Bricker Challenge 2003 - Edition #3

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Same rules, same prize. Deadline is Friday, June 13th, at 11PM EST. And now the quiz is fifty questions, an increase of 43% but at the same low price!

  1. Billy was a hero, contrary to advice, but what happened to the letter documenting this fact?
  2. Who agreed to marry P. Fogg after learning he couldn’t complete his journey on time ?
  3. I’m the Browning character whose painting looks like I’m almost alive, and my image is hung near Neptune taming a sea-horse. Who am I?
  4. If you want to get married quickly, see a J.P. - and if you have a kid, what J.P. is best-known for defining stages of childhood development?
  5. Name the only Salem witch trial judge to admit that they might have been a tad off-base with the killings and such.
  6. I was 6 feet, six inches tall, weighed 245 pounds, and my body ended up at the bottom of a mine – but at least the other miners’ lives were saved. Who am I?
  7. Name the chef known for kickin’ it up a notch.
  8. What priest had a Billboard #1 single in 1990?
  9. My rule is simple: a stable bridged bicyclic compound cannot have a double bond at a bridgehead carbon unless one ring has at least eight carbons.
  10. Harry, Homer, Happy, and Henry’s tails all get smacked repeatedly.
  11. Every Catholic knows the Nicean creed, but what ecumenical council promoted it?
  12. In the pilot, Arnie and Roxanne discover a dead body in the office. Whose?
  13. Who does Hemingway owe credit to for the title of the work that covers four days in the Spanish Civil War?
  14. What’s Faraday’s constant?
  15. Who was prisoner 24601, and why is it unlikely that he ever met The Prisoner, who of course was Number Six?
  16. Ruben is to Kelly as Clay is to [?]
  17. Chandler Bing is a transponster, right?
  18. What Tonight Show feature highlights the inability of random people to answer simple general knowledge questions?
  19. Bloodiest battle of the US Civil War?
  20. I heard a fly buzz when I died.
  21. New York, London, Paris, Munich – everybody talk about.
  22. Five Clay measures to reconcile the North and the South.
  23. King promises to sacrifice the first living thing he sees when he reaches shore – but, oops, it’s his son.
  24. “Who made you Judge Judy and executioner?” My question is, what m-word best describes this error?
  25. Vienna is to Danube as Boston is to [?]
  26. Software piracy is a no-no, but what classic pirate helped Jackson beat the Brits?
  27. Where should you go to watch a performance of the classic farcical play “Nothing On?”
  28. Who was the time-traveling Connecticut Yankee?
  29. Who is best known for opposing Emperor Ming?
  30. Will Darnell and Buddy Repperton were killed, but Sandy Galt survived until much later, well after Leigh and Dennis smashed the car.
  31. What’s the thing wherein we’ll catch the conscience of the king?
  32. Who wrote the play that had the character from which the word that’s the answer to question #24 is derived?
  33. American Asa Trenchard is introduced to his aristocratic relatives, and much hilarity ensues.
  34. I never understood a single word he said, but I helped him drink his wine.
  35. Two Guns, Arizona, is a ghost town, but it was Ghost Dance that led to the famous massacre.
  36. Odysseus destination or Cornell home.
  37. Eastern Bloc : Radio Free Europe :: Cuba : [?]
  38. What was the starship class to which Voyager belonged?
  39. And the barber kept on shaving.
  40. Sir Edward Elgar’s best-known graduation present?
  41. Dian F. studied chimps, and Jane G. studied gorillas, right?
  42. Darwin had his beagle… what did Drake have?
  43. It really would have been best if Curly had convinced Jud to kill himself.
  44. Irving story about motorcycle riding through Austria?
  45. ELO is a great band, but what FLO is associated with the design of Central Park?
  46. Seinfeldism referring to the practice of giving someone a gift that you were given?
  47. What NFL team was the first to lose four Super Bowls?
  48. Daughter dearest that wrote her actress mom’s scathing biography?
  49. I could have danced all night, after fooling the Hungarian.
  50. Although I was born into a poor family, I was adopted by a wealthy one; the only symbol of my former life that I missed was my stuffed bear. I held on to a trillion-dollar bill until foolishly spending it in the Caribbean. I was painted naked by a local artist and was an unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate. Who am I?
2

Could you please repeat the rules for those of us who aren’t familiar with your challenge?

3
  1. His wife threw it away.
  2. Big John
  3. Emeril
  4. Antietam
  5. The old woman who swallowed it?
  6. malapropism
  7. Charles
  8. Lafitte?
  9. Flash Gordon
  10. The play
  11. Shakespeare
  12. Jeremiah the bullfrog
  13. Ithaca
  14. Regifting?
  15. Minnesota Vikings
  16. Christina Crawford
4

Those long-time veterans of the SDMB may remember the Bricker Challenge series of threads that ran about three years ago.

