Mega-Whats 2015 The 6th National Open Quizzing Championships

Conducted by

The Karnataka Quiz Association Est. 1983

Set by

Arun Hiregange and Kiran Vijayakumar

The Rules

1. +10/-5 on the pounce; +10 on the bounce

2. No part points available on the pounce

The Design

Three rounds:

I. Clockwise 18

II. Written 5

III. Anti-clockwise 18

Clockwise

1

This building, named after Francesco della Rovere, was designed by Baccio Pontelli and built under the supervision of Giovannino de Dolci. Identify this building whose 15th century appearance is shown here. (Some of the distinct features are still retained.) Its interior dimensions of 40.9 metres (134 ft) long by 13.4 metres (44 ft) wide are believed to be based on which other structure?

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Sistine Chapel.

Temple of Solomon.

2

Giovanni Battista Giraldi (nicknamed Cinthio), a disciple of Boccaccio, wrote Gli Hecatommithi (1565), a collection of 100 tales in the style of Decameron. One of the tales Un Capitano Moro resembles the earlier tale of The Tale of the Three Apples, a story from One Thousand and One Nights. What was the name of the titular character’s wife?

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2

Desdemona.

Othello (The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice) is believed to be based on the short story Un Capitano Moro ("A Moorish Captain").

3

The earliest citation for this term in the current sense comes from October 26, 1897. Princeton's football officials named three students as being the key handlers of a particular responsibility – Thomas, Easton and Guerin from Princeton's classes of 1897, 1898 and 1899, respectively. What were they entrusted with?

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3

Cheerleading.

4

It was created by Dr. James Andy Moorer in late 1982 using about 600 lines of C code. Different versions include Wings, Grand, Cimmaron, Tex, Broadway (the most famous of all), Ziegfeld and Amazing Life. The original version could never be recreated again because he forgot the numerical ‘seed’ that was used. In 2015, another update was done for a version named Eclipse. The creator’s inspiration came from an almost Biblical story about the creation of order from chaos, all combined into a single instance, "That story of triumph over chaos is a fundamental human story, and I wanted to tap into it.“ What?

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THX Deep Note.

5

This word initially referred to ‘woolen yarn obtained by tearing to shreds refuse woolen rags’, which is then combined with new wool to make cloth. Needless to say, this textile was not of the highest quality, so the sense of it as an adjective referring to ‘badly made or done’ naturally followed. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it was used during the American Civil War to refer to those who made vast sums of money, thanks to army contracts, by allegedly producing clothing largely made out of this material. Thus the word also came to refer to someone or something ‘sordid’ or ‘lacking moral principle’. What word?

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Shoddy.

6

On 29 April 2015, the Baltimore Orioles hosted the Chicago White Sox in what was supposed to be the final game of a three-game series. In what way was this match unique, probably the only occurrence in the 145-year history of Major League Baseball? What was the reason for this?

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It was closed to the public and was played in an empty stadium.

The civil unrest in Baltimore following Freddie Gray’s death.

7

One of the methods that art investigators used to detect forged paintings is to test for the presence of cesium-137 and strontium-90 in the materials of the art work. What historical/scientific reason accounts for the high efficiency of this test?

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7

These isotopes do not occur naturally and have been present only since the first atomic explosion took place in New Mexico in July 1945. Tiny quantities of these make their way into the Earth’s soil and plants. It is then via the natural oils, such as linseed from the flax plant, that are used as binding agents in paints that these isotopes end up in post-1945 art.

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Three common diagrammatic notations are used by its practitioners:

1. Ladder diagrams

2. Causal diagrams

3. Mills Mess state transition diagrams

Examples of the first two are given here. What are these notations used for?

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Juggling.

9

Henry III issued an order curbing death and mutilation as punishments for catching the King's deer. A royal writ ordered its publication, and also a revision of a prior order. The revision referred to a particular clause about castles "in fine appositum" meaning "placed at the end". The king’s scribe realised that two distinct items were part of the writ and the writ was amended to say "in fine ______ appositum" to show that the clause is in the prior document and not the present one. What term did he use thus for the first time?

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Magna carta.

