Word 'Mad'ness! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Madagascar

Madagascar is the world's second-largest island nation (second to Indonesia), located in the Indian Ocean approximately 240 miles off the southeast coast of Africa. It was once a French colony, but gained its independence in 1960. The country is known for its unique wildlife, including lemurs, and its numerous endemic plants. If you find a question at FunTrivia that asks for the only country where some animal is found, the answer is almost always either Madagascar or Australia.

The name Madagascar is of very unclear origin, but a few possibilities are popular. One is that it evolved from the naming the island Malagaskar in reference to the indigenous Malagasy people. Another is that it is from Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia - where Marco Polo thought he was when he visited the island.

Answer: Amadou

Amadou is a spongy substance that is prepared from a fungus (Fomes fomentarius) that is commonly called tinder fungus, for obvious reasons. The fungus grows on the sides of trees whose bark it can penetrate, and looks somewhat like a large horse's hoof. After the fungus is removed from the tree, the hard outer layer can be removed to reveal its spongy interior, which is readily cut into small bits that are easy to ignite in starting a fire. Ötzi the Iceman, whose mummified remains were discovered in 1991, was carrying pieces of the fungus.

Amadou is highly absorbent, leading to its use as a dehydrating agent. When applied to wounds it can help stem bleeding. If you are prepared to put in a bit of effort, it can also be treated to be used as a felt-like fabric, such as the American mycologist Paul Stamets has been known to wear.

Answer: Flummadiddle

While this sounds like a made-up word, it would more properly be described as archaic, much more widely used in the 19th century than the 21st. Variants include flumadiddle, flumdiddle, flummerdiddle and flummydiddle. The origin is not clear, but is suggested to be from the sweet oatmeal dessert called flummery (a word that evolved over time to mean insincere compliments) and the word diddle (a verb meaning to cheat or swindle). Putting them together is not inconsistent with the usage of flummadiddle to describe something totally useless or nonsensical.

The earliest use of the word (in the 1820s) seemed to refer to a decorative fringe on a dress or skirt. This was probably derogatory in intent, signifying that such trimmings were not important, and demonstrated a certain levity in dress. This is supported by its subsequent use as an interjectoion, before it came to be synonymous with such other archaic terms as fiddle-faddle, folderol, and flapdoodle.

Answer: Armadillo

As their name (from Spanish meaning little armored one) suggests, the armadillo has small bony plates, connected into flexible bands, covering its body. They are found in South America and areas northwards to the southern parts of the United States. There are a number of species, ranging in size from the pink fairy armadillo (about 15 cm long, weighing about 120 g) to the giant armadillo (150 cm tip to tail, and 50 kg). This, however, pales into insignificance when compared to their ancestor, extinct for over 12,000 years, whose height (not length, which would have been significantly more, given their overall body shape) was up to 1.5 m, and which weighed around 2 tonnes.

The various armadillo species have wonderfully descriptive names, as can already be seen from the previous examples. Some are named according to the number of bands they have (five-banded armadillo, for one), some according to visible structural features. The latter include several long-nosed armadillos, some naked-tailed armadillos, and a number of hairy armadillos. My personal favourite name is the screaming hairy armadillo, Chaetophractus vellerosus, a resident of the Pampas whose carapace is used to make the lute-like instrument known as a charango.

Answer: Mad cow disease

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), more commonly known as mad cow disease, is a fatal disease that affects the nervous system of cattle. It is caused by a mis-folded protein, called a prion, and leads inevitably to death. In some cases the prion appears spontaneously, but more famously it can also be ingested. This is what caused a massive outbreak in the United Kingdom during the 1990s, when cattle were being fed meat and bone meal (a by product of the cattle slaughtering industry) that had been processed from cattle with BSE and/or sheep with the related TSE (transmissible spongiform encephalopathy) scrapie.

When humans consume beef from infected animals, they develop a disease called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - also popularly called human mad cow disease. Fans of the television show 'Boston Legal' may recall that Denny Crane (played by William Shatner) frequently described his increasingly-debilitating dementia as mad cow disease.

Answer: Madison Avenue

Madison Avenue runs north through Manhattan from East 23rd Street in the Flatiron district up to East 142nd Street in Harlem. The midtown portion became a center for advertising agencies, so much so that the entire industry came to be described by the name from the 1920s on. During the end of the 20th century the industry became less centralised, with agencies moving to other parts of the country, but the name persists. The television show 'Mad Men', set in the 1960s, was about workers in the advertising industry, who called themselves Madison Men, or Mad Men for short.