The rules were simple: I would post a list of… things. You, the contest participant, must identify them. If one item were: “Is the quality of mercy strained?” you might answer, “No. It falleth as gentle rains from the heavens,” which would show you recognize the classic speech from Portia in Merchant of Venice.

“What is NaCl?” Your answer might be, “The chemical symbols for sodium chloride, common table salt.”

I did about eight before I got distracted by the trivia game at Pyroto Mountain, where I ultimately became the trivia questions author. Alas, the game and its successor have been shut down, leaving me with plenty of little trivia facts and no one to stump.

So, though it’s been years, I return to the Straight Dope with the Bricker Challenge 2003 in various editions. At Francesca’s request, I am reposting this little intro, albeit a few posts into the thread.

Any answer that shows you get the reference is fine. I’m phrasing questions like that in an effort to cut down on the help that search engines can provide, although there’s no help for it… many will be answerable by search engine. There is no rule against using search engines (or any other reference) although I would appreciate if, just for curiousity’s sake, you note that you got the answer by search engine as opposed to simply knowing it.

If there’s a contest, there must be a prize.

I will award a six-pack of beer, winner’s choice as to brand (as long as it’s reasonable) to the winner. The winner is the person that answers the most questions correctly by post here dated on or before the deadline, or the first person to answer all questions correctly before that time. I reserve the right to substitute another prize of comparable value for any reason. My decisions are final as to the accuracy of all answers. I am also the sole judge of what’s reasonable in the beer department. If you’re under 21 or don’t drink, we’ll think of another good prize.

Good luck, and congrats to Myron with 13 correct answers.

  • Rick
5

Another example question and acceptable/unaccpetable answers:

“Is the quality of mercy strained?”

Unacceptable: “No.” Why? It’s correct, but I have no idea you get the full context of the question. For all I know, you’re guessing.

Acceptable: “No, it falleth as gentle rains from the heavens.” This shows that you realize that the answer is no, and you know it because you recognize it as Portia’s speech from “Merchant of Venice.”

  • Rick
6

Thank you.

Answers not yet given, or that I think are different:

  1. I heard she threw the letter away.
  2. Pop music.
  3. Oscar Wilde.
  4. I am Eliza Doolittle.
  5. Monty Burns.
7
  1. Aouda.
  2. “Send not to ask…”
  3. Radio Marti
  4. Pomp and Circumstance
  5. Fossey and Goodall.
  6. The Golden Hind.
  7. Would have been even better if Oklahoma had had a plot.
  8. But only after I sang of Iberian precipitation.

(I concur with Myron on 19, 24, 25, 31, 34, and 47.)

8

[Search engin off]

1 She throws the letter away
7 Emril Lagassi
10 The Hungry Hungry Hippos
15 Jean Valjean from Les Mis. He lived and died well before number 6 was ever born. (and they are both fictional characters)
16 Sideshow Bob
25 Charles
28 Which one, Bing Crosby, Martin Lawrence? or do you want the name of the character in the Twain book?
29 Flash Gordan
31 The plays the thing–from the CSI deprived Hamlet
34 Jermiah the bullfrog, he always had some mighty fine wine
36 Ithaca NY is the home to Cornell,
40 Pomp and Circumstance
43 Oklahoma (everything worked out fine anyway)
46 re-gifting
47 Denver
49 My Fair Lady

9

I’ll let other people play this one, but I just wanted to say that it’s good to see the Bricker challenge back! Now you just need to start showing up at MAD Dopefests again!

10

To round out the questions left unanswered off the top of my head:

  1. Justin
  2. Emily Dickinson
11

My answers to some ones nobody has attempted (or gotten right):

  1. My Last Duchess
  2. Piaget
  3. Sheridan
  4. Custer’s Last Stand?
  5. Concur with RTF’s answer, but would like to note that Fossey studied gorillas and Goodall studied chimps, not the other way around.

On the others, I’m just going to be lazy and agree with everyone else.

12

Three more quick ones:

