General Ignorance

[kompressaur]

i am as a lot of you will be a great fan of QI on tv. Ive always wanted to look at their General Agnorance questions again. I found some on wikipedia. I thought it would be an idea to put them all together. Some might be hard to understand without hearing/seeing the actual question but still worth a gawk.

List of QI episodes (C series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The inventor of the pie chart was Florence Nightingale.

Most tigers in the world are in private hands in the United States. (Forfeit: Asia, Zoos)

Silly, Billy, Chilly, Pussy, Pissy, Corny, Punchy, Misery, Messy and Prat are all places in France. (Forfeit: The Ten Dwarves

A Taffy Pull is an American form of toffee. It's different from English toffee because it's chewy and soft all the way through, because it's aerated. Salt water taffy isn't actually made from salt water. The story goes that during the 19th century, there was a flood in Atlantic City (Fry refers to Atlanta but he is mistaken, probably because Atlanta is inland.) and the stock of taffy was flooded, so a friend told the owner to sell it as "salt water taffy". Some people believe the story, others don't. (Forfeit: Welsh Chat-Up Line)

There were seven sheep on Noah's Ark, because there were seven of every type of clean animal onboard the Ark, with two of each unclean animal like pigs. It's of course a slight irony that no animals are allowed on ships nowadays anyway. (Forfeit: Two)

The archbishop murdered by Henry II was called Thomas Becket, with the "A" being a mistake, as described by historian John Strype in the "Memoirs of Thomas Cranmer". (Forfeit: Thomas À Becket)

How big is a platypus? - A platypus, technically speaking, is a genus of beetle, not to be confused with a duck-billed platypus. The latter has no nipples, but instead sweats milk.

A dialogue does not have any limits to how many people can take part. Two people have to take part in a duologue. (Forfeit: Two)

The Queen's handbag contains some money, a comb, a handkerchief, a small gold compact and some lipstick.

Another name for the common cormorant is the seacrow. (Forfeit: Shag)

The Queen's corgis are of the Pembroke variety, not the Cardigan.

Tweed used to be fixed with stale urine.

Mr Chicken lived in 10 Downing Street, he was actually the last private resident. (Forfeit: Kentucky)

Since Germany was only reunified in 1990, the Second World War only officially ended that year. (Forfeit: 1945)

Swiss inventions include velcro, milk chocolate, cellophane, rayon and the
Swiss army knife. (Forfeit: Cuckoo Clock)

1792 - the year the guillotine was first used, the birth of the inventor of the computer and the death of the inventor of the sandwich and Cambridge University introduced the concept of examinations judged on a written rather than oral basis.

A Myoclonic jerk is a sensation of falling during the prestages of sleep used in early stages of evolution to prevent gravity from removing the creature from trees.

The largest lake entirely within Canada is the Great Bear Lake. None of the Great Lakes are entirely in Canada, so none of them count. The deepest lake in Canada is Lake Manitou, which has an island inside it, and in that island there is a lake. That makes it the largest lake that's in an island that's in a lake in the world. (Forfeit: Who Cares?)

Botts' dots is the name for "cat's eyes" in California. They were created by Dr. Elbert Botts. Unlike Percy Shaw, he received no money because he was working for the California Department of Transportation at the time

Babies in the womb are covered in hair (lanugo) – it then sheds this hair, eats it, and then excretes it as meconium.

If Stephen was to paint Alan's body in gold, as per the James Bond film Goldfinger, he'd get very hot and couldn't sweat. (Forfeit: He'd Die)

Humans have between 9 & 21 senses. (Forfeit: Five)

The oldest man in the Bible is Enoch, as "the Lord took him" and he is therefore not dead. (Forfeit: Methuselah)

A luffa comes from the ground, because it's a plant that you can grow. (Forfeit: The Sea)

The Ford Model T was available in grey, red or Brewster green. In Manchester, you could only get them in blue. They were only available in black after 1913. (Forfeit: Black, Any Color So Long As It's Black)

S.O.B. is an air travel term meaning Souls on Board.

The Gatso Camera was invented by Maurice Gatsonides to monitor the speed of a car so he could find a way to make a car go faster around corners. (Forfeit: To Raise Money For The Government)

Samuel Pepys buried a piece of Parmesan cheese in his garden during the Great Fire of London. (Forfeit: Diary)

A picture is shown of The Angel of Christian Charity (Forfeit: Eros), a memorial to Lord Shaftesbury, and the first statue in the world to be made of aluminium.

