# Episode 085 - Music, Museums & Mathematicians

An episode of [Are You Quizzing Me?](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663104901), 30 Sep 2024, 49 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/d7afa960/podcast/play/92398474/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2024-8-30%2F6460311c-0085-bb95-eb5b-05a690f10780.mp3

Do you know which mathematician invented nyctography so that they could write in the dark without the benefit of a light? Do you know why around 1500 Jewish families cannot ride the London Underground? Do you know which two luminaries won the Grammy for the spoken word album of the famous musical 'Peter and the Wolf'? Tune in to find out!! You can reach us at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/areyouquizzingme/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/areyouquizzingme Email: areyouquizzingme@gmail.com Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/areyouquizzingme Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@areyouquizzingme/podcasts

## Transcript

[0:00] Welcome to RU Quizzing Me. I am Vineet Nair with my Co host
[0:04] Aditya Kashyap. This is a quizzing trivia
[0:07] podcast show. Join us as we dive deep into
[0:10] history, science, pop culture and so much more.
[0:14] Let's get quizzing and we're back for episode number 85 of RU
[0:22] Quizzing Me, Your favorite quizzing and trivia podcast
[0:25] show. Aditya and I are back for
[0:28] another round of quizzing and let's start off today's episode
[0:31] with the audience question. For those who came in late, the
[0:36] audience question is that question which I asked at the
[0:39] start of every episode and which I reveal the answer to at the
[0:42] end of the episode. The audience question for today
[0:46] is during the mid 1990s when Tata Motors were flourishing in
[0:51] the automobile sector, an individual named Sumanth
[0:55] Mulgaonkar was one of the brains behind the company's success.
[0:59] Often known as the architect of Tata Motors, being the chief
[1:03] executive of Tata Engineering and Locomotive company called
[1:06] Telco, Sumanth was always inclined towards the progress
[1:10] for the better approach for the company.
[1:12] They saw him frequently skipping his lunches with the top brass
[1:15] of the company and instead visiting highway dhabas to have
[1:19] lunch with truck drivers who drove Tata truck.
[1:22] This he did to get real real time feedback about their
[1:25] vehicles. Even later passed on this
[1:27] information collectively to their R&D team.
[1:30] This helped the company to improvise on their project a
[1:33] product in an overall sense. When his Co workers got to know
[1:36] about this, the team decided to pay homage to Sumanth.
[1:41] What was this tribute to Sumanth Mulgaonkar?
[1:45] I will reveal the answer to this question at the end of today's
[1:48] episode. So let's get to our regular
[1:51] round of quizzing. And I will start off today's
[1:55] episode with a question that I cannot call my own.
[2:00] This question is from dear quiz master friend of mine, Doctor
[2:05] Chandrasekhar, who specializes in making kind of questions I
[2:10] love. So he uses question in a recent
[2:14] quizzing group and I'm borrowing it for this podcast.
[2:19] So the question is as follows. Aditya.
[2:22] Before she distinguished herself as a successful author, she
[2:26] graduated from the Alabama School of Fine Arts in
[2:30] Birmingham, USA as a theatre arts major.
[2:34] The title of her book features the name of a bird whose prefix
[2:40] means something, making fun of someone or something in a cruel
[2:44] way. The book sold 450,000 copies in
[2:48] the first week of release, exceeding the publishers
[2:52] expectations, and also received much critical acclaim.
[2:56] I want you to identify the author and the book.
[3:01] Harper Lee to To Kill a Mockingbird.
[3:04] See, why do I even bother asking you questions?
[3:07] Is what I would have said if this was a question that was
[3:10] crafted by me. But Doctor Chandrasekhar is much
[3:13] wilier than I am, and so let me tell you, the answer is not
[3:16] happily and To Kill a Mockingbird.
[3:19] Oh, wow, yes, OK, OK, that's very interesting.
[3:26] Then it has to be something like a Mockingjay Hunger Games.
[3:30] Yes, yes, I'm not going to drag this on.
[3:33] Yes, it is. Suzanne Collins is mocking Jay.
[3:37] The trick here is both of them are natives of Alabama, but
[3:42] Harper Lee was a student of law and she never actually
[3:46] graduated, while Suzanne Collins was a theatre major who actually
[3:51] did graduate. Interesting, interesting.
[3:55] So it is Suzanne Collins and mocking Jay.
[3:58] You got that on the second time around.
[3:59] But kudos, get props to Doctor Chandrasekhar.
[4:02] He specializes in these kind of what we like to call Upsource
[4:05] questions. So you know we say Upsource, it
[4:08] is not the. Answer so very cool.
[4:12] That is unexpectedly cool. Yeah, I like it.
[4:16] OK. So take the baton, Aditya.
[4:18] So we did a version of this question a few times in the
[4:23] past, and I'm going to do one more today.
[4:25] This is the guess which year all of this happened in.
[4:31] OK. OK, so the biggest and perhaps
[4:36] the most memorable or iconic event is the Hindenburg
[4:41] explosion. Margaret Mitchell won the
[4:44] Pulitzer Prize for her novel Gone with the Wind.
[4:48] The first commercial flight across the Pacific operated by
[4:52] Pan Am also flew in this year. So 2 air related iconic
[4:58] incidents, one very unfortunate Hindenburg explosion and the
[5:02] other rather great thing. The first flight commercial
[5:06] flight across the Pacific. Another pretty momentous
[5:09] occasion in history. Adolf Hitler informed his
[5:12] military leaders in a secret meeting of his intentions of
[5:16] going to war. Any clue as to when all of these
[5:19] events happened? Vineet.
[5:21] OK. So couple of things you said,
[5:26] Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind was released.
[5:30] No, it won the Pulitzer Prize. It won the Pulitzer Prize.
