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Trivia is
information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...
and
data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpret ...
that are considered to be of little value. It can be contrasted with general knowledge and
common sense ''Common Sense'' is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine collected various moral and political arg ...
.


Latin Etymology

The ancient Romans used the word ''triviae'' to describe where one road split or forked into two roads. Triviae was formed from ''tri'' (three) and ''viae'' (roads) – literally meaning "three roads", and in transferred use "a public place" and hence the meaning "commonplace." The Latin adjective ''triviālis'' in Classical Latin besides its literal meaning could have the meaning "appropriate to the street corner, commonplace, vulgar." In
late Latin Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...
, it could also simply mean "triple." The pertaining adjective ''trivial'' was adopted in Early Modern English, while the noun ''trivium'' only appears in learned usage from the 19th century, in reference to the ''Artes Liberales'' and the plural ''trivia'' in the sense of "trivialities, trifles" only in the 20th century.


Meaning

In
medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...
, the ''trivia'' (singular ''
trivium The trivium is the lower division of the seven liberal arts and comprises grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The trivium is implicit in ''De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii'' ("On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury") by Martianus Capella, but t ...
'') came to refer to the lower division of the ''
Artes Liberales Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the ...
'', namely
grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes doma ...
,
rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate par ...
, and
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from prem ...
. These were the topics of
basic education According to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), basic education comprises the two stages primary education and lower secondary education. Universal basic education Basic education featured heavily in the 1997 ISCED ...
, and were foundational to the '' quadrivia'' of higher education, namely
arithmetic Arithmetic () is an elementary part of mathematics that consists of the study of the properties of the traditional operations on numbers— addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponentiation, and extraction of roots. In the 19th ...
,
geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...
,
music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
, and
astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...
, which were more challenging.


English usage

The adjective ''trivial'' introduced into English in the 15th to 16th century was influenced by all three meanings of the Latin adjective: * A 15th century English translation of
Ranulf Higden Ranulf Higden or Higdon ( – 12 March 1364) was an English chronicler and a Benedictine monk who wrote the ''Polychronicon'', a Late Medieval magnum opus. Higden, who resided at the monastery of St. Werburgh in Chester, is believed to ...
mentions the ''arte trivialle'', referring to the ''trivium'' of the Liberal Arts. * The same work also calls ''a triuialle distinccion'' a threefold division. This is due to an application of the term by
Arnobius Arnobius (died c. 330) was an early Christian apologist of Berber origin during the reign of Diocletian (284–305). According to Jerome's ''Chronicle,'' Arnobius, before his conversion, was a distinguished Numidian rhetorician at Sicca Ve ...
, and was never common either in Latin or English. * The meaning "trite, commonplace, unimportant, slight" occurs from the late 16th century, notably in the works of
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
. ''Trivia'' was used as a title by Logan Pearsall Smith in 1902, followed by ''More Trivia'' and ''All Trivia'' in 1921 and 1933, respectively, collections of short "moral pieces" or aphorisms. Book II of the 1902 publication is headed with a quote from "Gay's ''Trivia, or New Art of Walking Streets of London.''", : "Thou, Trivia, goddess, aid my song: Through spacious streets conduct thy bard along."


