Trivia And The Net

Published June 2009

Not too long ago I was having a couple of drinks and animated conversation with two friends of mine, Paul and Hazel. Now Paul is recently retired from the British Royal Navy and had loads of interesting stories to share about life on the high seas and the like. You would be correct in assuming that I piled on question after question on things related to ships and the military that I’d always wanted to know about.

It was all going quite well and I was learning a fair bit. That was until I thought of a query that needed answering and felt somewhat sheepish. I explained that I knew my next question would be quite rudimentary but Paul assured me this was fine and encouraged me to ask him anyway.

Why is a Mess called a Mess, I wondered. I fully understood the concept of it being a cafeteria where military personnel had their meals. I also knew that there was an Officers Mess. But to my question Paul had to take a minute and finally responded that he himself was not 100% sure apart from the obvious meaning to the term. As this effectively halted the banter at the table (while everyone took a minute to think of an appropriate explanation) Paul responded with the best possible retort. “Google it,” he said with a smile.

I’ll be honest in admitting that I didn’t immediately reach for the laptop as soon as I got home, but this really got me thinking. There were so many things I’d often wondered about, a plethora of odds and ends that required some level of explanation. Why didn’t I Google more often?

A few years back I used to participate in a weekly quiz night at a local entertainment establishment here in Kota Kinabalu. As an enthusiastic participant (go on, ask me anything you like about 80s music – my forte) I soon became a regular quiz master myself, scouring the internet for trivia and the like, picking a balanced batch of quiz questions that related to current pop culture as well as a multi-choice selection to mix it up a bit.

In order to prepare and word quiz questions appropriately with the correct answers (to reduce the chances of argument amongst teams) I trolled several trivia sites on the net and was able to select quiz picks that I felt were balanced and well rounded. I also learned a thing or two myself. For example, I can now speak with a whisper of authority on my favourite animal - the polar bear. Thanks to facts and information being easily obtainable online I can tell you, without double-checking my facts, that the colour of polar bear skin under all that fur is black, and so is it’s tongue. The polar bear is also the largest carnivore on land but thanks to Nat Geo and similar wildlife shows I’m sure most are already aware of that.

It was during this period of my feverous hunting down of facts and questions that I started picking up some truly bizarre information. I believe the correct term for this is Useless Trivia as it doesn’t necessarily blend in with one’s day to day activities. In short, the world would not come to an abrupt, screeching halt if you weren’t immersed in it.

However, nothing changes the fact that most of us still enjoy being aware of little bits of information that have nothing really to do with anything important. Okay I may be speaking a little too much for myself here, or maybe I’m just focusing on the fun aspects of it. Either way, trivia is always entertaining and I thank the internet on a semi-permanent basis for making information so readily available and painfully easy to access.

Here, have some trivia: To those who imbibe as I do, it may amuse you to learn that the term ‘Happy Hour’ was coined in the 1920s by the U.S. Navy to signify a regularly scheduled period of onboard entertainment. I can’t confirm or deny if actual alcohol was present, but at least now we are all aware that it goes back a fair bit.

Everyone reading this would have definitely heard of William Shakespeare. Did you know that the Bard invented the words “bump” and “assassination”? Nyet, neither did I until about 5 minutes ago.

Brilliant tactical wartime general and Emperor of France Napoleon Bonaparte suffered from acute felinophobia. To put it simply, he was terrified of all cats regardless of species or size, little kittens included. In England the Speaker of The House Of Commons is the only individual in parliamentary sessions who is not allowed to speak. For sports fans, Kodak was the first official sponsor of the modern Olympic Games way back in 1896.

Foodies take note. Honey is the only food which does not spoil or go off. Ice cream, apart from being one of my reasons for living, originated from Mesopotamia and is considered to be the oldest desert in the world.

Let’s take a quick look at this word trivia that I’ve been bashing about in this week’s column as if it’s going out of style. Trivia comes from the Latin "tri-" + "via", meaning three streets. Back in the day at an intersection of three streets in Rome, they would have some sort of counter where ancillary information was listed. Again the crux of this term is very simply that one could obtain information that was either important to them, or it wasn’t. Hence, trivia.

And before I forget, I did manage to find out why a Mess was addressed as such. Apparently in the 15th century, a group of people who ate together was also known as a "mess," and it is a widely accepted term in today’s military jargon.