  1. Jean Piaget
  2. Attorney Norman Cheney of LA Law
  3. Frederick Law Olmstead
13
  1. I heard she threw it away.
  2. Auda
  3. My last duchess
  4. Jean Piaget
  5. Samuel Sewall
  6. Big John
  7. Emeril Lagasse
  8. Judas Priest
  9. You are Bredt.
  10. They’re the Hungry Hungry Hippos.
  11. the Council of Constantinople
  12. Cheney
  13. John Donne
  14. 9.648670 X 10^4 coulombs per mole
  15. Jean Valjean. It’s unlikely he met Number Six because they lived about 150 years apart.
  16. Justin
  17. Maybe if you’re playing the “who knows the others best?” trivia game on Friends, and really not even then.
  18. Jay Walking
  19. Battle? Gettysburg. Day? Antietam.
  20. Miss Dickinson?
  21. pop, pop, pop music
  22. The Compromise of 1850.
  23. Jephthah
  24. malaprop
  25. Charles
  26. Jean Lafitte
  27. London’s West End
  28. To performance of “Noises Off”.
  29. Hank Morgan
  30. Damn that Christine!
  31. The play.
  32. Shakespeare
  33. Until Lincoln gets shot…
  34. Jeremiah. He was a bullfrog.
  35. You’re referring to Wounded Knee.
  36. Ithaca
  37. Radio Marti
  38. Intrepid class.
  39. What are you, some kind of owl critic?
  40. The song “Pomp And Circumstance”
  41. Other way around. Fossey studied gorillas, Goodall studied chimps.
  42. The Golden Hind
  43. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain…
  44. Hotel New Hampshire
  45. Frederic Law Olmsted
  46. “regifting”
  47. The Minnesota Vikings
  48. Christina Crawford
  49. Hmm. You don’t look like Eliza Doolittle, Bricker…
  50. C. Montgomery Burns
14

Whoops, tripped up on my numbering. Number 27 was my pre-answer, but I forgot to delete it, so let’s amend the list as follows:

  1. To a performance of “Noises Off”
  2. Hank Morgan
  3. Flash Gordon

I also need to amend number 32, because I didn’t read the question closely enough:

  1. Richard Sheridan

Oh, and the only ones I knew off the top of my head were 6, 7, 17, 18, 29, 31, 34, 41, 46, 47, and 50. Some of the others I kinda-knew. I think #10 was the hardest.

15

Francesca: 4
RTFirefly: 7 (I can’t jump back and forth between two posts to add up scores, so I’m not grading your concurrence with Myron)
Zebra: 15
panache: 2
Fretful Portenpine: 3
LilyoftheValley: 2
MaxTorque: 46

16

  1. Billy was a hero, contrary to advice, but what happened to the letter documenting this fact?
    His wife discarded it.

  2. Who agreed to marry P. Fogg after learning he couldn’t complete his journey on time ?
    Aouda.

  3. I’m the Browning character whose painting looks like I’m almost alive, and my image is hung near Neptune taming a sea-horse. Who am I?
    My last duchess.

  4. If you want to get married quickly, see a J.P. - and if you have a kid, what J.P. is best-known for defining stages of childhood development?
    Jean Piaget.

  5. Name the only Salem witch trial judge to admit that they might have been a tad off-base with the killings and such.
    Samuel Sewall.

  6. I was 6 feet, six inches tall, weighed 245 pounds, and my body ended up at the bottom of a mine - but at least the other miners’ lives were saved. Who am I?
    Big John. Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip, too.

  7. Name the chef known for kickin’ it up a notch.
    Emeril. Pork fat rules.

  8. What priest had a Billboard #1 single in 1990?
    Judas Priest.

  9. My rule is simple: a stable bridged bicyclic compound cannot have a double bond at a bridgehead carbon unless one ring has at least eight carbons.
    Bredt.

  10. Harry, Homer, Happy, and Henry’s tails all get smacked repeatedly.
    Hungry Hungry Hippos.

  11. Every Catholic knows the Nicean creed, but what ecumenical council promoted it?
    It was developed at the first and second ecumenical councils in Nicea and Constantinople in 325 and 381.

  12. In the pilot, Arnie and Roxanne discover a dead body in the office. Whose?
    Cheney’s body in LA Law.

  13. Who does Hemingway owe credit to for the title of the work that covers four days in the Spanish Civil War?
    It tolls for thee, John Donne.

  14. What’s Faraday’s constant?
    96485 coulombs/mole. Or, the electric charge carried by one mole of electrons.

  15. Who was prisoner 24601, and why is it unlikely that he ever met The Prisoner, who of course was Number Six?
    Jean Valjean, and he died prior to the Prisoner.

  16. Ruben is to Kelly as Clay is to [?]
    Justin.

  17. Chandler Bing is a transponster, right?
    Chandler Bing’s job has something to do with numbers. And processing. And he carries a briefcase. Wait, I know this, it has something to do with transponding. Oh, oh, oh, he’s a transpons … transponster! (That’s not even a word!) From episode #412 of Friends, “The One With The Embyros.”

  18. What Tonight Show feature highlights the inability of random people to answer simple general knowledge questions?
    Jaywalking.

  19. Bloodiest battle of the US Civil War?
    Antietam.

  20. I heard a fly buzz when I died.
    Emily Dickenson.

  21. New York, London, Paris, Munich - everybody talk about.
    Pop Muzik.

  22. Five Clay measures to reconcile the North and the South.
    Compromise Measures of 1850. First and second abolished slavery in DC and recognized California as a free state. Third was the Fugitive Slave Law, fourth allowed slave states east of California, and fifth gave a monetary settlement to Texas.