Modern usage

''Trivialities, bits of information of little consequence'' was the title of a popular book by British aphorist Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946), first published in 1902 but popularized in 1918 (with ''More Trivia'' following in 1921 and a collected edition including both in 1933). It consisted of short essays often tied to observation of small things and commonplace moments. ''Trivia'' is the plural of ''trivium'', "a public place." The adjectival form of this, ''trivialis'', was hence translated by Smith as "commonplace."Trivia
, Online Etymology Dictionary
In the 1918 version of his book ''Trivia'', Smith wrote:
I KNOW too much; I have stuffed too many of the facts of History and Science into my intellectuals. My eyes have grown dim over books; believing in geological periods, cave dwellers, Chinese Dynasties, and the fixed stars has prematurely aged me.
In the 1960s, nostalgic college students and others began to informally trade questions and answers about the popular culture of their youth. The first known documented labeling of this casual parlor game as "Trivia" was in a ''
Columbia Daily Spectator The ''Columbia Daily Spectator'' (known colloquially as the ''Spec'') is the student newspaper of Columbia University. Founded in 1877, it is the oldest continuously operating college news daily in the nation after '' The Harvard Crimson'', and ha ...
'' column published on February 5, 1965. The author, Ed Goodgold, then started the first organized "trivia contests" with the help of Dan Carlinsky. Ed and Dan wrote the book ''Trivia'' (Dell, 1966), which achieved a ranking on the New York Times best-seller list; the book was an extension of the pair's Columbia contests and was followed by other Goodgold and Carlinsky trivia titles. In their second book, ''More Trivial Trivia'', the authors criticized practitioners who were "indiscriminate enough to confuse the flower of trivia with the weed of minutiae"; Trivia, they wrote, "is concerned with tugging at heartstrings," while minutiae deals with such unevocative questions as "Which state is the largest consumer of Jell-O?" But over the years the word has come to refer to obscure and arcane bits of dry knowledge as well as nostalgic remembrances of pop culture. The board game ''
Trivial Pursuit ''Trivial Pursuit'' is a board game in which winning is determined by a player's ability to answer trivia and popular culture questions. Players move their pieces around a board, the squares they land on determining the subject of a question ...
'' was released in 1982 and was a craze in the U.S. for several years thereafter.


Organized competition

The largest current trivia contest is held in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, at the
University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point The University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point (UW–Stevens Point or UWSP) is a public university in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. It is part of the University of Wisconsin System and grants associate, baccalaureate, and master's degrees, as well ...
's
college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...
radio station WWSP 89.9 FM. This is a student-run community station with 30,000 watts of power and about a radius, and the contest serves as a fund raiser for the station. The contest is open to anyone, and it is played in April of each year spanning 54 hours over a weekend with eight questions each hour. There are usually 400 teams ranging from 1 to 150 players. The top ten teams are awarded trophies. As of 2022, the contest is in its 52nd year. The dates for Trivia 52: The Stacked Deck, are April 8-10, 2022. The two longest continuous trivia contests in the world are the
Great Midwest Trivia Contest The Great Midwest Trivia Contest, or Midwest Trivia Contest, is held once a year in Appleton, Wisconsin, broadcast over Twitch. It has a claim as the longest-running college bowl trivia contest. From 2006 to 2020, the contest was livestreamed by ...
at
Lawrence University Lawrence University is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Appleton, Wisconsin. Founded in 1847, its first classes were held on November 12, 1849. Lawrence was the second college in the U.S. to be founded as a coeduca ...
and the Williams Trivia Contest, which both debuted in the spring of 1966. Lawrence hosts its contest annually. Unusually, Williams has a separate contest for each semester, and thus its 84th game took place in May 2008. The
University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...
br>Trivia Bowl
was a mostly student contest featuring a single-elimination tournament based on the GE College Bowl. Many of the best trivia players in America trace participation through this tournament including many ''
Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given genera ...
'' and '' Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' contestants. In recent years, the event has been conducted in a round robin competition format and operated as a regional qualifier for T.R.A.S.H. (Testing Recall About Strange Happenings). Today, many bars and restaurants host weekly trivia nights in an effort to draw in more patrons, especially during weeknights.


See also

* Factoid *
Pub quiz A pub quiz is a quiz held in a pub or bar. These events are also called quiz nights, trivia nights, or bar trivia and may be held in other settings. Pub quizzes may attract customers to a pub who are not found there on other days. The pub quiz is ...
* Triviality (mathematics) *
Trivial Pursuit ''Trivial Pursuit'' is a board game in which winning is determined by a player's ability to answer trivia and popular culture questions. Players move their pieces around a board, the squares they land on determining the subject of a question ...


References

{{reflist hi:सामान्य ज्ञान sv:Trivium (utbildning)