[5:34] OK, OK. Yeah.
[5:36] But since you ask and and or, I guess I just want to plug this
[5:39] in. A pretty iconic book was
[5:42] released, was first published. It was The Hobbit.
[5:46] It was the year The Hobbit was published.
[5:47] OK, OK. I've, I think I've narrowed it
[5:50] down to the 30s. So this will be the 1930s
[5:56] because as you said, the Hindenburg and the Nazi party.
[5:59] Because even before you mentioned, I was fairly thinking
[6:02] of the 1930s because the victims of the Hindenburg were famously
[6:06] draped in swastika laden coffins where on the New York port while
[6:12] they were being waited while they were waiting for a ship to
[6:14] take. So there's an iconic photograph
[6:16] I from I think from the Time magazine of the Nazi flag in New
[6:19] York. So I'm fairly sure it's the
[6:21] 1930s. I can't narrow this down to to
[6:25] the one or two years, which I usually do.
[6:26] I'll have to have a five year gap in this one.
[6:29] So I'm thinking somewhere between 1932 and 1938.
[6:40] You said his Hitler announced his intention of going to war.
[6:47] I'll try the faggot first. So my first guess would be 1938.
[6:53] No, not 1938. Then I'd go for the former so
[6:57] it'll be in the 1934. No, it's not 1934, but it is in
[7:01] between these years. So you're pretty, pretty close.
[7:06] I'll tell you. I'll tell you a few people who
[7:08] were born in this year. Let.
[7:10] Me just guess before you give me any clues because this is my
[7:13] final guess guess, but I can try to guesstimate.
[7:18] I had turned this out because I wasn't sure if it's the same
[7:21] year as the Berlin Olympics, so I did not do it.
[7:23] So is it 36? No, it's not 36.
[7:26] It isn't 36. So I have just two years left
[7:32] and. What?
[7:33] That is true? Yeah, go for it.
[7:37] Give me one last guess. Ah dude, it's either 35 or 37.
[7:42] Since you said Hitler's decision to go to war, I'm going to say
[7:46] 37. It is 1937.
[7:48] You got there. You got there eventually.
[7:51] I'm very close to the 1st 138 now.
[7:53] I was one year off in the. 1st, If you had just gone, if you had
[7:56] just gone down that route, you would have ended up on the
[7:59] second guess over there. Listen to this.
[8:01] A bunch of interesting people are born in the same year.
[8:05] Somehow this always blows my mind.
[8:07] I'll give you a few actors, all of them born in the same year.
[8:09] Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Dustin Hoffman, Jane Fonda,
[8:14] Anthony Hopkins, Bill Cosby. So some iconic names there, some
[8:21] infamous names there as well. Other people born in 1937,
[8:26] Madeleine Albright. Oh, Saddam Hussein.
[8:32] These are people in broad and see me.
[8:33] And the last person I wanted to mention was Billy Dee Williams.
[8:38] I like this guy. Lando Calrissian.
[8:40] So all of these exactly so all of these people were born in the
[8:43] same year. And that to me is just somehow
[8:46] very, very mind blowing. Every time I hear I learn of
[8:49] this. So a lot of iconic events
[8:51] happened once more. The Hobbit was published like I
[8:54] mentioned. Actually, I was going to give
[8:55] you one more clear which is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
[8:58] premiered in the same year. OK, that would have helped me a
[9:01] little bit more because I would have gone with 37 or 38 where if
[9:05] I knew about the Snow White thing.
[9:07] True, true, true. Adolf Hitler informed his
[9:09] military leaders in November 5th of that year, May 6th.
[9:13] Earlier that year Hindenburg explosion happened.
[9:16] I also mentioned first commercial flight across the
[9:19] Pacific. That was April 28th and Margaret
[9:22] Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize on May 3rd.
[9:24] So all of this happened in 1937. Well done beneath.
[9:28] I give you props. You narrowed it down pretty
[9:30] successfully. Every time I ask this question I
[9:33] always try to imagine how I would do and I come up very
[9:36] short. I would be off by easily a
[9:38] decade. Be like 20s, forties, 30s.
[9:43] I'm still. I'm still actually kind of
[9:46] pinching myself for not going from 38 to 37.
[9:50] I should have just gone with my first instinct, but that's the
[9:53] fun of these kind of questions. I think this is the reason
[9:56] reason I enjoy this question is because I usually do not like
[9:58] the guess which year this happened or that kind of stuff.
[10:01] That's not really fun. But when you put them in context
[10:03] of multiple things happening in the same year, then you're like,
[10:06] oh, that's that's rather interesting.
[10:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, Well, that brings an end to
[10:11] my question. But Vineet, it's your turn now.
[10:14] So this question has, let's say 2 parents in the sense that I
[10:21] had actually asked a version of this question in a quiz as part
[10:25] of a special round. And lo and behold, the the same
[10:30] question but in a slightly different form was sent to us by
[10:33] Arjun Srikumar. So I'm going to honor his
[10:38] suggestion and ask you his version of the question, after
[10:41] which after you answer it, I'll tell you what my version was.
[10:44] So the question is as follows. Peter and the Wolf is a musical
[10:50] composition written by composer Sergei Prokofiev in 1936.
[10:56] The narrator tells the children's story, which the
[10:59] orchestra illustrates by using different instruments to play a
[11:03] theme that represents each character in the story.
[11:06] For example, the bird by a flute, the duck by an oboe, the
[11:11] cat by a clarinet, the wolf by three horns, Peter by the string
[11:16] quartet, and so on. This was made into a Disney
[11:20] animated short film in 1946. It is not known if Prokofiev was
[11:27] aware of this, as by then he was already behind the Iron Curtain.
