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TRIVIA
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Trivia are unimportant (or "trivial") items, especially of information. In the late twentieth century the expression came to apply more exclusively to information of the kind useful almost exclusively for answering quiz questions.
Etymology
A number of theories have been put forward as to the etymology of the word "trivia".
One variation dates to early Latin, from the prefix tri-, "three", and via, "road". Trivium thus meant "the meeting place of three roads, especially as a place of public resort." In the Roman empire, a trivium would often have a tavern (Latin: taberna). In Roman times, such a place was viewed as common and vulgar, in the sense that we express in the phrase the gutter, as in "His manners were formed in the gutter." The Latin adjective triviālis, derived from trivium, thus meant "appropriate to the street corner, commonplace, vulgar."
The first known usage of the word "trivial" in Modern English is from 1589; it was used with a sense identical to that of triviālis. Shortly after that trivial is recorded in the sense most familiar to us: "of little importance or significance." Gradually, the word trivia came to be applied for any information that is of fleeting importance and of general interest.
Another, slightly different use of trivium may be more directly related to the modern meaning of the word, the earliest known use of which in English is in a work from 1432-1450. This work mentions the "arte trivialle", a reference to the three liberal arts that made up the first three subjects taught in medieval universities, namely grammar, rhetoric, and logic. The remaining four liberal arts of the quadrivium, namely arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, were more challenging. Hence, trivial in this sense would have been "of interest only to an undergraduate".
The word may have been popularized in its current meaning by Columbia University students Ed Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky, who created some of the earliest inter-collegiate quizzes that tested culturally important and unimportant facts, which they dubbed "trivia contests". Goodgold and Carlinsky turned their interest into the board game that swept the U.S.
Quiz shows
Before the trivia subculture became widespread, via radio and TV quiz shows and books, the term commonly referred to bits of information to which most adults in the culture had at one time been exposed, via standard education or via popular culture. In time the term came also to comprise more obscure and arcane bits of knowledge. In 1974, a former Sacramento air traffic controller named Fred L. Worth published The Trivia Encyclopedia, which he followed in 1977 with The Complete Unabridged Super Trivia Encyclopedia, and in 1981 with Super Trivia, vol. II. The popularity of these books laid the groundwork for the first edition of Trivial Pursuit in the early 1980s.
The enormous success of this game led, in the United States, to the re-launch of Jeopardy!, reviving a quiz show genre that had been dormant since the quiz show scandals of the 1950s. The American TV broadcaster ABC had a surprise hit with Who Wants to be a Millionaire, an import of a successful British quiz format which launched another wave of interest in trivia. In the UK, the quiz format has enjoyed continuous success since the 1950s, untouched by the scandals that dogged the American format.
In addition to the mass media trivia, there have also been two entrenched trivia subcultures. One is the pub quiz phenomenon, which is especially prevalent in Great Britain and in select U.S. cities, particularly in pubs that serve a large Irish-American community. (The U.S. pub quiz scene is crimped by the popularity of Buzztime, a satellite-based game.) No way
Quiz bowls
The other subculture is the quizbowl format found in high schools and universities in the U.S.; the Canadian equivalent is competition geared toward Reach for the Top, among high schools, whereas Canadian universities are beginning to participate in U.S. quiz bowl leagues.
The largest current trivia contest is said to be held in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point's college radio station WWSP 89.9 FM. This is a college station with 11,500 watts of power and about a 65 mile (105 km) radius, and the contest serves as a fund raiser for the station. The contest is open to anyone and it is played in April of each year spanning 54 hours over a weekend with eight questions each hour. There are usually 500 teams ranging from 1 to 50 players. The top ten teams are awarded trophies.
The most important and prestigeous competition was the University of Colorado Trivia Bowl which had contestants come from the U.S., Canada, and Europe to participate in a single-elimination tournament based on the GE College Bowl. Many of the best trivia players in America trace participation through this tournament including many Jeopardy! and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire contestants.
See also
External links
Resources
- American Heritage Dictionaries (2000). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.). Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0395825172.
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