Skeleton Trivia for Tuesday, 2025-06-17
Too many ’postrophes
Hiya Skeleton Crew,
It’s been brought to my attention that maybe usin’ all these apostrophes whenever I write a gerund or when I write the words “’n’” ’n’ “a’” can make readin’ my emails a li’l tricky! I never thought a’ that. So here’s a poll for youse guys:
More generally, if ya ever got any feedback for me, just send it on over to mandible@maxil.la!
Answers to Last Time
The lefternmost group a’ the periodic table is called the alkali metals, not to be confused with the Group II elements that’re a.k.a. the alkaline earth metals.
It was trinitrotoluene (TNT to its friends) that was invented in 1863 an’ spent the first few decades of its life as a yellow dye.
Today’s Trivias
Trivia 1
Chemistry! What a topic!!
Lemme tell ya, I ain’t exactly a mega science-minded fella—I usually let my pals Milo ’n’ Jen deal with that sorta stuff—but I do love me a periodic table. I dunno why, maybe it reminds me a’ the bygone days I spent in the alchemy lab.
Although it was ol’ Dmitry Mendeleev who wrote the first chemistry periodic table in 1869, can ya tell me what Italian writer wrote Il sistema periodico, the 1975 short story collection that was named “the best science book ever” by the Royal Institution of Great Britain? This author’s best-known work, Se questo è un uomo, was published as Survival in Auschwitz in the U.S.
Trivia 2
Some a’ the other books on the Royal Institution’s shortlist for “Best Science Books Ever” were:
Arcadia, the play by Tom Stoppard
The Selfish Gene, the popular science book by Richard Dawkins
King Solomon’s Ring by Konrad Lorenz
Those first two are pretty famous, but I kinda wonder how many people have heard a’ that last one. Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell ya what King Solomon’s Ring is about ... for now I’ll just say it gets its title from the legendary Seal a’ Solomon in the Bible, which supposedly gave ol’ Sal what extraordinary power? It’s a power that ya might associate more closely a character created by Newbery Medal-winning author Hugh Lofting.
OK then
Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee