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The term trivia is widely used to refer to tidbits of unimportant ( trivial) information, but it can also mean general knowledge. Generally, the latter definition prevails when people "play trivia."
The trivia subculture began to spread from radio and TV quiz shows. In 1974, a former Sacramento air traffic controller named Fred L. Worth saw the publication of "The Trivia Encyclopedia," which he followed in 1977 with "The Complete Unabridged Super Trivia Encyclopedia" and in 1981 with "Super Trivia, vol. II." The popularity of these books (one appears as a prop in movie Almost Famous) laid the groundwork for the first edition of Trivial Pursuit in the early 1980s.
The enormous success of this game led to the re-launch of Jeopardy, reviving a quiz show genre that had been dormant since the scandal of the 1950s. In the 1990s, ABC had a suprise hit with Who Wants to be a Millionaire, which launched another wave of interest in trivia.
In addition to the mass media trivia, there has also been two entrenched trivia subcultures.
One is the pub quiz phenomenon, which is especially prevalent in Great Britain and in select US cities, particularly in pubs that serve a large Irish-American community. (The US pub quiz scene is crimped by the popularity of NTN , a satellite-based game.)
The other subculture is the quiz bowl format found in high schools and universities in the US; the Canadian equivalent is competition geared toward Reach for the Top, among high schools, whereas Canadian universities are being to participate in US quiz bowl leagues.
A number of theories have been put forward as to the etymology of the word "trivia."
One variation dates to early Latin, from the prefix tri-, "three," and via, "road." Trivium thus meant "the meeting place of three roads, especially as a place of public resort." In the Roman empire, a trivium would often have a tavern (Latin: taverna).
In Roman times, such a place was viewed as common and vulgar, in the sense that we express in the phrase the gutter, as in "His manners were formed in the gutter." The Latin adjective triviālis, derived from trivium, thus meant "appropriate to the street corner, commonplace, vulgar."
The first known usage of the word "trivial" in Modern English is from 1589Events Rebellion of the Catholic League against King Henry III of France, in revenge for his murder of Duke Henry of Guise. They proclaim the deposition of the King, and acclaim the imprisoned Cardinal de Bourbon as the rightful King of France, calling hi; it was used with a sense identical to that of triviālis. Shortly after that trivial is recorded in the sense most familiar to us: "of little importance or significance." Gradually, the word trivia came to be applied for any information that is of fleeting importance and of general interest.
Another, slightly different use of trivium may be more directly related to the modern meaning of the word, the earliest known use of which in English is in a work from 1432Events June 1 Battle of San Romano Florence defeats Siena foundation of Universite de Caen In the end of the Hook and Cod wars, Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut and Holland is forced by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, to abdicate all her estates in his- 1450Events March French troops under Guy de Richemont besiege the English commander in France, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, in Caen April 15 Battle of Formigny. French troops under the Comte de Clermont defeat an English army under Sir Thomas Kyriel and. This work mentions the "arte trivialle," an reference to the three liberal arts that made up the the first three subjects taught in medieval universitiesA university is an institution of higher education and of research, which grants academic degrees. A university provides both tertiary and quaternary education. University is derived from the Latin universitas meaning corporation since the first medieval, namely grammarThis article is about grammar from a linguistic perspective. For English grammar rules see English writing style According to the structuralist point of view, grammar is the study of the rules governing the use of a language. That set of rules is also cal, rhetoricRhetoric (from Greek ρητωρ, rhetor "orator") is one of the three original liberal arts or trivium (the other members are dialectic and grammar). While it has meant many different things during its 2500-year history, it is generally d, and logicIn ordinary language, logic is the reasoning used to reach a conclusion from a set of assumptions. More formally, logic is the study of inference—the process whereby new assertions are produced from already established ones. As such, of particular concern. The remaining four liberal arts of the quadrivium, namely arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, were more challenging. Hence, trivial in this sense would have been "of interest only to an undergraduate".
See list of trivia lists for typical topics and areas. In respect to Roman mythology, see Trivia (Roman mythology).