[11:32] Several other adaptations have been made of Peter and the Wolf,
[11:35] including stage shows, jazz versions, a Sesame Street
[11:38] adaptation, and even a parody version produced by Weird Al
[11:42] Yankovic. In February of 2004, the Grammy
[11:48] Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children based on Peter and
[11:53] the Wolf was awarded to actress Sophia Loren along with X&Y.
[12:00] Can you identify X&Y? So you give me a lot of history.
[12:06] I have to ask, are these like people who are long dead and
[12:10] they were posthumously awarded? OK, one of them is alive, the
[12:15] other is has passed on. This sounds suspiciously like
[12:18] your question where Putin was the answer for the song.
[12:25] Yes. Yes, I'm assuming it's not a
[12:27] famous singer or or some sort of no, this is not a this is spoken
[12:31] word anthem. Right.
[12:32] So it's not a singer anywhere. Sorry, yeah.
[12:34] So not an actor or singer, whatever, not a musician or
[12:37] anybody known for that kind of word.
[12:40] No, I can, I can tell you that X has appeared on multiple TV
[12:45] shows, TV shows, MATLAB, I think, I think the more
[12:49] apartment term would be interview shows, something like
[12:53] the late night and that kind of thing, right?
[12:55] And why has famously appeared in a commercial.
[12:59] A very, very famous commercial. That could easily be a
[13:02] sportsperson or a politician or, I don't know, somebody from the
[13:07] field of science. OK, I'll give you another
[13:09] additional clue. X famously appeared on a talk
[13:18] show while playing the saxophone and wearing a pair of dark
[13:24] sunglasses. This is Bill Clinton.
[13:27] Wow, very nice. OK, so X is Bill Clinton.
[13:30] Who is Why? Because I think he recreated
[13:32] that image or that resurface recently a a very vague memory
[13:36] of this happening. Bill Clinton with the saxophone.
[13:39] OK, that would be Bill Clinton, Sophia Loren, Bill Clinton.
[13:45] And because we've done entertainment, we've done so.
[13:49] Bill Clinton did the English. Narration with Loren and why,
[13:54] said the Russian spoken word sections, which were then
[13:57] translated into English. Oh see, I was going to guess an
[14:00] American sportsperson, but now he's a Russian.
[14:03] So then. Very famous Pizza Hut
[14:07] commercial. That's my clove to you.
[14:09] Oh, no idea what that is, but Russian in 2004, right?
[14:15] You mentioned Gorbachev is the only name that comes to mind.
[14:18] Is it Mikhail Gorbachev? It is Mikhail Gorbachev.
[14:21] So you have very successful guests.
[14:23] It's very cool. Yeah, so the spoken word Grammy
[14:26] went to Sophia Loren, Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev.
[14:30] So my version of this question was for a special Grammy round.
[14:34] OK. Arjun Sreekumar sent me this
[14:37] beautiful question. OK, thank you, Arjun.
[14:41] And keep sending me questions and tougher ones.
[14:43] Tougher one. This bugger answers everything.
[14:46] Tougher question. OK.
[14:50] All right, that brings me to my question.
[14:53] And since you spoke about an American president, I'm going to
[14:57] talk about yet another American president and how that American
[15:02] president inspired the name of someone very iconic.
[15:06] So the president in question is Ronald Reagan.
[15:10] Jose Denis Avero was a big fan of Ronald Reagan, and I think
[15:16] more so for his movie career than his presidential term, but
[15:21] perhaps both. And he decided to name his son
[15:26] in honor of Ronald Reagan. Do you know who is Jose Deniz
[15:32] Aveiro's son? A very famous man himself, who
[15:36] was named in honor of Ronald Reagan.
[15:38] I have one word for you, Ronaldo.
[15:43] Oh boy, that was that was very quick.
[15:45] That was extremely quick. Have you read of this before?
[15:49] No, I mean like Ronald. Reagan, then Jose, that
[15:52] automatically becomes Ronaldo. He's not going to name his kid
[15:56] Ronald. Ronald, Right?
[15:57] So that. Yeah.
[15:59] That is, that is a very, very educated guess.
[16:01] Yes, I love that because that is the right answer.
[16:05] Him. He himself was an interesting
[16:06] man. Unfortunately died before he saw
[16:08] his son rise to the stature and fame that he eventually did.
[16:13] Died in 2005, was forced into military service, fought an
[16:17] unpopular war to prevent the colony of Angola winning its
[16:20] independence from Portugal. It was a war that was lost and
[16:24] one in which he and his fellow soldiers saw atrocities that
[16:27] left a stain on him mentally. And the living conditions are
[16:31] appalling. All of that stuff which is
[16:33] terrible about war, he had to face.
[16:36] After all of that, after 13 months in Africa, he came back
[16:40] to Portugal and it was in a terrible state that the economy
[16:45] was really bad. At that point in the country, he
[16:48] decided to take up a job as the equipment manager for the local
[16:52] club, Andorina and as the equipment manager for the local
[16:57] club. He eventually had a son and
[17:00] decided to name him after his favorite actor slash American
[17:04] president. Not a lot of people fit that
[17:07] bill. Ronald Reagan and Cristiano
[17:09] Ronaldo was hence named. And I was.
[17:13] I was. Yeah.
[17:13] I was pleasantly surprised by this lovely Visa trivia.
[17:16] With that kind of a name, he cannot be anything apart from a
[17:20] Republican. He's named after both Jesus
[17:22] Christ and Ronald Reagan, the two biggest people in the
[17:26] Republican Party. That is true.
[17:29] That is true. That is true.
[17:31] Yeah. So that that is a little brief
[17:34] history of Ron Christian Ronaldo's father and how he came
[17:39] to name his son Christian Ronaldo.
