# Trivia Dominoes: Play Off the Last Bit of Trivia **URL:** \ **Category:** Thread Games\ **Created:** [February 4, 2010, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657 "2010-02-04T08:12:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1960
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39189 "2018-06-26T20:41:17Z")
In _Dr. Strangelove, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb_, a gun-toting General “Bat” Guano stops Group Captain Mandrake from reaching a pay phone with some memorable dialogue: > [@](#): > > Guano: I think you’re some kind of deviated **prevert**. And I think General Ripper found out about your preversion and that you were organizing some kind of mutiny of **preverts**. Now MOVE! > > Mandrake: And I can assure you, if you don’t put that gun away and stop this stupid nonsense, the Court of Enquiry on this’ll give you such a pranging, you’ll be lucky if you end up wearing the uniform of a bloody toilet attendant. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39190 "2018-06-27T01:35:52Z")
The mandrake root often grows into a shape similar to a human body, with four limbs and a trunk, which led to John Donne including it the impossible thing in the opening stanza of his Song (“Go and Catch a Falling Star”): “Get with child a mandrake root.” ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39191 "2018-06-27T03:00:39Z")
One of the most frequently quoted lines from John Donne is “No man is an island”. The line is often thought to come from a poem, but while it is poetic, it comes from his _Devotions upon Emergent Occasions_, a 1624 prose work of meditations and prayers. The entire sentence is “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39192 "2018-06-27T03:05:32Z")
In the 2004 Pixar superhero adventure _The Incredibles_, the evil supervillain’s lair is concealed on Nomanisan Island - very likely the only John Donne punne in all of cinematic history. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39193 "2018-06-27T12:45:30Z")
[Nomans Land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomans_Land_(Massachusetts)) (also mapped “No Man’s Land,” “No Mans Land,” or “No Man’s island”) is an uninhabited island 612 acres (2.48 km2) in size, located in the town of Chilmark, Dukes County, Massachusetts. It is situated about 3 miles (4.8 km) off the southwest corner of the island of Martha’s Vineyard. The island was used by the United States Navy as a practice bombing range from 1943 to 1996. In 1998, the Navy transferred the island to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service for use as an unstaffed wildlife refuge. Due to safety risks from unexploded ordnance and its value as a wildlife habitat, the island is closed to all public use. The island was probably named “Nomans Land” after a Martha’s Vineyard Wampanoag sachem, Tequenoman, who had jurisdiction over the island when the English came in the early 17th century: named from “TequeNoman’s Land” (figurative phrase). ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39194 "2018-06-27T13:22:33Z")
Phillip R. Craig was an American mystery writer best known for his Martha’s Vineyard mysteries. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39195 "2018-06-27T13:26:08Z")
Jeffrey Archer, a British writer best known for his novels and short stories, also published three volumes of prison diaries after being convicted and sentenced in early 2001 to a four-year sentence for perjury and perverting the course of justice in an earlier libel trial. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39196 "2018-06-27T13:40:57Z")
Rapper Albert Johnson, better known by his stage name Prodigy, in addition to writing an autobiography, served time for gun possession and wrote a really good cookbook Commissary Kitchen: My Infamous Prison Cookbook. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39197 "2018-06-27T13:45:10Z")
The late chef Anthony Bourdain first came to widespread public notice with the 2000 publication of his memoir _Kitchen Confidential_, describing the extent of the, well, degeneracy he loved in the restaurant kitchens he had run. Damn good read, btw. I will never again order fish on Monday, and I would never order steak well-done anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39198 "2018-06-27T15:07:33Z")
The practice of ‘fasting’ (not eating the meat of warm-blooded animals) has been a part of Catholicism since the first century. But when Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church to marry Anne Boleyn, this practice fell out of favor in England. However, the English fishing industry suffered, so when Edward VI, the son of Henry VIII, assumed the throne, ‘fast days’ were reinstated by law. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39199 "2018-06-27T17:21:19Z")
In _Moby Dick_, Herman Melville expounded at length on the difference between a “fast fish” and a “loose fish”. A whale which was harpooned and tied to the ship (“fast”) was the exclusive property of the ship, while a loose (wounded but unkilled) whale that did not have its ship’s marker (“waif”) attached to it was available to any crew that could make it fast. Ishmael thought that was pretty much the basic rule of life, as he took his time in explaining. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39200 "2018-06-27T17:41:54Z")
Herman Melville went to sea as a sailor several times in his youth, including service on whalers, merchant ships and a stint in the U.S. Navy aboard the frigate USS \*United States \*(which he later wrote about in his 1850 novel _White-Jacket_). ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39201 "2018-06-27T18:06:50Z")
SS United States, which has been rotting at Pier 82 in Philadelphia for over 20 years, won the Blue Riband, for the fastest transatlantic crossing by a passenger liner, in both directions on her maiden voyage between Ambrose Light off New York and Bishop Rock off Cornwall, a record previously held by RMS Queen Mary. She served with United States Lines 1952-1969. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39202 "2018-06-27T18:25:38Z")
SS _United States_ was designed for possible use as a troopship if necessary. HMY _Britannia_, the former Royal Yacht, was designed for possible use as a hospital ship in an emergency. Neither ship ever served in their alternative roles. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39203 "2018-06-27T18:53:55Z")
The US Navy’s first hospital ship was [USS Red Rover](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Red_Rover_(1859)) (Let Maury come over!), a captured steamboat serving the Mississippi Squadron until the end of the American Civil War. Her medical complement included nurses from the Catholic order Sisters of the Holy Cross, the first female nurses to serve on board a Navy ship. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39204 "2018-06-28T13:45:27Z")
According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_ship), The United States Navy currently operates two hospital ships, the _USNS Mercy_ and the _USNS Comfort_. Each ship contains 12 operating rooms, a 1,000-bed hospital facility, digital radiological services, a medical laboratory, a pharmacy, an optometry lab, an intensive care ward, dental services, a CT scanner, a morgue, and two oxygen-producing plants. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39205 "2018-06-28T13:58:47Z")
CVS/pharmacy used to be a subsidiary of Melville Corporation, where its full name was initially Consumer Value Stores. Melville later changed its name to CVS Corporation in after selling off many of its nonpharmacy stores. CEO Tom Ryan has said he now considers “CVS” to stand for “Convenience, Value, and Service.” ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39206 "2018-06-28T19:26:32Z")
Chorionic villus sampling (CVS) is a prenatal test in which a tiny tissue sample is taken from the villi of the chorion, which forms the fetal part of the placenta. It is a diagnostic test for identifying chromosome abnormalities and other inherited disorders in a fetus. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39207 "2018-06-28T19:56:34Z")
Spoofing the Seventies fad of eating the placenta after a woman had given birth, _Saturday Night Live_ early in its run had a fake ad for Placenta Helper. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39208 "2018-06-28T20:01:42Z")
Original SNL writer Rosie Shuster was the daughter of Canadian comedian Frank Shuster, the coursin of Superman co-creator Joe Shuster, and the first wife of SNL creator , Lorne Michaels, who she met when they were both 15. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657.md?page=1959) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657.md?page=1961)