10

He was a student at the Petit Séminaire de La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, just outside of Orléans. His subjects there included a class in Catholic liturgy; the teacher for this class was the Bishop of Orléans, Félix-Antoine-Philibert Dupanloup. Dupanloup had devised his own catechism to be lodged in the minds of the young schoolboys, and to lead them towards proper spiritual reflections on the nature of life. The three fundamental questions in this catechism influenced him considerably even though he turned vociferously anticlerical in later life. Who? What was the most famous outcome of this influence?

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Paul Gauguin.

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

11

This system of two or more pulleys with a rope or cable threaded between them. It is used on boats and elsewhere to make lifting heavy weights less demanding. You haul on the single rope to lift the load. If the two parts run so close together so that they touch each other, this means that the limit of hoisting has been reached: seamen used to describe this using a rhyming term. This has since been used to refer to something that has reached or exceeded its capacity. What term?

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Chock-a-block.

12

Thunder Stone was found at Lakhta, 6 km inland from the Gulf of Finland in 1768. It gained its name from a local legend that thunder split a piece off the stone. Weighing around 1500 tonnes at 7×14×9 m, it is the largest stone ever moved by man. It was embedded to half its depth in marshy terrain and was difficult to move. Marinos Carburis, a Greek from the Island of Kefallonia and serving as lieutenant-colonel in the Russian Army, offered to undertake the project. Carburis directed workmen to wait for winter, when the ground was frozen; and the stone reached its destination after 2 years of travel. Where to? Why was it moved?

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For Bronze Horseman, an equestrian statue of Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg.

13

Who about naming which character?

“<First name> means sorrow, something she undoubtedly inflicts on all around her. <Last name> is a play on ‘_____' from the British expression to 'take _____' meaning to take offence. She is offended by any challenge to her limited world view; I felt her surname conveyed the pettiness and rigidity of her character."

Stephen King, in a review for 11 July 2003 Entertainment Weekly, noted that the success of any novel is due to a great villain, with her being the "greatest make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter”.

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J.K. Rowling on Dolores Umbridge.

14

Thomas Shelton (1600–1650) was an English stenographer and the inventor of a much-used British 17th- and 18th-century stenography. His system was published it in 1626 in the book Short-Writing (in later editions since 1635 called Tachygraphy). How did it help in enhancing our understanding of the English Restoration period, much later in the 19th century?

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Every consonant was expressed by an easy symbol which sometimes still resembled the alphabetical letter. The vowels were designated by the height of the following consonant.

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The diaries of Samuel Pepys were written using this.

15

Steven Stern is a computer programmer and professor of Statistics at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. He is the current custodian of something that often causes outrage and anger and has been in use since 1997 (with modifications in 2004 and 2014). He can perhaps consider a civil engineer from Kerala as his closest rival. What is his claim to fame?

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Custodian of the DLS (Duckworth-Lewis-Stern) method.

16

Identify the brand being advertised. What’s the guy’s name (that he shares with a famous literary character) that’s cut from the end of the clip?

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Scrabble.

Santiago.

17 Some scientific studies are popular from the start, garnering multiple citations from other researchers. But some papers are forgotten for a long time before experiencing a sudden spike in citations as they are discovered and recognized as important. In 2004, bibliometrics expert Anthony van Raan gave a name to this phenomenon. Filippo Radicchi, a researcher in complex networks at Indiana University Bloomington analysed over 22 million scientific papers, and came up with the ‘_____ coefficient', B, a value based on the number of citations a paper has received and how long after publication it gained them. The famous 1935 Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paper on quantum-mechanics comes in 14th place, with a B value of 2,258. What is this phenomenon called?

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Sleeping Beauty Effect.

18

The final practice session before the Indy 500 race, currently held on the Friday before race day, is called “_____ Day" (shortened to “_____ Day" since 2000). The name doesn’t have anything to do with the food or alcohol consumed on the day by the fans, but originally came from the fact that it was the final session where teams could tune their _____ in conditions similar to those that may be encountered on race day. The name has remained despite the fact that no qualified car has used one since 1963. Fill up.

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Carburetor Day / Carb Day.