[17:41] Passing it back to you, Vineet. OK, so in some Orthodox Jewish
[17:47] beliefs, people of a certain priestly lineage are forbidden
[17:52] from being under the same roof as an X as it could contaminate
[17:58] them. Due to an unusual interpretation
[18:02] of this rule, around 1500 priestly families are unable to
[18:07] use the London Metro system. This is because South Kensington
[18:13] station is connected to AY, which contains a type of X on
[18:19] display, and since the metro system is entirely underground,
[18:23] entering any metro station would be considered being in the
[18:26] presence of an X. Despite requests from these
[18:30] families, local governments refused to sever the connection
[18:33] between the station and Y, as they believe easy access to
[18:37] scientific knowledge is of greater importance.
[18:41] I want you to identify X&Y, so I'll just brief the question
[18:46] make it sound a little confusing.
[18:48] So certain people of a priestly lineage in the Jewish faith are
[18:51] forbidden from being under the same roof as an X?
[18:55] OK, now because of an unusual interpretation of this rule,
[19:00] they are not able to use the London Metro system because the
[19:02] South Kensington station is connected to Y, to a type of
[19:05] thing called Y, and in Y there is an X on display.
[19:11] So what is X? What is Yi?
[19:14] Want to say a pig because you said Jewish contamination.
[19:19] So some sort of a statue of a pig, but that sounds weird.
[19:24] I don't think of, I don't know of any iconic pig statues.
[19:28] So am I close or am I? Am I?
[19:30] No, no. You're on the right track, but
[19:32] it's not a pig as in I already mentioned it's something that
[19:35] they believe could contaminate them.
[19:37] So a pig would not be kosher. I know in Islam I think dogs are
[19:42] also considered like a little, not not the cleanest or
[19:46] whatever. I guess whatever objective it
[19:48] is, yeah. Dogs are unconsidered so unclean
[19:51] in the Islamic State, but it's not dog.
[19:54] Oh OK, so not a dog either. Interesting.
[19:57] Not a dog. So is it an animal of any kind
[20:00] or Or am I supposed to look in another direction?
[20:03] No, you could say it's an animal.
[20:07] You could say it's an animal that's that's painfully vague.
[20:12] South Kensington station. I have no clue about London
[20:18] iconic landmarks either. I don't know.
[20:20] And you said access to knowledge.
[20:22] So some sort of museum? Some sort of library?
[20:25] OK, so I'll, I'll, I'll give it to you.
[20:27] Why is the museum? Why is the museum like I'm I'm
[20:32] sure there are like a bunch of is it the what is the famous
[20:38] British Museum? I guess it's a museum.
[20:40] It's a museum. I don't I don't expect you to
[20:42] know the name of the museum or anything.
[20:44] You've identified that why it's a museum.
[20:46] So what is it the world that is housed in?
[20:49] Why? That would make the entire
[20:52] London Underground metro system unclean to around 1500 families.
[21:01] You could say it's an animal. That's, again, so painfully
[21:06] vague. I have no idea.
[21:07] No. Yeah.
[21:08] Is it some sort of like representation of devil or?
[21:11] I don't know. I have no idea.
[21:14] OK, so there was this 2019 horror film called The Vigil.
[21:21] As in VIGIL, that would be my clue to what this is.
[21:27] This is central to the plot. A clue has a clue has to help
[21:31] someone. Like how am I supposed to get
[21:32] there without? No, this was a, this was a, this
[21:34] was a very, very, very good horror movie.
[21:38] Very creepy horror movie. It's got 91% on Rotten Tomatoes.
[21:42] I had hoped you would have seen the movie, but OK.
[21:45] So then I'll have to come up with some other clue.
[21:47] OK, what clue can I give that's not giving this away?
[21:50] Oh, let me let me take another guess at this because you said
[21:57] it is a couple of things that you said it.
[21:59] It's contaminating and it is something you shouldn't be in
[22:03] the presence of and also could be an animal.
[22:07] That ridiculously annoying clue that he gave, I'm guessing.
[22:12] Is it some sort of human remains that you're perhaps not supposed
[22:16] to be in touch with? Yes, so, so here basically it's
[22:19] a skeleton in the medicine gallery of the Science Museum,
[22:23] but that counts as human remains or corpse to a line of Jewish
[22:28] priests called the Kohanim. So because in their religion,
[22:35] anything that is connected to something that houses or
[22:37] corpses, unclean or contaminated, it means that they
[22:41] cannot travel in the tube. Basically they can't use the
[22:44] London Underground metro system. And for those who've not seen
[22:48] it, I would highly recommend The Vigil.
[22:51] It's a supernatural horror film based in the Jewish faith.
[22:56] It's basically about a guy, young Jewish fellow, who is
[23:02] sitting vigil over a corpse. So he is from the Orthodox
[23:07] Jewish community and he has, he's been asked to keep vigil
[23:11] over the corpse of a Holocaust survivor who had recently died.
[23:17] And it is a very creepy movie. Must check it out.
[23:22] Yes, definitely, please do. I've also, I've always found
[23:25] that when it comes to horror movies, movies about faiths or
[23:31] beliefs to which we are not very familiar tend to be scarier for
[23:35] some reason. I found for that reason,
[23:39] Indonesian movies quite scary. I found certain Turkish movies
[23:45] which faith, which feature supernatural elements from the
[23:48] Islamic faith quite scary. I found Jewish movies quite
[23:52] scary. So, but I'm so used to, you
[23:56] know, exorcisms and the power of Christ compels you and, you
[24:00] know, demons possessing and everybody is doing something
[24:02] that some version of the exorcist.
[24:05] So that's become quite, you know, Blase by now, even though
[24:08] the Koreans do do a good job of making that a little scarier.
