trivia

Thetrivia(singulartrivium) are three lowerArtes Liberales, i.e.grammar,logicandrhetoric. These were the topics ofbasic education, foundational to thequadriviaof higher education, and hence the material of basic education and an important building block for all undergraduates. The word trivia was also used to describe a place where three roads met in Ancient Rome. While the term is now obsolescent, in ancient times, it was appropriated to mean something very new.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 aColumbia Daily Spectatorcolumn published on February5, 1965.[1]The authors, Ed Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky, then started the first organized trivia contests, described below. Since the 1960s, the pluraltriviain particular has widened to include nonessential, specifically detailed knowledge on topics ofpopular culture. The expression has also come to suggest information of the kind useful almost exclusively for answeringquizquestions, hence the brand nameTrivial Pursuit(1982).The Latin neuter nountrivium(pluraltrivia) is fromtri-"triple" andvia"way", meaning "a place where three ways meet". The pertaining adjective istrivilis. The adjectivetrivialwas adopted inEarly Modern English, while the nountriviumonly appears in learned usage from the 19th century, in reference to theArtes Liberalesand the pluraltriviain the sense of "trivialities, trifles" only in the 20th century. The Latin adjectivetrivilisin Classical Latin besides its literal meaning could have the meaning "appropriate to the street corner, commonplace, vulgar." Inlate Latin, it could also simply mean "triple". Inmedieval Latin, it came to refer to the lower division of theArtes Liberales, namelygrammar,rhetoric, andlogic. (The other four Liberal Arts were thequadrivium, namelyarithmetic,geometry,music, andastronomy, which were more challenging.) Hence,trivialin this sense would have meant "of interest only to an undergraduate".The adjectivetrivialintroduced into English in the 15th to 16th century was influenced by all three meanings of the Latin adjective: A 15th century English translation ofRanulf Higdonmentions thearte trivialle, referring to thetriviumof the Liberal Arts.[2] the same work also callsa triuialle distincciona threefold division. This is due to an application of the term byArnobius, and was never common either in Latin or English.[3] the meaning "trite, commonplace, unimportant, slight" occurs from the late 16th century, notably in the works ofShakespeare.[4]Triviawas used as a title byLogan Pearsall Smithin 1902,[5]followed byMore TriviaandAll Triviain 1921 and 1933, respectively, collections of short "moral pieces" or aphorisms. Book II of the 1902 publication is headed with a purported quote from "Gay'sTrivia, or New Art of Walking Streets of London.","Thou, Trivia, goddess, aid my song: Through spacious streets conduct thy bard along."