Written

1 In 1916, under the British Board of Invention and Research, Canadian physicist Robert William Boyle (whose doctoral advisor incidentally was Ernest Rutherford) started work on a project and produced a prototype for testing in mid 1917. This work used quartz piezoelectric crystals. To maintain secrecy no mention of quartz was made and the word used to describe the early work (____ics) was changed to ASDics, and the quartz material to ASDivite. In 1939, in response to a question from the Oxford English Dictionary, a story was made up that it stood for ‘Allied ____ ____ Investigation Committee', and this is still widely believed, though no committee bearing this name has been found in archives. What was the project all about? Or, fill in the blanks.

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Submarine Detection (ASDIC was the initial name for Sonar).

2 In the 1980's he was approached by the wine merchants, Oddbins, to produce their wine catalogues. Over 12 years he travelled the vineyards of the world for them including France, Portugal, USA, Australia, and Chile capturing the scenes and characters he encountered. It inspired him to establish his own vineyard in his garden in Kent and he remains convinced to this day that the Loose Valley near his home is the sight of a lost Roman Vineyard, although no proof of this theory exists. Many of the drawings he produced for Oddbins were included in his own wine books, shown on the next slide. Who is this?

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Ralph Steadman.

3 A condition which affected workers such as the one shown here was named after the main component of these matches. What was it called?

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Phossy Jaw.

4

“[They] are collected in leaf cups and put directly into the hot ashes of a fire for a few minutes. They then are removed and ground into paste. Salt, tomatoes, and ground chilis are added and the mixture is baked. It is said to have 'a sharp clean taste' and is often eaten with alcoholic drinks or used with curries.” This is the description of a food item from Chattisgarh. What is the basic ingredient?

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Red ants.

5

Coccinia grandis, the ivy gourd, also known as baby watermelon, little gourd or gentleman's toes is a tropical vine. It is also known as Cephalandra indica or Coccinia indica, thonde kaayi in Kannada and tindora in Gujarati. Its name in Marathi used to keep popping up in typical nostalgia articles about a famous sportsman’s childhood, schooling etc. What is the Marathi name and who is the sportsman?

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Tendlya. Sachin Tendulkar.

Anti-clockwise

1

It is a word which denotes a wasteful or useless activity. The Sydney Opera House, the F-35 fighter and the new Bangkok airport (mockingly called a Suvarna_____ in an article) have been referred to by this word. Adding to its oddness is the fact that it appeared out of nowhere in a New York Times article in 1935, which said that millions had been spent on recreational activities for the jobless including craft classes to produce the objects in the visual. What word?

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Boondoggle.

2 Legendary Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman is said to have come up with this innovation for his team in 1934. From their website: “One version of events has Chapman spotting someone in the Highbury crowd wearing a red sweater over a white shirt. Another school of thought has it that a famous cartoonist had worn a blue pullover over a white shirt whilst playing golf with the Chelsea chairman who was struck by the colour combination and flirted with the possibility of a certain addition to the blue Chelsea shirt. Herbert Chapman on being told of the incident, asked the cartoonist to sketch out the idea, which met with Chapman's approval and was adopted.” What was the idea and how did Chapman think it would help his players?

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Changed the all-red jersey to have white sleeves. So players could easily sight a team-mate from the corner of his eye while running with the ball at his feet.

3

The London department store Fortnum & Mason claims to have invented this dish in 1738. Some sources claim it was invented in Yorkshire and not in the place in its name, while some claim it was indeed invented in the Middle Ages by _____ farmers and shepherds as a means of taking food out to the fields without having to return home for lunch. Many other sources say that the dish was an Indian import into Britain. What dish? And what could have been its Indian inspiration?

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Scotch Eggs.

Nargisi Kofta.

4 This is an interesting map that shows what country you would come across next by going along that latitude. If you start from the part of Chile cut off at the bottom here and head West, what two countries would you come across depending on where you started?

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Chile; Argentina.

