Three of a Kind, Part 45 Trivia Quiz

Answer: seals

Seals are a diverse group of pinnipeds found in all of the oceans of the world. They are fin-footed carnivores who spend almost all of their time in the water. They find shore to mate and to deliver their young. Other pinnipeds include walruses and sea lions. Indigenous people hunt seals and use their meat, their blubber, their skins and their bones. Their commercial hunting has come under increasing international control.

Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel (b. 1963) gained great success as a singer-songwriter using the name "Seal." In addition to his recording career, he has been a coach on "The Voice Australia" on and off since 2012. The skin on his face was scarred by discoid lupus erythematosus. He was married to the German model Heidi Klum from 2004 to 2012; they had three children.

The United States Navy SEALs were founded in 1962 but their antecedents go back to the Second World War. They are a special-operations military force which operates on "Sea, Air, and Land" hence the acronym SEAL. SEALs are part of the Naval Special Warfare Command but they also cooperate with the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Operations Group (SOG) units. The Navy's SEAL Team Six found and killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Answer: drive

In medieval Europe, in Australia and in the Old West of the United States, cattle were moved to market in what was called a cattle drive. These were huge in the period 1866-1895 when horse-mounted cowboys drove the herds from Texas to railheads in Kansas. Some of the famous trails, memorialized in Western motion pictures, were the Goodnight-Loving Trail (1866), Potter-Bacon trail (1883), and the Chisholm Trail (1867).

The motion picture "Drive" is about a stunt-car driver who moonlights as a getaway-car driver. The film was shot in Los Angeles. It was well-received at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival but criticised for its intense graphic violence.

A solidly-hit ball which travels fast and straight, parallel to the ground, is called a line drive (or a liner or a rope). If the play-by-play announcer is sufficiently impressed, it may be described as a "scorching" or "screaming" line drive. If a line drive is caught before it touches the ground, the batter has "lined out." If it speeds through the infield into the outfield, it is a good opportunity to get on base. They also create a substantial risk of injury to a pitcher smacked by the ball.

Answer: India

Few popular songs migrate from opera; "Song of India" is based on an aria in Rimsky-Korsakov's 1896 opera "Sadko." The melody was also used as the setting of the official state song on Ohio "Beautiful Ohio" (1918). Fronted by trumpeter Bunny Berigan, Tommy Dorsey's orchestra recorded a jazz adaptation of "Song of India" in 1937 which was a great success. Paul Whiteman and his orchestra also recorded it, as did singer Sarah Brightman, in her album "Dream Chaser" (2005).

India rubber is the product of the latex sap taken from a variety of trees. It is also called natural rubber, gum rubber, and "caoutchouc." Much of the world's India rubber is grown in Malaysia, Indonesia, India and South America.

India de Beaufort (b. 1987) sings, writes songs and acts. She had a role in the US television series "One Tree Hill," another in "Jane by Design," and in the soap opera "Blood & Oil." She was born in the UK of British and French Indian parents. She is also the primary model for a make-up line called "Me by Mezhgan" owned by Mezhgan Hussainy.

Answer: Salmon

Salmon Portland Chase (1808-1873) served as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Governor of Ohio, United States Senator, and Secretary of the Treasury. No wonder they put his picture on the $10,000 bill.

The biblical figure Salmon, in the Hebrew Scriptures, was a descendant of Abraham and a forebear of David. He is also mentioned in the New Testament in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus (1:4-5). Looking at all of the biblical sources together, he appears to have been a person who entered the Promised Land with Joshua.

Salmon, Idaho, is a small town in Lemhi County, of which it is the county seat. Sacajawea, who guided Lewis and Clark, was born nearby. For this reason, the town is the home of the Sacajawea Interpretive Culture and Education Center. The Lemhi River debouches into the Salmon River at Salmon.

Answer: mason

Freemasonry is a fraternal organization derived from masons' guilds in 13th century Europe. Local lodges are called "blue" lodges. Members are initiated to three degrees: apprentice, journeyman or fellow, and master. All members are known as mason.

Mason County is located adjacent to and was created from Thurston County, the home of the state capital Olympia. Shelton is the county seat. The county was named for Charles H. Mason, the first Secretary of the Washington Territory. It comprises Harstine Island, Squaxin Island, and Totten Inlet.

Marsha Mason (b. 1942) was an actress: "Cinderella Liberty" (1973), "The Goodbye Girl" (1977), "Chapter Two" (1979), and "Only When I Laugh" (1981). She was nominated for an Emmy for her role in TV's "Frasier" (1997-1998). Mason was married to playwright Neil Simon from 1973 to 1983; he wrote three of the four roles for which she was nominated for an Oscar (winning none).

Answer: rotary

Rotary was founded by attorney Paul P. Harris in Chicago in 1905. The name "rotary" was chosen because the original members met in each others' office on a rotating basis. The club grew first in San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle, and Los Angeles. By 1911, it crossed the border into Canada and became "Rotary International." Members, called Rotarians, engage in local and international service projects.

