Latest answers

Latest answers

Saturday, February 9, 2008

36. Somewhere near Darjeeling...

One of the theories about the origin of this term reads thus:

It began when Mr Henry Newman, a longtime contributor to The Statesman in Calcutta (using the pen name "Kim") interviewed a group of porters upon their return to Darjeeling. Newman mistranslated the word "metoh" as "filthy" or "dirty", and substituted the term ________, perhaps out of artistic license and then deeming the whole story to be such a joyous creation, he sent it to one or two newspapers.

What term did Henry Newman thus give birth to?

Friday, February 8, 2008

35. American Rimbaud

He was an American Beat poet and surrealist inspired by jazz music. In France, where his poetry had a large following, he was known as the "American Rimbaud."
He said of his own work, "My head is a bony guitar, strung with tongues, plucked by fingers & nails.“

After learning of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he took a Buddhist vow of silence that lasted until the end of the Vietnam War in 1973. He broke his silence by reciting his poem "All Those Ships that Never Sailed," the first lines of which are

All those ships that never sailed
The ones with their seacocks open
That were scuttled in their stalls...
Today I bring them back
Huge and transitory
And let them sail
Forever

Which great poet?

Thursday, February 7, 2008

34. Bologna to Rome!

This journey shown was detailed by Stendhal on the back of a playing card while speaking to Madame Gherardi, during his trip to the Salzburg salt mine. What is the journey all about?

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Like father, like daughter!

These two elements in the periodic table are named after father and daughter pair. X (daughter) was discovered by Charles Hatchett in 1801. Hatchett found X in the columbite ore that was sent to England in the 1750s by John Winthrop, the first governor of Connecticut and named it columbium. There was a considerable amount of confusion about the difference between the closely-related X and Y (father) that wasn't resolved until 1846 by Heinrich Rose and Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac, who rediscovered the element. Since Rose was unaware of Hatchett's work, he gave the element a different name X.

Identify the two elements.