fonts

Mensa has an annual team trivia competition called Culture Quest; a slew of questions on a variety of subjects, sometimes very interesting. However, the only question I remember is one that really ticked me off. A bunch of years ago, the question said “Define these three chemical laws: Boyle’s Law, Charles’s Law, Cole’s Law.” Well, we had Boyles and Charles right off the bat (one of us was a chemist), but Coles? You’re probably guessing, and you’re probably right: the correct answer was “shredded cabbage salad.” Funny, sure, but telling us it was a “chemical law” was what annoyed me. So I always try to make sure I don’t do things like that when I’m writing questions.

However, that question has inspired today’s (and no, no cabbage salad answers): define the following named chemical laws: Avogadro’s Law, Boyle’s Law, Charles’s Law, Dalton’s Law, Faraday’s Law, Graham’s Law, Henry’s Law, and the Ideal Gas Law.

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Yesterday’s question: I have to admit, some of us pay a lot more attention to fonts than most of you. But fonts are important: is it easier to read a font with serifs or one without? A proportionally spaced font or a monospaced font? And so on and so forth. But even knowing the names of some fonts is a fairly new skill, which came into wide knowledge with the development of the home computer and home typesetting programs. So, here’s an alphabetical list of some of the fonts I use most frequently (you can see some of them on the covers of Fantastic Books books: a font helps convey the feeling of the book). Can you place them in the order of their invention? Hyper-bonus points if you know the names of their creators: Arial, Brush Script, Calibri, Cambria, Comic Sans, Courier, Futura, Goudy, Helvetica, Palatino, Papyrus, Times New Roman.

The answers:

Goudy — created by Frederic W. Goudy in 1915.
Futura — designed by Paul Renner in 1927.
Times New Roman — commissioned by the Times of London in 1931.
Brush Script — designed by Robert E. Smith in 1942.
Palatino — designed by Hermann Zapf in 1949.
Courier — designed by Howard “Bud” Kettler in 1955 or 1956.
Helvetica — designed by Swiss designer Max Miedinger in 1957.
Arial — designed by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders in 1982.
Papyrus — designed by Chris Costello in 1982.
Comic Sans — designed by Vincent Connare in 1994.
Calibri — designed by Lucas “Luc” de Groot in 2002–2004.
Cambria — designed by Jelle Bosma in 2004.

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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.

I have to admit, some of us pay a lot more attention to fonts than most of you. But fonts are important: is it easier to read a font with serifs or one without? A proportionally spaced font or a monospaced font? And so on and so forth. But even knowing the names of some fonts is a fairly new skill, which came into wide knowledge with the development of the home computer and home typesetting programs. So, here’s an alphabetical list of some of the fonts I use most frequently (you can see some of them on the covers of Fantastic Books books: a font helps convey the feeling of the book). Can you place them in the order of their invention? Hyper-bonus points if you know the names of their creators: Arial, Brush Script, Calibri, Cambria, Comic Sans, Courier, Futura, Goudy, Helvetica, Palatino, Papyrus, Times New Roman.

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Alfred_the_Great_silver_coin — Alfred the Great depicted on a silver coin.

Yesterday’s question was: We all like to be unique (although when I was younger, I thought it would be cool to have a number after my name, like Ian Randal Strock XII). Rulers, however, frequently come with numbers, like Queen Elizabeth II, or her father King George VI. How many British monarchs can you name who had unique names (not simply the first, like Elizabeth I or George I, but actual only-one-person-used-this-name)? (For the purposes of this question, we’re tracking back from the current Queen of the United Kingdom, through the earlier Acts of Union in 1707, and before that the Kings (and Queens) of England, tracking all the way back to the first King of the Anglo-Saxons (starting in about the year 886). Or, the easier version of the question: how many of them had unique names, and when did the most recent rule?

The answers:

425px-Queen_Victoria_by_Bassano — Queen Victoria

Alfred the Great (King of Wessex from 871), ruled from the year 886 to October 26, 899
Aethelstan, 924–October 27, 939
Eadred, May 26, 946–November 23, 955
Eadwig, November 23, 955–October 1, 959
Edgar the Peaceful, October 1, 959–July 8, 975
Aethelred the Unready, March 18, 978–1013, and then again February 3, 1014–April 23, 1016
Sweyn Forkbeard, December 25, 1013–February 3, 1014
Canute the Great, October 18, 1016–November 12, 1035
Harthacnut, March 17, 1040–June 8, 1042
Stephen of Blois, December 22, 1135–October 25, 1154
John Lackland, May 27, 1199–October 19, 1216
Lady Jane Grey, July 10–19, 1553
Anne, March 8, 1702–August 1, 1714
Victoria, June 20, 1837–January 22, 1901

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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.

Ian Randal Strock

Tough Trivia, 6/23/21

Tough Trivia, 6/22/21