[24:13] But in general I found like alternate approaches does do
[24:17] make it quite interesting. This is puts me off on a
[24:21] complete tangent and we have recommended this in the past in
[24:24] a pop culture. Recommendations.
[24:25] I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Yes, in that book there is this
[24:30] part where he's describing because the lead character which
[24:33] was eventually played by Will Smith, I'm forgetting the name.
[24:35] He is is doing his research and trying to figure out just
[24:40] gathering more scientific information about these zombie
[24:43] zombies who are called vampires in the book.
[24:46] And he mentions this thing about how the vampires are scared of
[24:51] crosses is a myth. And it only is true if the
[24:55] person who has now become a vampire slash zombie was a
[24:58] Christian to begin with. So they would be scared.
[25:01] But show that the same cross to a zombie who used to be a Muslim
[25:07] or zombie who used to be Jewish, they would not be scared.
[25:10] And again, of course it's fiction, but I love this kind of
[25:13] leap in imagination that Madison took in this book where he is
[25:18] like a, this idea that, oh, somehow you point the cross at
[25:23] a, at a, at an undead person and they will be repelled
[25:27] immediately is nothing more than what they believe in themselves
[25:32] or they used to believe in themselves.
[25:34] So kind of a corollary to the point that you mentioned about
[25:37] how other cultures might scare you when you're watching a
[25:39] horror film, but your own culture is so deep seated that
[25:43] even if you're after you die quote, UN quote, it's still
[25:47] repels you. Yeah.
[25:48] And just another pop culture recommendation that just comes
[25:52] to mind right now is this movie I watched a couple of years ago,
[25:57] I think maybe a year, year and a half ago.
[25:59] It was called Puchandi. It's a it's a Tamil language
[26:04] film, but shot entirely by Malaysian Tamil immigrants, so
[26:09] people who are off Tamil origin who are settled in Malaysia, and
[26:13] it is surprisingly effective. It's a very low budget film.
[26:18] You can just make out from the way it's been filmed that
[26:20] they've done like it's a labor of love, but they didn't have
[26:24] all that much money to do it. But it was a it was a very
[26:27] surprisingly intriguing and creepy movie.
[26:30] So I which enjoyed I think it's available on I think it's Amazon
[26:35] Prime Video, but I'm just a simple search will get you to
[26:38] it's on Prime Video or Netflix, one of the two, but it's a
[26:42] fantastic sorry. So I would recommend Puchante as
[26:46] well, as well as the Vigil. Cool, I will check it out.
[26:49] OK, so we haven't done an out and out etymology question in a
[26:54] while. Oh, I guess we keep doing it,
[26:57] but this one is as etymological as it can get.
[27:01] So I'm going to tell you possible origins to this word.
[27:04] You just have to tell me what the word X is.
[27:07] A little bit of background. The only certain detail about
[27:12] the origin of the word X was that it was first noticed in
[27:16] American English around 1890. It has been dated to western or
[27:24] northwestern United States around that phase.
[27:28] So there are multiple possible etymologies to this word X.
[27:34] I'll give you a few. The first one could be a
[27:36] derivation of a word that means farmhand.
[27:40] So the first etymology is a word which I'm not mentioning, which
[27:44] means farm and and from that word X is derived.
[27:47] Second one is a greeting, again not mentioning what the greeting
[27:51] is because that would be too much of A giveaway.
[27:53] The third one is a syllabic abbreviation of where a a train
[28:01] might be moving towards, so that a syllabic abbreviation of that.
[28:07] And the fourth one is a railroad greeting.
[28:11] So these are the four most famous origins.
[28:13] There are a couple more actually, but these are the four
[28:15] most famous origins of the word X that I have told you, which
[28:20] was first noticed in American English around 1890.
[28:24] Can you try to guess what word is X?
[28:28] First thing, when you mentioned farmhand, the first word that
[28:31] came to mind was cowboy, but I don't know how the rest of the
[28:35] clothes would fit, so I don't think it's that.
[28:37] Can you give me those clues? Once again, the various
[28:41] etymologies. So you have origin from a
[28:43] farmhand. Another could be a greeting on a
[28:47] farm as well. The third one is the syllabic
[28:51] abbreviation of where a train might be heading, might be
[28:56] going, and the 4th 1 is a railroad greeting.
[29:00] No, I have no clue. You'll have to give me
[29:01] something. So I actually will point you
[29:04] back to something you yourself said.
[29:06] You mentioned cowboy and the first one that I'd said
[29:11] farmhand. And I told you there's a word
[29:13] which means farmhand from which X is derived.
[29:15] The word itself is the derivation for X, potentially
[29:19] that word. The second-half, that word is
[29:22] boy. So you were quite close with
[29:23] boy. It's the first half that if you
[29:25] figure out, I think will lead you very easily to X.
[29:30] Absolutely nothing. I'm OK.
[29:33] Different words that end with boy that could possibly be used
[29:37] on a farm. Stable boy or mortar boy?
[29:42] No. Think of a think of a gardening
[29:44] tool. Homeboy.
[29:48] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, that's it?
[29:53] I that wasn't. That is, that is, that is the
[29:57] word. That is, I said, which means
[30:00] farm hand. But what is X then?
[30:03] That is derived from Homeboy. Right, what to derive from Hobo?
[30:06] I was guessing it might be. Oh boy.
[30:09] So I'll give you I'll give you one more hint.
[30:12] And it was along the lines of what you had already said.
[30:17] So I told you the syllabic abbreviation of where a train
[30:20] might be headed. This was specifically to do with
[30:23] trains that soldiers were taking to go.
[30:27] Back home. Oh God this is hobo.
[30:29] After the Civil War, this is. Hobo, Hobo.
[30:32] The whole boy. Oh, God, that was just staring
[30:35] in my face. Yeah.