The origin of the name "America" comes from the Welshman Richard Amerike. The reason it doesn't seem plausible that Amerigo Vespucci is that it if people had places named after them, it would be their surname, rather than their forename that was used. For example, Magellan Straits (Ferdinand Magellan) and Tasmania. (Abel Tasman) (Forfeit: Amerigo Vespucci)

The first President of America was Peyton Randolph, the first President of the Continental Congress. The second was John Hancock, whose name became an American term for a signature. Washington was the first president of the independent United States. (Forfeit: George Washington)

The longest animal in the world is the Bootlace worm. (Forfeit: Blue Whale, Giant Squid, Lion's Mane Jellyfish)

Examples of berries are the banana, tomato, orange, lemon, grapefruit, watermelon, kiwifruit, cucumber, grape, passion fruit, papaya and pomegranate. The only berry fruits that end in "berry" are the gooseberry and the blueberry. (Forfeit: Blackberry, Strawberry, Raspberry)

The second actor to portray James Bond was Bob Holness. (Forfeit: Sean Connery, David Niven)

According to Buddha, "a person should wander lonely as a rhinoceros". (Forfeit: Cloud)

No-one goes gathering nuts in May, because hawthorn blooms. (Squirrel Forfeit - Alan, Clive & Phill)

A custard pile is another name for a cock. Cockfighting was Britain's national sport for nearly 2,000 years. Every village in Britain would have a cockpit. The word "cockpit" is derived from the word "cock". (Squirrel Forfeit - Phill)

Aeschylus was killed by a falling tortoise that was dropped by an eagle. (Squirrel Forfeit - Phill)

Robin Hood's tights were the colour Lincoln Graine, a shade of scarlet. In the original "A Gest of Robyn Hode", their clothes were mentioned very frequently.

In the version made by Charles Perrault, Cinderella's slippers were made of squirrel fur; this is itself disputed. (None of the panellists guessed at squirrel fur.)

Pine is a technical example of a softwood. (Forfeit: Balsa Wood)

If you cut an earthworm in two, it becomes two halves of a dead worm. (Forfeit: You Get Two Worms)

[kompressaur]

The largest mountain in the world is Mauna Loa. Mount Kilimanjaro is higher than Mount Everest because it raises straight out of the African plain, whereas Everest is just one mountain on top of lots in the Himalayas. Also, as Kilimanjaro is on the Equator, it is further away from the centre of the Earth as it is an oblate spheroid. (Forfeit: Mount Everest)

Black boxes are orange. They were black until 1955, when people realised that they were never able to find them in a wreckage.

Dolphins are eaten in Genoa.

Scuba diving is illegal off of the coast of Greece, mainly because most of the country's antiquities are underwater

The country with the highest suicide rate is Lithuania. It has 52 suicides per 100,000, which is more than 13 times higher than the United States and 6½ times higher than Britain. (Forfeit: Sweden)

Caravaggio's real name was Michelangelo. He took the name Caravaggio, because his father, Fermo Merisi, was the chief architect to the Marchese of Caravaggio. Derek Jarman famously made a film about Caravaggio.

The steam engine was invented by Hero of Alexandria, and was named the aeolipile. The railway was invented seven hundred years earlier by Periander of Corinth. The modern steam engine was invented by Richard Trevithick. When Stephenson's Rocket was introduced, people were concerned that travelling at such high speeds could cause irreparable brain damage, so fences were erected so people wouldn't hallucinate at the "terrible sight".

The twenty-third tallest tree in the world is a Giant sequoia called 'Adam'. It's one of the 30 tallest trees found in the Giant Forest in California.

Krung Thep is the proper name for the capital of Thailand. Krung Thep roughly translates as 'City of Angels', like Los Angeles. The ceremonial full name for Krung Thep is the longest place name in the world. Los Angeles is also an abbreviation. Only ignorant foreigners call Krung Thep, "Bangkok", a name that hasn't been used in Thailand for 200 years. (Forfeit: Bangkok)

Brides do not walk down the aisle of a church; they walk down the central passageway. The aisle is down the side of the church.

The earliest known soup is made from hippopotamus.

No man-made objects can be seen from the Moon with the naked eye. Even the continents are hard to make out as well. (Forfeit: Great Wall of China)

In Greek mythology, Atlas was punished by Zeus and was forced to carry the sky. He is often pictured carrying the globe in atlases made by the Flemish cartographer Mercator, that became known as "Mercator's Atlas" and the name stuck along with the image. (Forfeit: The World)

Over fifty percent of the world's oxygen is provided by algae. It's believed that up to ninety percent might be supplied by it. Mature trees actually give off less oxygen then they produce. (Forfeit: Trees)
The driest place on Earth is the Dry Valleys Region of Antarctica. Even though Antarctica is virtually all ice and snow, the Dry Valleys Region has no ice or snow and hasn't seen any rain for 2 million years. The second driest place is the Atacama Desert in Chile, which hasn't seen rain in 400 years. (Forfeit: Sahara Desert)

The length of a day is not exactly 24 hours. The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service is responsible for adding on occasional leap seconds.

