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?
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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.)
What is the shortest word in the English language that uses all five vowels?
The answers:
Subdermatoglyphic — an underlying skin matrix that determines the pattern of arches, whorls, and ridges that make up our fingerprints.
Eunoia — a feeling of good will, especially one that exists between a speaker and an audience.
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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.
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)]
Ian Randal Strock 