5

From a BBC article: “On a dusty industrial estate on the outskirts of Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia, you get a sense of how big the brand is. The conveyor belts of the Aujan Industries factory (part of an organisation recently part-bought by Coca-Cola) churn out more than 20 million bottles of _____ cordial every year. And almost all of it is destined for Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Yemen, Bahrain and the UAE, as well as Saudi. Over the past couple of decades the drink has increasingly become associated with the holy month of Ramadan - a period which now makes up more than 50% of the cordial's entire sales. So much so that supermarkets are forced to restrict sales per person.” Which drink?

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Vimto.

6 What connects these works? It is actually an exhaustive extant set.

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Pictures at an Exhibition.

7 Connect.

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All named for the sounds they create (Dik dik, Chickadee, Phoebe, Gecko, Katydid, Curlew, Bobwhite, Chachalaca).

8

The ESPN 30 For 30 short named Robbed spoke on the one hand about the riots and looting in NYC while the police were on strike. What other controversial robbery did the short refer to that was happening at the Yankee stadium at the same time i.e. 28 September 1976?

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Mohammed Ali controversially beating Ken Norton to retain his title.

9 To celebrate the 150th anniversary of an event, the Republic of Palau minted special commemorative coins in 2007/2008. It contained a cast-in glass pipette with contents relevant to the event. What does the coin commemorate?

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Bernadette’s visions at Lourdes.

10

It is a set of 24 based on a much older set of 254. The first and last are named the same and are inspired by the wheel (next slide) on the cover of the older set. The themes are as relevant now as centuries ago, like the fickleness of wealth, the joy of spring and the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony and lust. What?

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Carmina Burana by Carl Orff.

That’s the Wheel of Fortune – Carmina Burana opens with O Fortuna.

11 This slang word’s origins are obscure. It was first

recorded in the 1600s and then meant pretty much what it

means now. It may have originated from an earlier word

meaning passage or lane. Robert Browning famously used

it erroneously in these lines:

“Then owls and bats

Cowls and ____

Monks and nuns in a cloister's moods

Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry”

The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary apparently

wondered what was going on when they were gathering

quotations four decades after the poem’s 1841…

11

…publication and checked with the poet. Their research produced this rather cryptic note in their entry for the word:

“Erroneously used (after quot. 1660) by Browning Pippa Passes IV. ii. 96 under the impression that it denoted some part of a nun’s attire.”

They further traced this mistake to an earlier poem Browning had come across which had these lines:

“They talk’t of his having a Cardinall’s Hat,

They’d send him as soon an Old Nun’s ____.”

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Twat.

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Who is narrating? And why did she participate in this small documentary?

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12

Dame Kire Te Kanawa.

She played Dame Nellie Melba in one episode of Downton Abbey.

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This film was Israel’s original Foreign Language Film submission to the 80th Academy Awards held in 2008, but was rejected. So Israel had to submit another movie. Which film is this and why was it rejected?

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The Band’s Visit. It had more than 50% dialogue in English.

14

Name the compatriots whose names have been blanked out from these styles in the Full Beard section of the World Beard and Mustache Championships.

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Verdi; Garibaldi.

15 What term coined by Thomas Carlyle, based on something exhibited to the British Parliament, connects to this plaque unveiled in November 2014 that has since been removed due to local opposition?

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15

War of Jenkin’s Ear.

16

What image is missing from this set?

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16

Cement Mixer (along with Gremlin Boogie, Comet, Sewing Machine, Atomic, Broken Compass: the six types of hangovers according to P.G. Wodehouse).

17

Jawaharlal Nehru was imprisoned for his participation in the Quit India movement, along with other Congress leaders, 160 km from Bombay. Nehru had to content himself with writing, tending a prison-yard garden, a pebble collection and a stray female cat. Connect the cat to the structure in the next slide.

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17

Chand Bibi.

18

This is the Madhuka longifloria, a tropical tree which has a variety of uses: the leaves are fed on by the moth that produces tassar silk, the flower can be used as a sugar substitute, dried flowers are used to make local wine and oil extracted from it has been used as biofuel. And apparently, its name in Hindi is the actual origin of something that has popped up as a kitchen quiz question now and then, but which it seems is just a backronym. In short, Madhuka longifloria is the origin of what?

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Mhow in Madhya Pradesh apparently comes from this plant locally called Mahua (and not Military HQ of War).

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