King Henry VIII technically had either three or four wives, depending on the source. His marriage to Anne of Cleves was annulled, the Pope declared his marriage with Anne Boleyn to be void as he was still married to Catherine of Aragon, and the marriage to Catherine of Aragon was declared void by Henry himself (as the new head of the Church of England) as it was illegal to marry the widow of one's brother (Catherine had previously been married to Henry's older brother Arthur). After his death, while being moved to Westminster Abbey, the king's body swelled in the heat and exploded. (Forfeit: Six)

The word silver rhymes with the English word 'chilver', which is an ewe lamb. (Forfeit: Nothing)

All diamonds are created beneath the Earth's surface, and brought to the surface in volcanoes. Only 20 countries in the world make diamonds. South Africa is the fifth biggest behind Australia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Botswana and Russia. Diamonds and graphite are both made of pure carbon, but appear at opposite ends of the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Diamond has a score of ten, while graphite's score is around 1.2. (Forfeit: South Africa)

When travelling through sodium at -270 degrees, light slows to 38 miles per hour. The speed of light is only constant in a vacuum at 186,000 miles per second. Going through diamonds, the speed of light is only 80,000 miles per second.

A chameleon changes colour depending on its mood, temperature and emotions like fear. Their eyes can swivel independently, and it was once believed that they lived on air. (Forfeit: Background)

A centipede has between 30 and 382 legs. None has ever been found with 100 legs. It always has an odd number of pairs of legs. The only exception to this is one found in 1999, which has 48 pairs of legs, the nearest to 100 that has been discovered so far.

In 1994, 35,000 Americans insured themselves against alien abduction.

Purple rhymes with 'hirple' and 'curple'. (Forfeit: Nothing)

The Goliath frog of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea (the largest frog in the world) is mute. Out of the 4,360 known species of frog, the only frog to go "ribbit" is the Pacific Tree Frog, the species native to Hollywood and thus sampled for use on hundreds of movie soundtracks. (Forfeit: Ribbit)

An acre is 40 poles long and 4 poles wide. (Forfeit: The Polish Army)

The Chicago World's Fair in 1933 was opened by light from Arcturus, the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere

The colour of water is blue. (Forfeit: Colourless)

More people have been killed by ducks than by atomic bombs, as they were responsible for the 1918 outbreak of the Spanish flu.

No animals bury their head in the sand. If ostriches buried their heads in the sand, they would suffocate like anyone else. This myth was created by Pliny the Elder. (Forfeit: Ostrich)

Rubber boots were invented by Amazonian Indians, who stand knee-deep in liquid latex until it dries up. (Forfeit: The Duke of Wellington).

Fingernails and hair do not grow after you die. The skin tightens causing an illusion of growth.

Bananas come from a herb. The "tree" doesn't have a woody stem. The banana fruit is technically a berry. (Forfeit: Trees)

A lili is the offspring of a liger and lion, and a titi is the offspring of a tigon and a tiger. They of course have only been bred in captivity because lions are from Africa and tigers are from Asia, so they won't have encountered each other in the wild.

The phrase "Survival of the fittest" was coined by Herbert Spencer, inventor of the paper clip. Darwin adapted it for the "Origin of Species. Norwegians believe that the paper clip is a Norwegian invention by Johan Vaaler in 1899. Spencer had patented his design for paper clips almost 30 years before Vaaler in the 1860s, but his supplier went bankrupt and he became ill for 20 years of his life and never followed it up. Today more than 11 billion paperclips are sold annually, but a recent survey claimed that out of every 100,000 sold, only one in five are actually used to hold papers together. The rest are used as poker chips, pipe cleaners, safety pins and toothpicks. (Forfeit: Charles Darwin)

The first man to circumnavigate the globe was Juan Sebastián Elcano. Magellan was killed in the Philippines halfway round. His ship was the first to. (Forfeit: Magellan)

The helicopter was invented by the Chinese in the 4th century, more than a 1,000 years before Leonardo da Vinci. It was called the "Bamboo Dragonfly" and could fly 25 feet (7.6 m) up and down. The first modern helicopter was invented by the French. (Forfeit: Italian)

Nothing happens if you suck your pencil, as it is made out of graphite, which is the crystallised form of carbon. (Forfeit: Lead Poisoning)

The largest living thing on the Earth is the honey mushroom. (Forfeit: Blue Whale, Giant Redwood)

The first man to claim that the Earth revolves around the Sun was Aristarchus. (Forfeit: Copernicus)

The African animal which kills more humans than any other is the hippopotamus, other than other humans. A hippo's skin weighs a ton, is an inch-and-a-half thick and is bulletproof. The whole hippo weighs 4 tons. A hippopotamus breath is so bad, they use it as part of their weaponry. George Washington had hippopotamus false teeth.

The telephone was invented by Antonio Meucci

Christmas Island includes places called Paris, London, Poland and Banana.

The youngest age that a child can drink alcohol in a pub, restaurant or beer garden in the UK is 5 years old, as long as an adult buys the drink. (Forfeit: Eighteen)

Santa Claus comes from Turkey. (Forfeit: Lapland)

The image of Santa Claus was originally noted in the 1823 poem Twas The Night Before Christmas

Ill add some more later. theyre a bugger to copy and paste. Be handy getting a much as i can.MAYBE I should just buy the book.

[madaxeman]

I knew all of them Komp, you knew that anyway of course. Keep trying.