If you travel along this late addition to Manhattan's street grid (added between Park Avenue, then Fourth Avenue, and Fifth Avenue at the behest of a real estate developer) from its southernmost point, you will start at Madison Square - named like the avenue for the fourth president of the United States. A number of heritage-listed buildings are on Madison Avenue, including St Patrick's Cathedral between 50th and 51st Streets. You will not, however, pass the indoor arena called Madison Square Garden: although the first one was built on Madison Square in 1879, the current version has been located since 1968 above Pennsylvania Station, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, and covering the area from 31st Street to 33rd Street.

Answer: Sierra Madre

The Spanish name, meaning mother mountains, is given to more than one mountain range, as well as a city near Los Angeles.

The Sierra Madre Occidental is the formal name of a system of mountains that runs along the Pacific coast of Mexico. The 1948 film 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' was about a search for gold in the remote regions of this range. The Sierra Madre Oriental runs along the east coast of Mexico. The Sierra Madre del Sur is in southern Mexico. The Sierra Madre de Chiapas runs from that southern state of Mexico southeast through the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

There are other countries with their own Sierra Madre range, including the Philippines (northeast of Luzon) and the USA (in southern California). Until 1965, this name was applied to the mountains now known as the San Gabriel Mountains; in 1965 the designation was changed to apply to a nearby range in Santa Barbara.

The city, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, is east of Pasadena, and near the famous Mount Wilson Observatory. In 1908 the city held the first Mt. Wilson Trail Race, an annual event that was cancelled during World War II, and started again in 1966. Because most of this race is run on a dirt path (subject to environmental changes), the exact course is different every year, but covers the same distance (8.6 miles) up and down the mountain.

Answer: Ramadan

The word Ramadan comes from the Arabic word "ramida" which means scorching heat or dryness. In parts of the world with a strong Persian influence on their language, the month is called Ramazan, Ramzan or Romzan. Muslims believe that all scriptures were revealed during the month of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. Specifically, the Quran was first revealed to Muhammad on the Laylat al-Qadr (Night of Power), one of the last ten days of Ramadan, when the prophet was 40 years old. The exact details of this revelation are a source of disagreement between various factions of Islam. Some believe the entire revelation was made on the first night, and only made public over time; others believe that this night saw the first of a series of revelations spanning over 20 years, only ending with his death.

Because of this revelation, the month of Ramadan is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting, prayer, and community. During this month, Muslims abstain from food and drink from dawn until sunset. The predawn meal of suhur and the evening meal that breaks the fast, iftar, are times of community, and often include foods that are traditional for the particular region, although starting iftar with eating three dates is common practice around the world.

Answer: Nomad

The word nomad entered English in the late 16th century, coming from the French 'nomade', which ultimately had its source in a Greek adjective that described someone who was roaming in search of pasture. So linguistically nomads were herding people, who moved with their herds from one pasturage to another. Groups who moved around rather than settling down included hunter-gatherer societies, who moved with their prey and crops. Peripatetic nomads are people who travel around to ply their trade, such as the itinerant tinkerer, a tinsmith who traveled around the countryside mending household utensils.

The nomadic lifestyle has become increasingly difficult to sustain. The development of agriculture made significant areas of land unavailable for hunter-gatherers, and industrialisation meant that grazing became confined to specific areas. There is a phenomenon in Australia called the grey nomads: retired people who spend most of their time traveling around the country, usually in a motor home, while maintaining a home to which they can return between trips.

Answer: Madtom

The Madtom is a small freshwater catfish of the genus Notorus found in the central and eastern United States. There are 29 recognised species, mostly extremely regionalised, and difficult to tell apart for the layperson. Notorus flavus, a yellow-brown species, is often called a stonecat, because (like many other madtoms) it can be found hiding under rocks during the day, emerging to be active at night. N. gyrinus is called the tadpole madtom, because of its resemblance to a tadpole. One species, Noturus trautmani, was last sighted in 1957 and declared extinct in 2023. It is still listed, in the hope that a new specimen may yet turn up.

Depending on the species, madtoms can grow to a maximum length of about 115 mm (4.5 inches) and weight of about 17 g (0.5 ounce). Their usual lifespan is about two years. Their pectoral (and sometimes dorsal) fins have spines containing a venom that causes a painful sting, similar in intensity to that of a honey bee. They are not aggressive, but the venom provides a useful defense.