The word game of Scrabble was created in the 1930s and 1940s, with the distribution and point values of the letter tiles determined by frequency analysis. Thus, the highest-scoring letters were those which were exceedingly difficult to use. In later years, however, with the growth of Scrabble tournaments, and the expansions of acceptable words beyond “a standard English dictionary,” those difficult-to-use letters became much easier to use, but their values were not adjusted. Today’s question: for how many of the 26 English letters do you know the Scrabble point values?
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Yesterday’s question was: The US Constitution set up the government with three co-equal branches: the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial. The leader of the Executive branch is the President. The leaders of the Legislative branch are the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate. The leader of the Judicial is the Chief Justice. Over the years, we’ve had 45 presidents and 52 speakers, but only a scant 17 chief justices. How many of those chief justices can you name?
The answers:
1. John Jay (served from October 1789 until he resigned in June 1795)
2. John Rutledge (his nomination was not approved by the Senate, so he served only from August to December of 1795)
3. Oliver Ellsworth (March 1796–December 1800 [resigned])
4. John Marshall (February 1801–July 1835 [died in office])
5. Roger B. Taney (March 1836–October 1864 [died])
6. Salmon P. Chase (December 1864–May 1873 [died])
7. Morrison Waite (March 1874–March 1888 [died])
8. Melville Fuller (October 1888–July 1910 [died])
9. Edward Douglass White (December 1910–May 1921 [died])
10. William Howard Taft (July 1921–February 1930 [retired])
11. Charles Evans Hughes (February 1930–June 1941 [retired])
12. Harlan F. Stone (July 1941–April 1946 [died])
13. Fred M. Vinson (June 1946–September 1953 [died])
14. Earl Warren (October 1953–June 1969 [retired])
15. Warren E. Burger (June 1969–September 1986 [retired])
16. William Rehnquist (September 1986–September 2005 [died])
17. John Roberts (September 2005– )
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Ian’s Tough Trivia is a daily feature of this blog (Monday’s category is History; Tuesday is Arts; Wednesday is Science; Thursday is Entertainment; and Friday is Grab Bag). Each day, I post a tough question, as well as the answer to the previous day’s question. Simply comment on this post with your answer. I’ll approve the comments after the next question is posted. Sure, you can probably find the answers by searching the web, but what’s the fun in that?
And if you’ve got a favorite trivia question—or even just a topic for which you’d like to see a question—let me know! Reader participation is warmly encouraged.
Yesterday’s question was a two-fer: An isogram is a word in which none of the letters appears more than once. It appears that the longest possible isogram in the English language has 17 letters. Do you know this word? And do you know a longer isogram? (The longest theoretically possible isogram is, of course, 26 letters long.)
Friday’s question was: The Star Trek series featured a veritable fleet of starships named Enterprise. Let’s pare it back a little, and just focus on the television shows and movies. On screen, how many captains of the starship Enterprise can you name? (People actually assigned as captain, not just “Mr. Scott, take the conn while I beam down to this planet to romance the alien of the week.”) Bonus points if you remember the actors who played them.
NCC-1701 (2245–2285): Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter in the unaired pilot, and Sean Kenney in “The Menagerie”); James Tiberius Kirk (William Shatner) [Star Trek the Original Series (1966–1969)]; Willard Decker (Stephen Collins), Admiral James Kirk (William Shatner) [Star Trek the Motion Picture (1979)]; Spock (Leonard Nimoy) [Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan (1982)]; commandeered and commanded by, and then destroyed by, Admiral James Kirk (William Shatner) [Star Trek III: the Search for Spock (1984)]
NCC-1701-C (2332-2344): Rachel Garrett (Tricia O’Neil) [Star Trek the Next Generation episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (1990)]
Yesterday’s question was: Watching National League Football is one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the United States, so this may be a fairly easy question: how many of the 32 teams can you name? Bonus points if you can put them in the proper conference (I’m not asking about divisions within the conferences).
Yesterday’s question was: The atmosphere, the air around us, this stuff we breathe without thinking about it (well, except when we’re experiencing a heat wave). But, do you recall what it is you’re actually breathing? Which elements make up the “air” of Earth’s atmosphere that we breathe? Bonus points if you can arrange in order of percentage of each in the air (I’m not asking for the actual percentages).
Yesterday’s question was:
Friday’s question was: J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings several decades before Peter Jackson turned it into a blockbuster movie trilogy. When he did, he made several changes, deletions, expansions, and so forth. But one thing he didn’t change were the identities of the title characters in the first volume. Can you name the members of The Fellowship of the Ring, and their races? Bonus points if you know what names “J.R.R.” stood for.
Yesterday’s question: Following up yesterday’s question, I’ve got more laws to ask you about. These are from fiction (or, mostly, famous fictioneers). Can you name:
Ian Randal Strock 