[30:36] Hobo. Yeah.
[30:37] The moment you mentioned trains, I was.
[30:38] Like God this is a hobo. Exactly hoboy which came hobo or
[30:43] a greeting which was hoboy like a HO boy.
[30:47] Oh. Hobo BEAU is a Grailroad
[30:52] greeting that is also potential origin for Hobo.
[30:56] And the one that I love the most was the syllabic abbreviation of
[30:59] Homeward Bound, which is how trains were described when they
[31:04] were carrying soldiers back from Civil War.
[31:07] And a lot of these people who eventually turned out to be
[31:10] tramps or hobos who are taking these trains or using these
[31:13] trains to go around and get around.
[31:15] So Hobo has all of these potential origins.
[31:18] Nobody's quite sure where it came from, but that is a lovely
[31:22] etymological question. That vineet, you were just
[31:25] circling around it. It's just right around that.
[31:28] Yeah, it's the obvious one that kind of gets you.
[31:31] So moving on to something which was obvious which I did not get
[31:35] into, something obvious which is meant not to be gotten because
[31:39] we are going to talk about a cipher.
[31:41] So nictography is a form of substitution cipher writing
[31:47] created by X in 1891. It is written with a nictograph,
[31:52] which is a device also invented by X, and uses a system of dots
[31:57] and strokes all based on a dot placed on the upper left corner.
[32:02] Using the nyctograph, one could quickly jot down ideas or notes
[32:06] without the aid of light. X invented the nyctograph and
[32:11] nyctography, as he was often awakened during the night with
[32:14] thoughts that needed to be written down at once and didn't
[32:17] want to go through the lengthy process of lighting a lamp only
[32:21] to have to then extinguish it. The device consisted of a
[32:25] gridded card with 16 square holes, each 1/4 inch wide, and a
[32:31] system of symbols representing an alphabet of excess design,
[32:34] which could then be transcribed the following day.
[32:38] He first named it a tifulograph from TIF Loss for Blind, but at
[32:43] the suggestion of one of his brother's students, this was
[32:46] subsequently changed into nictograph.
[32:50] So who is it that invented the NICTO graph so that they could,
[32:56] you know, jot down ideas in the dark without having to look, and
[33:00] which also coincidentally formed a good cypher system?
[33:03] Interesting. It feels vaguely familiar, like
[33:06] I have heard of this or read about it somewhere, but not
[33:11] anywhere close to cracking this question.
[33:13] So I would need a hint. Any sort of hint actually.
[33:16] Yeah, I have no clue whatsoever right now.
[33:18] X has worked in the fields of geometry, linear and matrix
[33:23] algebra, mathematical logic, and recreational mathematics,
[33:28] producing nearly a dozen books under his real name.
[33:31] X also developed new ideas in linear algebra, including the
[33:36] first printed proof of the Rushe Capelli theorem, probability,
[33:40] and the study of electrons, elections and committees.
[33:45] Some of this work was not published until well after his
[33:47] death. His occupation as a mathematical
[33:51] lecturer at Christchurch gave him some financial security.
[33:56] His work in the field of mathematical logic attracted
[33:59] renewed interest in the late 20th century.
[34:05] Just because you said this thing about him being a mathematician
[34:09] and a teacher, I am tempted to guess because I remember this
[34:17] question we did very early on in our podcast.
[34:22] This is Lewis Carroll. Yes, you are right.
[34:26] It is Lewis Carroll, real name Charles Ludwig Dodson.
[34:31] Early listeners of our podcast may remember that we had a
[34:35] question faced on Lewis Carroll before and his background as a
[34:38] mathematician. So yes.
[34:40] So he was not just an author, as many people remember.
[34:44] He was an author, poet, mathematician, photographer and
[34:48] also an Anglican Deacon to a man who wore many hats, probably
[34:54] because he didn't like his hairstyle.
[34:56] Have you seen it? I have.
[34:58] I have seen it. I have seen it, yeah.
[35:01] So Lewis Carroll of Alice in Wonderland fame invented a form
[35:06] of writing in the dark which is called nyctography.
[35:09] So it's very difficult to imagine by just by describing to
[35:14] you. So I would encourage all our
[35:16] listeners to just go online and search for Nyctography and you
[35:19] would see a Nyctograph and the Cypher system, or at least the
[35:24] blind writing system that he developed, which you could use
[35:29] to write to the dark. So Aditya, let's move from the
[35:33] dark into the light. Shine thy light upon this
[35:36] podcast. I shall do that.
[35:39] And you know what? Since you spoke about somebody
[35:43] iconic and somebody who has left their imprint on pop culture,
[35:51] I'm going to ask you about another such person.
[35:54] And the context is who is this, let's say character Because it's
[35:59] not really a person who is this character who is only the 3rd to
[36:06] have their own zip. Code.
[36:10] I know I'm going to get enough source for this, but I am going
[36:13] to bite the bullet and you know, fall into the trap head first.
[36:16] Anyway. Is it Santa Claus?
[36:18] Oh no, Santa Claus is not the right answer.
[36:21] We have spoken about Santa Claus and how I think they he has the
[36:26] H0H 0H0 zip code. I should have actually been a
[36:30] little bit more specific. the United States Postal Service has
[36:35] given a zip code to people or I guess characters in only three
[36:40] occasions and the third one is this particular character.
[36:44] So and the H-000 by the way, is Canada.
[36:49] So the third person, or third character rather, who got a zip
[36:55] code from the USPS and what other clues are there in the
[37:00] question? Actually it's very interesting
[37:03] what even the 1st 2 are, so if you want to guess all three that
[37:07] will be great, but the third one I told you is a character.
[37:09] So, OK, it's a character who's given their own America.