  23. King promises to sacrifice the first living thing he sees when he reaches shore - but, oops, it’s his son.
    Idomeneo.

  24. “Who made you Judge Judy and executioner?” My question is, what m-word best describes this error?
    Malapropism.

  25. Vienna is to Danube as Boston is to [?]
    Charles River.

  26. Software piracy is a no-no, but what classic pirate helped Jackson beat the Brits?
    Jean Lafitte.

  27. Where should you go to watch a performance of the classic farcical play “Nothing On?”
    To see “Noises Off”.

  28. Who was the time-traveling Connecticut Yankee?
    Hank Morgan.

  29. Who is best known for opposing Emperor Ming?
    Flash Gordon.

  30. Will Darnell and Buddy Repperton were killed, but Sandy Galt survived until much later, well after Leigh and Dennis smashed the car.
    Stephen King’s “Christine”.

  31. What’s the thing wherein we’ll catch the conscience of the king?
    The play.

  32. Who wrote the play that had the character from which the word that’s the answer to question #24 is derived?
    Richard Sheridan wrote “The Rivals”.

  33. American Asa Trenchard is introduced to his aristocratic relatives, and much hilarity ensues.
    And then Lincoln is shot in Ford’s Theatre watching Our American Cousin.

  34. I never understood a single word he said, but I helped him drink his wine.
    Jeremiah wuz a bullfrog.

  35. Two Guns, Arizona, is a ghost town, but it was Ghost Dance that led to the famous massacre.
    As Dee Brown said, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.

  36. Odysseus destination or Cornell home.
    Ithaca.

  37. Eastern Bloc : Radio Free Europe :: Cuba : [?]
    Radio Marti.

  38. What was the starship class to which Voyager belonged?
    Intrepid.

  39. And the barber kept on shaving.
    I’m an owl; you’re another. Sir Critic, good day! And the barber kept on shaving.

  40. Sir Edward Elgar’s best-known graduation present?
    Pomp and Circumstance.

  41. Dian F. studied chimps, and Jane G. studied gorillas, right?
    Fossey had Gorillas in the Mist. Or was that Sigourney Weaver? You’ve got them backwards.

  42. Darwin had his beagle- what did Drake have?
    The Golden Hind.

  43. It really would have been best if Curly had convinced Jud to kill himself.
    Oklahoma. And it sure smells sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain.

  44. Irving story about motorcycle riding through Austria?
    Setting Free The Bears.

  45. ELO is a great band, but what FLO is associated with the design of Central Park?
    Frederic Law Olmsted.

  46. Seinfeldism referring to the practice of giving someone a gift that you were given?
    Re-gifting.

  47. What NFL team was the first to lose four Super Bowls?
    Minnesota Vikings.

  48. Daughter dearest that wrote her actress mom’s scathing biography?
    Christina Crawford.

  49. I could have danced all night, after fooling the Hungarian.
    Eliza Doolittle. The tricks from Brick are schticky like … uh … Dick.

  50. Although I was born into a poor family, I was adopted by a wealthy one; the only symbol of my former life that I missed was my stuffed bear. I held on to a trillion-dollar bill until foolishly spending it in the Caribbean. I was painted naked by a local artist and was an unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate. Who am I?
    To his friends he’s known as Monty, but to you he’s MISTER Burns!

17

That’s all? Huh. I must be slipping.

Did you want “malapropism” rather than “malaprop” for 24? If so, I hereby amend.

I’m afraid I don’t know 27 any better, so I can’t answer with any greater specificity.

In case I wasn’t clear, in 33 I was referring to “Our American Cousin”, the play your question was referencing and the play Lincoln was watching when he was shot.

And I hope you weren’t reading 20 as if I were unsure, I was just trying to be funny. Emily Dickinson wrote that line.

Beyond that, I don’t know what to correct…

18

A general hint is probably useful here: in one of the earlier Challenges, a question read: Shall I stay svelte on spelt and smelt? The successful answer showed that the author thereof knew what svelte, smelt, and smelt meant. Answering “Yes” or “no” was insufficient.

So if there are two unusual terms, abbreviations, hints, whatever, in a question, and your answer touches upon only one, you’re possibly missing something. Not necessarily. But possibly.

lno: 48
Max Torque: unchanged

19

Argh! I’ll get you, Bricker, and that little six-pack of yours, too …

20

Now this is curious.

28: In Twain’s book, Hank Morgan. In Bing Crosby’s musical, he played Hank Martin. In a 1943 rewrite of the first Broadway production, the character is US Navy hero Martin Barrett. And Martin Lawrence starred in Black Knight in 2001.