Within the Nineteen Sixties, the authors of one of many world’s first in style compendiums of enjoyable and fascinating info urged readers to not mistake the “flower of Trivia” for the “weed of trivialities.” Trivia stimulates the thoughts, Edwin Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky wrote in Extra Trivial Trivia; trivialities stymie it.
Fortunately, The Atlantic’s backyard bursts with the previous and is sort of solely missing within the latter, and on this new challenge of each day quizzes, I get to share a bunch of that trivia with you, curious readers. So set down the Snapple cap and cease to scent the blooms—is that geranium?—with questions from lately revealed tales.
To get these questions in your inbox on daily basis, join The Atlantic Every day.
Monday, September 29, 2025
From the version of The Atlantic Every day written by Tom Nichols:
-
What worldwide sporting occasion occurred final weekend in New York, after occurring most lately two years in the past in Italy … and earlier than that in Wisconsin … and earlier than that in France (after Minnesota, after Scotland, after Illinois, and so on.)?
— From Sally Jenkins’s “Golf’s Very Loud Weekend” -
In accordance with many commentators on the fitting, when progressives penalize wrongdoing, it’s “cancel tradition”; when conservatives do it, it’s merely what different double-c phrase suggestive of an motion’s inevitable repercussions?
— From Idrees Kahloon’s “Intolerant America, MAGA Version” -
Dealing as a lot with loss and grief as with bodily monstrosity, what Victorian epistolary novel was referred to by its younger writer as her “hideous progeny”?
— From Jon Michael Varese’s “ChatGPT Resurrected My Lifeless Father”
And, by the way in which, do you know that Transnistria, the Russia-aligned breakaway area of Moldova, is the one place on the earth that circulates plastic forex? A pal visited lately (don’t ask) and returned with a few of these “cash,” that are neither exchangeable again into different currencies nor accepted wherever else on Earth, besides—and solely typically—by a couple of cross-border-bus operators again in Moldova correct. They do, nevertheless, make wonderful bingo chips.
Till tomorrow!
Solutions:
-
The Ryder Cup. Sally writes that the biennial contest between U.S. and European golfers is a loud affair even at its civilest and was certain to be notably raucous when you packed in a whole lot of hundreds of born hecklers from throughout New York’s boroughs and past. Learn extra.
-
“Consequence tradition.” That is, for what it’s value, additionally what quite a lot of progressives name it once they themselves are doing it. Idrees worries that the self-excusing and hypocrisy is kicking off a spiral from which America will wrestle to extricate itself. Learn extra.
-
Frankenstein. The echoes of Mary Shelley’s novel bounce crystal-clear by all of the cases Varese relates of grieving folks making an attempt to resurrect misplaced family members by AI—a gaggle that features the author himself. Learn extra.
How did you do? Come again tomorrow for extra questions. And if you happen to suppose up an amazing one after studying an Atlantic story—or just need to share a stimulating truth—ship it my method at (electronic mail protected).