Claims to the invention of the rotary lawn mower span the globe. The mower is essentially a motor stood on end such that the crankshaft turns a blade or blades parallel to the ground. Rotary mowers may be gasoline-powered, battery-electric or corded-electric. The largest are of the ride-on sort.

Rotary dials for telephones were patented in 1892 but became widely used only when Bell Systems/Western Electric adopted them in 1919. The rotary dial was replaced during the 1970s by push-button phones, yet people continued to say that they "dialed" a telephone number even when there was no dial on the modern unit.

Answer: finger

There are eleven finger lakes in New York State: Otisco, Skaneateles, Owasco, Cayuga, Seneca, Keuka, Canandaigua, Honeoye, Canadice, Hemlock and Conesus. These long narrow lakes are the result of glacial action. Some are exceptionally deep, e.g. Seneca is 618 feet (188 m). This area is not only geologically interesting, it is a highly-productive wine-grape growing region. Many varieties of wine grapes are grown in the Finger Lakes area including Riesling, Gewürztraminer, and Vitis labrusca.

Fingerling potatoes are given that name because their shape resembles human fingers. Common varieties include the Russian Banana, the French Fingerling, and the Purple Peruvian.

In the Western world, showing someone the back of one's hand with the middle finger extended upwards is an obscene gesture likely to cause a fight. There are numerous colloquial names for this gesture: the finger, flipping someone off, and the bird. The gesture is ancient; it is recorded in Classical Greek and Ancient Roman culture. In modern America, where public disrespect has become endemic, the gesture may have lost (some of) its obscene connotation.

Answer: soap

The situation comedy "Soap" ran from 1977 to 1981, producing 85 episodes. The programme was a send-up of daytime soap operas. Like those programmes, "Soap" was episodic, ongoing and melodramatic. The subjects were bizarre: communism, demonic possession, alien abduction, the mafia, extramarital sex, and religious cults. The creator, chief writer and executive producer was Susan Harris. "Soap" was the stuff on which water-cooler conversations thrived.

There are multiple formulas but tincture of green soap was originally and basically a mixture of alcohol, glycerine and a little lavender oil. The recipe has been tweaked over the years to include linseed oil, rapeseed oil and fish oil, sodium hydroxide, and/or potassium hydroxide. It is used in medical applications to sterilize medical equipment, to clean skin exposed to contact irritants like poison ivy, and to prepare skin for surgery, and in tattoo parlours to clean the skin before piercings and tattoo application.

Soapstone is a metamorphic rock of talc-schist composition, also known as steatite or soaprock. It has been used by indigenous populations in North America and Australia as a medium for carving for many centuries. The "skin" of the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro is made of soapstone.

Answer: fire

Robert Frost's short poem "Fire and Ice" (1920) may be his most anthologized work. The poem is influenced by a passage in Dante's "Inferno" which describes the fires of Hell and a frozen lake in which the most sinful are encased in ice. Frost is less concerned with the physical end of time and more interested in the comparison of fire with desire and ice with hatred. Both the "Game of Thrones" television series and the "Twilight Saga" were directly influenced by (and quoted from) this poem.

Stephen King's 1980 novel "Firestarter" was made into a motion picture in 1984. A little girl named Charlie (Drew Barrymore) has the ability to start fires with her mind. Evil people from the government (Martin Sheen and George C. Scott) try to capture Charlie and her father (David Keith) in order to "weaponize" her gift.

Firewater is an informal term for alcoholic drinks, especially strong whiskey. In the Ojibwe and other Algonquin and Siouan languages, the word for whiskey translates literally as "fire water." The connection is possibly that strong alcohol burns the mouth and throat when consumed. The deleterious effects of alcohol consumption on Native American populations is discussed in Harold R. Johnson's book "Firewater: How Alcohol is Killing My People (and Yours)" (University of Regina Press, 2016).

Answer: granny

The Dave Matthews Band recorded "Granny" in 1993 with the expectation that it would become a hit. While somewhat popular, it did not turn out to be a leading song for the group. The lyric "Love! Baby!" is sung/shouted repeatedly by band members, with which live audiences join when given the opportunity.

Maria Ann Smith (née Sherwood) hybridized the Granny Smith apple in Eastwood, New South Wales, Australia, in 1868. Smith was the mother of eight and earned the nickname "granny" after which her apple was named. The flavour is tart, the flesh is firm, and the apple is immensely popular. The Granny Smith apple is now grown in the United States.

Sylvester the cat is forever attempting to catch and eat Tweety the bird but for the intervention of their owner, Emma Webster, known as Granny. She became well known through the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons of the 1950s and 1960s. Granny is depicted as an older woman, a widow, with her hair pulled back into a grey bun, wearing glasses and an old-fashioned dress.