[37:13] So Paul Bunyan. No, no, no, no.
[37:17] Let me just try and break this down logically.
[37:20] So if you needed to have the USPS has a specific zip code for
[37:23] this person, then it's somebody to whom some they used to write
[37:28] letters. A lot of people would have to
[37:31] write letters. Americans writing letters is you
[37:36] mentioned that this person, this particular is a character,
[37:40] right? But is there a real person who
[37:42] played this character? Yes, but not initially.
[37:48] OK. Because I was thinking, Mr.
[37:49] Rogers, I hear he used to get like hundreds of or maybe
[37:53] thousands of letters. He did.
[37:55] He did. So this was a similar case where
[37:57] it was kids who were sending most of these letters.
[38:00] Yeah. So in that sense, you are on the
[38:02] right track. But not Mr. Rogers.
[38:05] No, actually, you wanted to. Before we get to the number
[38:07] three, you want to take a guess as to who number one and number.
[38:10] 2 are oh OK not. Characters.
[38:11] Actual people. OK, those are actual people with
[38:14] their own zip code. Who do you think gets a whole
[38:17] lot of mail in America? I'd say the President of the
[38:21] United States, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
[38:24] Lovely, SO Portis has his own zip code?
[38:29] Has their own zip code as it might be the case soon if Kamala
[38:33] Harris wins. So Portis has their own zip
[38:37] code? Do you know who number 2 is?
[38:40] #2 who gets a lot of letters apart from, he said, Santa
[38:44] Clauses, that's in Canada. So any clues?
[38:50] I'll give you for the second person.
[38:51] Second person is actually very much related to the first
[38:55] person. It's almost a subset of the
[38:58] initial person's. Oh, is this is this FLOTUS?
[39:01] Yeah, you're right, You're right.
[39:03] This is FLOTUS. In the future, might be the
[39:05] first husband of the United States as well.
[39:08] Yeah, but that doesn't have the same flow to it.
[39:09] It it means you can't have fortes.
[39:12] For. Fortas, fortas, fortas.
[39:16] So Fortas and 1st spouse of the United States, I guess.
[39:19] Yeah, Fosotas, no Sotas and porters have their own zip
[39:24] codes. These are the two real people.
[39:27] Who is the third? Who is a character and not an
[39:31] actual person? The Yogi Bear?
[39:33] No, it's not Yogi Bear. No, no.
[39:35] What am I thinking? Oh, you know, you are very
[39:38] close. You are dangerously close to the
[39:40] answer. Wait, what?
[39:42] Yogi Bear? OK now I'm really confused
[39:47] because I was making a joke out of it because of the Yogi Bear
[39:50] and the fire and all those cartoons that used to happen.
[39:53] So what plot am I close to? Is it because I said it cartoon
[39:56] or is it because I said bear? Literally everything you said so
[40:00] far is very close to the actual answer.
[40:03] Something else please? I don't know what to say but you
[40:06] have got it so close. OK, Yogi Bear.
[40:09] It rhymes with Yogi Bear. OK, now see this is the problem.
[40:13] You shouldn't give me something that's so obvious in it.
[40:17] God, the only possibility I can imagine is you haven't heard of
[40:21] this character, but that would be very, very unlike you.
[40:24] It's a pretty famous character. Yoki Bear?
[40:26] What the fuck? I'm going to give it to you at
[40:29] this point, Vineet, because I feel like it's just, it's just
[40:33] one of those things that you, you, you know it, you know it.
[40:35] You're going to hit yourself. Once I tell you the answer, the
[40:38] answer is Smokey Bear. Smokey.
[40:42] Smokey. Yes, yes, Smokey Bear.
[40:44] Yeah, Smokey. Yeah, Smokey Bear, the very
[40:49] iconic American campaign and advertising icon of the United
[40:54] States Forest Services for wildfire prevention campaign.
[40:57] You met literally mentioned fires.
[40:59] You mentioned smoke. Yeah, the.
[41:00] Problem is, I was, I think I was confusing Yogi Bear with Smokey
[41:04] Bear in my head. That's what I thought.
[41:05] That's what I thought. That sounds like you're so close
[41:07] to the actual answer. Because I don't think Yogi Bear
[41:10] was associated with fire. Yeah, I know, I know.
[41:13] It is. I was thinking of Smokey Bear in
[41:15] my head. The image is that a Smokey Bear.
[41:17] But for some reason, Yogi Bear is the one that came into my
[41:20] head. Yogi Bear is also a cartoon
[41:21] character and the name Yogi Bear was superimposed over the image
[41:25] of Smokey the Bear in my head. I blame sleep deprivation, my
[41:31] dear audience. We obviously, we both, we both
[41:34] do Vineet. Vineet is better than this.
[41:36] We both. We all know that.
[41:37] Yeah. OK.
[41:39] So I'll tell you what it is very quickly.
[41:41] Smokey Bear was extremely popular, especially when he came
[41:44] onto the scene as an advertising campaign, obviously as a
[41:47] fictional bear. And he used to receive so many
[41:50] letters, more than 13,000 a week, mostly from kids that in
[41:54] 1964, the United States Postal Service gave him his own ZIP
[41:57] code, 20252, which is still in use, by the way, at some point,
[42:02] because you asked me, has anybody actually played this
[42:05] character? So there was a little bear that
[42:09] was given the title of Smokey Bear and who lived for a while.
[42:16] And yeah, so there was there was a living, breathing Smokey Bear
[42:20] for a very short while. Continues to be a character
[42:23] obviously beyond that. And that is the those are the
[42:28] three individuals who have their own ZIP code as given by the
[42:33] United States Postal Service. Oh, Vineet, we were almost
[42:37] there. Almost, almost close, but no
[42:40] cigar. I think that's all the time we
[42:43] have on our episode for our regular questions.
