I KNOW too much; I have stuffed too many of the facts of History and Science into my intellectuals. My eyes have grown dim over books; believing in geological periods, cave dwellers, Chinese Dynasties, and the fixed stars has prematurely aged me.

—Trivia (1918) by Logan Pearsall Smith

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Sleepless night last week, right after the 13th Annual “Great Humboldt Trivia Contest,” an annual event to raise funds for the Humboldt Literacy Project. This worthy cause, close to my heart, helps adults learn or improve reading and writing skills.

I tossed and turned as the name “Doug Englebart” clattered around in my mind. Who invented the computer mouse? had been the question. Well of course I knew the answer, I’d written a column on this just a few years ago. My teammates didn’t know, so I confidently wrote “Alan Kay” on our answer sheet. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Yes, Kay was an early computer pioneer—he came up with the “laptop” concept—but Englebart, then (1963) working at the Stanford Research Institute, came up with the idea of the mouse.

My dumbness relegated our crack team from second to third place, enough to beat Team “LoCO” (yay!), enough to win the three of us genuine bronze plastic medals, but still, you know. Doug Englebart. We were team “Steve and Dave’s Ringers”—the three of us occasionally hack away at one of the three pool tables at that venerable establishment, but the name comes down to one word: sponsorship. Thanks, Steve!

Since you asked, the word trivia comes from the Latin “three ways,” that is, where three roads meet, tri three, viae ways. Somehow this meaning morphed into a place where people met and chatted. Not about weighty, important topics—that was left to those stuck-up Stoics and Epicureans down at the forum. No, this was where the hoi polloi hung out and discussed, well, trivial topics: the weather, the price of corn, who would survive the next gladiatorial games.

By Shakespeare’s day, the word was entrenched into English: And yet we haue but triuiall argument,

More then mistrust, that shewes him worthy death—discussing how to get rid of the Duke of Gloucester.

Che on 5 March 1960: “the most famous photograph in the world and a symbol of the 20th century” (Maryland Institute College of Art); “the most reproduced image in the history of photography” (The Victoria and Albert Museum). (Alberto Korda, public domain

The other question we knew the answer to, but screwed up (you’ll probably know this) was: In which country was Che Guevara born? Team S&D’s Ringers waffled between Colombia and Venezuela, I forget which we put down. Hey, I know all about Dr. Guevara, real name Ernesto, explored South America on the back of a single cylinder 1939 Norton 500cc motorbike (The Motorcycle Diaries), Castro’s right-hand man, murdered by Bolivians in the pay of the CIA. And he was born in…Rosario, Argentina. Duh. I think everyone else got it.

Trivia, as a question and answer game, really came into being in 1966 with the NYT bestseller Trivia by Ed Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky. Fifteen years later the Canadian board game Trivial Pursuit was released; over 100 million copies of the game have now been sold, in 26 countries/17 languages. Jeopardy! and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? are two of many copycat versions.

A little trivia to brighten your Sunday…