ideas from his reasoning. See also Elliott Sober, "Ockham's Razors: A User's Manual" (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Answer: lime

The traditional recipe for Mexican street corn on the cob (elote) or off the cob (esquites) in a warm salad or a lado includes lime juice. The corn is made very rich by the addition of mayonnaise, crema, salty cotija cheese, and chili powder. The citric acid in the lime cuts through the richness and balances the saltiness. As a shortcut, a popular Mexican food product called Tajín contains a ground mixture of dried guajillo, pasilla, and chiles de árbol, dehydrated lime juice, and sea salt. This is not nearly as much fun as squeezing your own limes, however.

Answer: fungus

At its simplest, bread dough is made by activating Saccharomyces cerevisiae into water, salt, and flour. S. cerevisiae is a type of fungus: not a bacterium, not a virus, and not a mould. All yeasts are fungi. S. cerevisiae is a single-celled fungus which ferments sugars to produce carbon dioxide, which makes bubbles in the bread and causes the bread to rise.

Yeast is a kind of fungus (mushrooms are another). Mould is also a kind of fungus; it is not used to make bread either. Bacteria are not used to raise bread. There are bacteria in some sourdough starters (which are yeast and therefore fungi) such as Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis. They are present to add flavour and twang to the loaf. Viruses can neither ferment sugars nor produce gas; they are therefore not used to bake bread. Mould is a fungus involved in spoilage and is therefore never used as a leavening.

Answer: neck broken by her scarf in a convertible

Isadora was a modern dancer and choreographer, born in the United States but a Soviet citizen by political choice. On 24 September 1927, she was a passenger in an open car, an Amilcar CGSS, driven by Benoît Falchetto, in Nice, France. Despite the cold, she was wearing no more insulation than a long red-silk shawl.

The tail of the scarf entered the car's rear wheel well, tangled in the ribs of the open-spoked right-rear wheel and rear axle, and snapped her neck. The New York Times obituary called it "a tragic death ... on the French Riviera."

Answer: That it has a label reading "Egyptian cotton."

Premium extra-long staple cotton (Gossypium barbadense), grown in the Nile Delta, is of the highest quality, rare, and very expensive. Less than 1 per cent of the world's cotton production meets this standard. As a result, there is much opportunity for jiggery-pokery in the marketing of cotton. Most "Egyptian" cotton is not grown there but claims to be from Egyptian strains of cotton grown in other soil. Or genuine Egyptian cotton may be blended with less expensive short-staple cotton. Cheaper cotton grown outside of Egypt may be spun or finished in Egypt and then sold as "Egyptian" because it was worked there. Unlike speciality foods which have a Protected Designation of Origin, cotton is mostly geographically described.

The two best ways to choose an Egyptian cotton shirt are to find a label which says "100% long‑staple Egyptian cotton" or another saying "Cotton Egypt Association 'Gold' Seal." A heuristic guiding the purchase of an Egyptian cotton shirt is its price: the genuine stuff is expensive; the discount stuff is probably fake.

Answer: Wayne Manor

The Batman saga began with a comic book (Detective Comics #27, published March 1939); it was drawn by Bob Kane and written by Bill Finger. The next issue, "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate" (Detective Comics #28, 1939), introduced Wayne Manor. The manor is a large ancestral home, built over the Batcave, about 15 miles outside of Gotham City, such that the Bat-signal could be seen from there.

In every medium, the home is depicted as a Gothic Revival mansion. The phrase "in stately Wayne Manor" was used recurrently by narrator/producer William Dozier in the 1960s ABC TV series starring Adam West.