[42:46] Let's start winding up. So moving on to the audience
[42:49] question which I had asked at the beginning of today's
[42:51] episode. During the mid 1990s, when Tata
[42:54] Motors was flourishing in the automobile sector, an individual
[42:57] named Sumanth Mulgaonkar was one of the brains behind the
[43:00] company's success. Often known as the architect of
[43:03] Tata Motors, being the chief executive of Tata Engineering
[43:07] and Locomotive Company also known as Telco, Sumanth was
[43:10] always inclined towards a progress for the better approach
[43:13] for the company. This saw him frequently skipping
[43:16] his lunch with the top class of the company and instead visiting
[43:18] highway dhabas to have lunch with truck drivers who drove
[43:22] Tata trucks and at the same time to get a real time freak bad
[43:27] feedback from them about their vehicles.
[43:29] This was later passed on to the R&D division of the company so
[43:32] that they could improvise on their products in real time.
[43:36] When his Co workers came to know about this, they decided to pay
[43:39] homage to Sumanth. What was this tribute to Sumanth
[43:43] Mulgaonkar Aditya? Any ideas?
[43:47] This would be sumo. Yes, very good.
[43:51] So the iconic Tata Sumo was named after the initials of
[43:55] Sumanth Mulgaonkar when it was released in 1994.
[43:59] Well, cracked Aditya. I hope at least some in our
[44:01] audience would have guessed this.
[44:03] So great crack. So moving on to our the last
[44:08] segment of our podcast, the pop culture recommendations.
[44:12] Aditya, what's your pop culture recommendation for this week?
[44:15] OK, so I'm going to recommend as I usually do, I'm going to
[44:21] recommend a few movies. Yeah, OK, so like I usually do,
[44:33] I'm going to recommend a few movies and I don't know, I feel
[44:35] like I'm in the mood for something a little romantic, a
[44:38] little bit of love. So I'm going to say Brokeback
[44:41] Mountain, a movie that I have watched multiple times and I
[44:46] still really like a lot, the Before trilogy.
[44:50] Recently it just reappeared on somehow on my Instagram reels
[44:56] and I was caught up in a. The romance of Ethan Hawke.
[45:02] And I was caught up in the romance of Ethan Hawke and Julie
[45:06] Dunphy. Yep.
[45:07] So the the before told you which is 3 films.
[45:10] The film I mentioned Brokeback Mountain which is about two men
[45:15] and the lesser said the better because you should just watch it
[45:19] if you haven't. The third one that I would
[45:21] recommend is the Lunch Box I believe.
[45:24] A beautiful film, Irrfan Khan doing a phenomenal job and a
[45:30] pretty great cast actually overall.
[45:32] So yeah, Nimrat Kaur and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, just great
[45:36] acting, great performances. So these three films worth
[45:40] checking out. And if you're in the mood for
[45:42] some love, by the way, also recommendation.
[45:45] Well, I'll take that one as an in the mood for love.
[45:47] SO4 recommendations. Wong Kar Vai films any day.
[45:51] Technically it would be 6 recommendations because the
[45:55] before trilogy is a series of 3 movies.
[45:56] I I cheated a little bit with. Yes, you're right.
[46:00] Six recommendation there. So I'm guessing today's podcast
[46:05] recommendations are all going to be odd movies because I've
[46:07] already mentioned The Vigil and Puchandi, both of which are in
[46:12] the horror space. And I would also now like to
[46:16] recommend a new recently released Malayalam film
[46:20] Kishkinda Kandam which is again from the same Kishkinda Kandam
[46:24] of the Ramayan. The name comes from there but
[46:27] the story is something different.
[46:31] Don't read any reviews, don't read any synopses, don't do any
[46:35] spoilers. Just go watch the movie blind
[46:39] and prepare to come out with your brain lying in pieces on
[46:43] the floor. That's it, that's all I'm
[46:45] saying. You literally have to watch this
[46:47] movie with 0 preconceptions and just be be prepared to be
[46:51] amazed. But let me just also warn you,
[46:53] it's a very slow burn thriller. Don't expect something that's,
[46:57] you know, heavy. And the thing, it's very slow
[46:59] burn. It's very cerebral and it just
[47:01] builds and builds to a very unexpected climax which I did
[47:04] not see coming. All right, cool.
[47:06] Cool. I'll check this out.
[47:08] OK, so that's all the time we have for this episode.
[47:12] Thank you for listening in. We hope you enjoyed the show and
[47:14] learned something new. If you liked what you heard,
[47:16] please consider subscribing to our podcast and leaving us a
[47:19] review on your favorite podcast platform.
[47:21] It helps us reach a wider audience and allows more people
[47:24] to discover and enjoy the show. We would also love to hear from
[47:27] you feedback, suggestions, and trivia.
[47:29] You can reach us out on Instagram at Ru Quizzing Me.
[47:32] You can send us questions that you want asked on the show by
[47:35] emailing us at ru.quizzing.me@gmail.com with
[47:38] the name of the quiz master who you want to ask the question in
[47:41] the subject line. You can join our community
[47:44] subreddit at R/RU Quizzing Me. And thanks to Aditya, all our
[47:48] episodes are now available on YouTube, so you can search on
[47:51] YouTube and listen to our episodes with our entire back
[47:54] catalogue on YouTube as well. We appreciate your support and
[48:00] look forward to sharing more episodes with you in the future.
[48:02] Thanks again guys and have a great day.
[48:06] And let me once again remind, if you liked any of our episodes,
[48:10] please do recommend it to a friend who would love to listen
[48:13] to it as well. That's the best way for our
[48:15] podcast to grow. So do that and we'll see you
[48:19] guys next week. Ciao.

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