General Knowledge Quiz #74

That's a shame, you really should!

Can you accept Alterego Currency for the AC question?

It is getting very bitter in here..

I saw somewhere that they saw the AC/DC on the family sewing machine’s electrical switch or something.

Re: the pizza question, flatbread with various toppings on it has been consumed in Greece longer than anyone knows, but definitely since long before Greek colonists brought it to Neapolis (Naples). This is why pizza sounds so much like pita.

However, the version of this food that became popular and famous around the world was first made in Little Italy in New York City. New York should be an acceptable type-in if not the answer that populates in the quiz.

Also, maybe accept simply "musketeers?" The question is "who are Athos, Porthos, and Aramis?" They were all musketeers, so seems like a reasonable answer.

Pizza popularity in Europe has little to do with NYC

as the variety of pizza popular in Europe, and the world, is New York style pizza, it has everything to do with it.

The 1st pizza chain opened in the UK was Pizza Express in 1965. Allegedly inspired by a trip to Naples by the owner, it has since fallen on hard financial times and never did the business of some later, larger chains. Pizzaland was one of those more successful chains, opening in 1970, and though a British chain, most of what they served would most accurately be described as NY style pizza. Pizza Hut would open its first location in the UK in 1973. Domino's in 1985. By 1996, Pizzaland was bought out and its locations converted to Pizza Huts. Currently the top 3 pizza chains in the UK are all American: Domino's, Papa John's, and Pizza Hut are 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Virtually all other pizzerias in the country mimic their style and serve NY-style pizza, as, in fact, do virtually all pizzerias in Europe and around the world. But... go on believing what you like.

It's nothing at all like that, honestly not even remotely close to that, suggesting you didn't follow at all what I was saying, and 2/4 of your follow-up statements are also false.

This would be a closer analogy if the first hypothetical were true: imagine that Americans used the word "torch" to refer to a flashlight the way that Brits do. Where was the flightlight invented? New York City, also, as fate would have it. So if that were true we could say that the handheld torch was invented in NYC in the 1890s by a British inventor. Would that mean that New York was the first place in the world where the lit a stick on fire and used it for illumination (aka a "torch?)? No. But around the world when people asked "hey, the power just went out. Hand me a torch" - everyone would know that what they wanted and it would not be a flaming stick.

In similar fashion, around the world today, if someone mentions "pizza," they are talking about the food that was first produced in NYC. Not the Neapolitan "pizza" that preceded it and that bears a similar name. Nor the Greek food that preceded it and bears a similar name.

If you insist on following chain of custody back as far as it goes no matter how much the food changes, to every gastro-linguistic predecessor, then you should be crediting the Greeks or some unknown culture in prehistory for inventing pita - flatbread with toppings put on it. There's no logical reason to stop at Neapolis. And if you are going to counter that "the food that was made first in Naples was different enough from the Greek pita that came before it to be considered something different," okay, arguably. But that's not the food that everyone thinks of when they today think of "pizza."

It has not a single freaking thing to do with who likes what, or personal preference of mine or anyone else's. It's simply:

A) there is a foodstuff popular around the world called "pizza."

B) oh really? Where was that food first made?

C) Little Italy in New York City.

The stuff they made in Naples isn't that food any more than a flaming stick is a flashlight.

The hamburger was invented in America (conflicting stories about where exactly), but has the same or similar name as a food purported to have been popular in Hamburg, Germany before that.

French fries were invented probably somewhere in Belgium or France. Though there were "french fried" other things before them - such as bits of onion or chicken - today everyone knows what you mean when you ask for french fries. Or as the British call them, "chips," though there were also other foods called "chips" before, originally thinly-sliced fruit in 1700s, but by the late 1800s if you asked for "chips" in London you would not be asking for fruit, you would get a fried potatoes. This doesn't mean that Londoners, or Belgians, or the French, invented fruit, or fried onions. But they did pioneer a way of preparing fried potatoes that came to have the same name as other food invented elsewhere.

I could go on.

In the same way, Italian immigrants in New York City pioneered a way of making flatbread with toppings on it that they called pizza, for its similarities to food prepared in their country of origin.

That food became popular around the world. In the same way that french fries (fried potatoes, not fried onions), or chips (fried potatoes, not strips of dried fruit) became popular around the world.

and now, when someone orders or wants to make pizza, what they are making is a recreation of the food first produced in NYC. They're not thinking of or making Neapolitan-style "pizza." In the same way that if someone orders or makes french fries, they are frying strips of potatoes like the Belgians (probably) first did. Not some other substance as was done in other places earlier. In the same way when someone in Chicago, or London, or Bejing order a "hamburger," they are not asking for a Hamburg steak, and would be disappointed and surprised if that's what they got. It's not the same food.

Another example, from DG himself: I remember you remarking on another quiz that Chicago deep-dish pizza was not really pizza, but more of a quiche. Even though Chicagoans would disagree with you strongly. And they use the same word and call their food "pizza." It's still substantially different from what most people understand that word to mean. And you understood (then) that those differences make it something else other than what people mean when they use the word pizza.

And you know what? I agree with you. Chicago deep-dish is definitely not what most people are thinking of when they say pizza. If it had been invented in the 1200s... we would not say that pizza was invented in Chicago. It's too different. Just like it's silly to say that pizza was invented in Naples. As what they were making in Naples is also not what most people are thinking of when they say pizza. It's substantially different. Not pizza. Not quiche. More of a grease soup in a bread bowl.

least self centric american

Is that supposed to be a sentence?

Condors are the largest bird *by wingspan* in North America - by weight, turkeys and trumpeter swans are bigger.

Are there no albatrosses in North America? I thought they had the largest wingspan. Of any living bird, not fossils.

There are some albatrosses that live in the north Pacific (Hawaii) but their wingspan is about 2 m whilst the condor has a wingspan of about 3 m. The biggest albatrosses live in the southern hemisphere.

Only missed the poet and bicentennial.

Wow, I tried [The] Who instead of Doctor Who...

Seconded - sloes were my first thought.

incorrect use of the word comprise

When Oswald Cobblepot became mayor 💀

Fun fact Penguin's middle name is Chesterfield

I was surprised Norma Jean didn't work for the actress question. Elton's song always comes to mind before the actress's name.