Three of a Kind, Part 29 Trivia Quiz

Answer: tin

The Tin Woodman is found by Dorothy, rusted solid, and is freed by the application of oil from a can. This is odd in that tin does not rust. The explanation is that iron parts were often coated with a thin layer of tin to prevent rust but the tin veneer would eventually wear off permitting oxidation.

Regardless of the type of metal being cut, sheet metal scissors are called "tin snips." The earlier name for these tools was "tinner's snips."

In the Old West, law enforcement officers commonly wore a metal badge shaped like a five- or six-pointed star as a symbol of their office. "Tin Star" became a slang term for a sheriff or his deputy. The 1957 American Western movie "Tin Star" is about a retired sheriff teaching a young man how to be one.

Answer: rook

The rook is a member of the corvid family. All corvids are similar and frequently confused one for the other. An old saw holds: "If you see one rook, it's a crow. If you see lots of crows, they're rooks. If you see a raven, you are in the Tower of London."

A Rook deck has fourteen cards in four suits plus a special rook card. Parker Brothers introduced the game (and sold the special deck of cards) beginning in 1906. Part of the success of the game was that a standard poker deck was associated with gambling to which many people took exception.

Jean Kathleen Rook (1931-1991) was an English newspaper journalist known for her opinion column in the Daily Express. She was outspoken, occasionally vulgar and brassy. As a woman journalist, she experienced several firsts before settling into notorious column writing.

Answer: wobble

A large dog or a horse with "the wobbles" suffers from a malformation of the cervical vertebrae. This disease causes a distinctive gait called "the wobbles." It is more formally known as Wobbler disease or as cervical vertebral instability.

Milutin Milankovic was a Serbian geophysicist who theorized that eccentricity in the Earth's axial tilt, axial precession and orbit were associated with climatic change over centuries. The variation of the Earth around its axis is called wobble.

A metasyntactic variable is a meaningless word used by computer scientists as a space filler or substitute for an unknown quantity or object. One of the most common is "foo." Others include wibble, wobble, wubble, and flob.

Answer: pioneer

Founded in 1937 to make radio speakers, the Pioneer Company has manufactured most of the things made by electronics businesses. Based in Kawasaki, Japan, Pioneer is a now multi-national company.

Based on British military organization, pioneers are the soldiers who specialise in building bridges and roads, setting up field camps, and fortifying military combat positions. In British army units, the pioneer sergeant is the only man allowed to grow a beard and carries an axe, rather than a rifle, in parade.

Cooper's first novel in the five-volume "Leatherstocking Tales" was "The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale" (1823). Written first in time it was fourth in the series' chronology.

Answer: Saturn

Saturn is the second-largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god of agriculture. Its well-known rings are made up of ice crystals and dust. Titan, the largest of Saturn's sixty-plus moons, is larger than Mercury and is the only moon in our Solar System with a significant atmosphere.

Known unofficially as the Golden Scroll, the Saturn Awards were created in 1973 to honour science fiction, fantasy and horror films -- films too often ignored by other awards programmes. James Cameron has won the most awards for directing; John Williams the most for musical composition.

There were three primary models of Saturn rockets: the I, the IA and the V. These were the rockets which lifted American payloads to Earth orbit and to the moon. They were the launch vehicles for the Apollo program.

Answer: mischief

Malicious mischief originated as a kind of "trespass" against the property of another person and was therefor a civil matter. In time, it was assimilated by the criminal law and became a misdemeanor or felony, usually depending upon the value of the property destroyed or damaged.

Roger Hargreaves (1935-1988) wrote forty three books in the "Mister Men" series, after which his son, Adam Hargreaves (b. 1963) took up the pen. The title "Mister Mischief" is about a fellow who plays too many tricks on people until one of them turns the tables on him.

Evelyn Waugh published "Black Mischief" in 1932. It described Emperor Seth's attempt to modernize his African island kingdom of Azania. The book is outrageous in several ways; it was condemned by a Roman Catholic critic in England.

Answer: copper

Copperline is the area near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where James Taylor was raised. Together with his friend Reynolds Price, author and professor of English at Duke University, Taylor wrote this song in 1991 to recall the places of his youth. Morgan Creek is still there but the bridge over it is now named James Taylor Bridge.

Pennies and half-pennies were made of copper in England until 1992. Thereafter, they were made of copper-plated steel. The cost of the coin significantly exceeded its value. The nickname "copper" was applied to pennies and is also applied to police officers.

The Manhattan Project, itself a code name for America's search for a usable nuclear weapon in World War II, used code names for everything. "Copper" was the codename for plutonium. Enriched uranium 235 was code named "tuballoy tetroxide."

Answer: heart

The muscle which moves blood in humans and many other animals is the heart. Human hearts are located between the lungs because of their role in oxygenating blood. Mammals have four-chambered hearts, reptiles three and fish two.

In "Damn Yankees," the Washington Senators are not playing good baseball, thus the Devil's offer to win them the pennant is extremely attractive. Despite their record, the team sings that they have to play the game with heart: "You Gotta Have Heart."

In "Heartbreak Ridge", Clint Eastwood plays Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway who gets along poorly with younger officers who see him as a relic of a former Marine Corps. His Congressional Medal of Honor is all that saves him from being sacked.

Answer: Betty

Both Betty and Bettie are common diminutives for Elizabeth and for Bethany. It Latin America, Betty is also used as a short form for women named Beatriz, Beatrix or Beatrice.

The source of the American television sitcom "Ugly Betty" is a Spanish-language sitcom "Yo soy Betty, la fea" which was a hit on Columbia TV. The premise is that an unattractive woman is hired as a fashion-magazine's editor's executive assistant to keep him from having a relationship with his secretary.

Betty Driver (1920-2011) was a singer and actor best known for her role as Betty Williams (also Betty Turpin) on the British soap opera "Coronation Street." She "retired" before accepting a role which she played for forty years.

Answer: smoke

"Up in Smoke" with Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong was arguably the first film to define the stoner-comedy genre. Their success as a stand-up comedy team was not equaled by the film. Two sequels did better: "Cheech & Chong's Next Movie" in 1980, and "Nice Dreams" in 1981.

Some forest fires are so remote that they can be reached by firefighters only by air. The brave and highly-trained firefighters who parachute into such locations are called smokejumpers. The US and Russia have more smokejumpers than any other nations. In the United States, they are conducted by the US Forest Service and the US Bureau of Land Management.

A smokehouse in the US is called a smokery in the UK. Meat, cheese, fish, nuts and peppers are all smoked both to preserve them and to add a distinctive flavour.