Rudiments of knowledge

On sharing trivia

A week or so ago I found myself waiting in line to order a couple of overpriced beers — IPA for me, wheat beer for the lady — and the bartender was having trouble uncorking a bottle of something sparkling. The gallant gentleman who had ordered the bottle for himself and his companion offered to help the teenager at the bar to pop the bottle.

“Do you know what they call this little metal thing here?” he asked, pointing at the wire cage holding the cork in place.

The bartender shrugged.

“A muselet. It’s French,” the man shared, adding that there’s probably no word in Lithuanian for that.

It took him a moment to get the bottle opened, and as I was thinking of etymology, trying to figure out whether the word “muzzle” is of the same root (it is), I finally had my beer poured.

***

I find the idea of bar trivia nights daunting, mostly because of the logistics involved in actually assembling a team and making sure everyone show up. Despite that, I casually watch trivia shows like Jeopardy and University Challenge. I’ve even been to one broadcast on Lithuanian national TV a couple of times.

Here, they tend to call these game shows “intellectual games”. I think it’s a bit of misnomer, as I don’t feel more or less intellectual for not knowing that the Greek name for cucumber means “unripe”. Coincidentally, that’s the question that led to my elimination in one of those televised displays of random fact knowledge.

As a kid, I vividly remember a special edition of one of the popular gameshows. It might have been the local version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, but I might be mistaken. In our neck of the woods, producers like to shake the conventional model up with unconventional line-ups. Sometimes it’s celebrities, sometimes it’s firefighters. That particular time it was homeless people. How can a person who correctly answers “What’s the capital of Malaysia?” be homeless, I thought to myself back then. Wasn’t the point of being smart to get rewarded for your smarts?

***

There is this one scene in BBC’s Poirot, where the famed detective’s less sharp sidekick captain Hastings tries to share an interesting tidbit with other diners. He tells them how Mesopotamia was called that way because in Greek “meso” means “between” and “potamus” means rivers (or horses, Hastings wasn’t 100% sure which). So the land between two rivers, you see. The only problem, of course, was that he was sharing those musings a) in the heart of Mesopotamia b) to a group of archaeologists well familiar with the subject.

If this were LinkedIn, I’d probably try and drop some truths about “choosing your message” and “knowing your audience” but thankfully we’re in more polite company. Instead, I’ll share the scene with you for your own amusement and entertainment. If you end up watching all seasons after that, it’s all for the better.

***

A few days prior to that I attended a workshop on storytelling. The workshop was great but I couldn’t help but notice how often the lecturer would stop and share a little nugget like:

“The word empathy, at least how we use the term now, actually comes from the German Einfühlung — or feeling into…”

He did this for many words, unpacking concepts, drawing parallels and making connections between different meanings. When it felt like it was adding to the overall point, it was brilliant, but sometimes it felt like a compulsion — a need to show knowledge.

***

These are all disconnected snippets, and I don’t know if there’s much in common between the guy schooling a bartender on champagne culture, the homeless guy on TV, captain Hastings and most professors you came across in university. Other than their use of trivia to earn some kind of currency — money, respect, awe.

Is it a crime? In some cases, for sure. What are the cases then?

a) bestowing trivia on an unconsenting party

b) sharing stuff that everyone already knows (DID YOU KNOW PEANUTS ARE NOT ACTUALLY NUTS?)

c) expecting to be called “smart” and then basking in the glory (I am guilty of this as much as the next guy)

In other cases, sharing trivia should be socially accepted and maybe even encouraged between consenting parties. After all, you never know what they’re going to ask you the next time you get invited to a game show.