Errors and Corrections in The Cultural Literacy Trivia Guide-4th Edition

[cf1140]

The purpose of this thread is to list the errors in The Cultural Literacy Trivia Guide-4th Edition

Page 29 Art & Artists: "Hogarth, William (American)" should be "Hogarth, William (English)"

Page 65 Civil War: "Union general who was Buchanan's V.P....John C Breckinridge" should be "Confederate general who was Buchanan's V.P....John C Breckinridge"

Page 142 Literature: "Taos, New Mexico author...E.M. Forster" should be "Taos, New Mexico author...D.H. Lawrence"

I'll add others later and I welcome others' submissions...

[goatman]

Buy the 5th Edition, many of these have been addressed and a lot of new material has been added! Well worth the measly 20 bucks!!!

My biggest peeve was under "Women" Jocelyn Elders was incorrectly listed as first woman Surgeon General, she was the first black woman SG, Antonia Novella was the first Woman SG and the first Hispanic SG back in the 80's. Clearly a brain-fart but yes, the authors missed quite a few of these errata.

BTW Elders was a real embarrassment with her outrageous extreme liberal ideology and unscientific and even unsound medical practices, including radical opinions about legalizing street drugs. She was censured by Clinton and left under a cloud. Dr Novello, in contrast, was a very effective and caring physician, she made inroads into child health and safety, public health and preventive medicine, e.g.; reversing the US tobacco abuse trend.

A less egregious omission is found in "Revolutionary War" section; "Federalist Papers Author" should read Authors and credit James Madison and John Jay as well as Alexander Hamilton!

In the medicine section is a typo error which is confusing, pernicious anemia is caused by vitamin B12 deficiency but B12 is cobalamine, NOT folate; B9 is folate, which is incorrectly listed in 5th Ed as B12! Even more confusing, folate deficiency also causes a milder form of anemia.

New version is improved, although these particular errors persist. 5th Ed is titled "Game Show Trivia." It's the same series though. Several new sections! Animal groups is a welcome addition, although detailed skinny on these is found in several places online. Know your dazzles, zeals, crashes, pods, towns, murders, obstinacies and implausibilities, please!! These guides are indispensable tools, this stuff fades quickly and you have to constantly refresh. I annotate my copies and add more material as it comes up on J!. I have read them all cover to cover and the wife quizzes me on this stuff. Pop culture and music are the hardest for me, being a little fossilized... I pick up more on every pass through. These clues also appear on WWTBAM and 500 Q's.

Good catch on DH Lawrence and EM Forster about Taos, NM, also home to Georgia O'Keefe. DH Lawrence Ranch, which he acquired in exchange for the manuscript Sons and Lovers (pre-call FJ!), is still there! A landmark known as "The Lawrence Tree" was painted by O'Keefe on a visit. Aldous Huxley also visited him and stayed there awhile. Forster was a close friend and corresponded with Lawrence from England, but it's unclear whether he ever visited. Folks went to NM to recover from consumption (TB).

[Bamaman]

Novello was not Surgeon General in the 1980s. She took office in 1990.

[goatman]

Novello was not Surgeon General in the 1980s. She took office in 1990.

Yep another typo by goats, lol "90's". Point is this clue has been given often, and if you memorized only this reference, you're wrong.

[MinnesotaMyron]

Weirdly, the section on Shakespeare does not include all his plays. Measure for Measure and Much Ado about Nothing, for instance, do not appear. There may be others; I'll check later.

[goatman]

Weirdly, the section on Shakespeare does not include all his plays. Measure for Measure and Much Ado about Nothing, for instance, do not appear. There may be others; I'll check later.

Yes some parts are quite sketchy. For example, 12th Night contains only 2 characters and none of the principals, it's odd. You can read these plays yourself!!

[cinemaniax7]

Just imagine how many notes and corrections I've had to make in my first-edition copy!

[ElendilPickle]

Good catch on DH Lawrence and EM Forster about Taos, NM, also home to Georgia O'Keefe.]

Oooh, sorry. Though Georgia O'Keeffe spent time in Taos, she is better known for the many years she lived near Abiquiu.

[OSXpert]

I have the 5th Edition and under famous authors it lists:

Diary of Anne Frank, The.....................Anne Frank


Obviously, this is not incorrect, but...

[opusthepenguin]

I have the 5th Edition and under famous authors it lists:

Diary of Anne Frank, The.....................Anne Frank


Obviously, this is not incorrect, but...

Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, The.....................Gertrude Stein

You never know, you know?

[Magna]

I'm waiting for some smart aleck to start listing fake corrections. E.g., "Israel's Prime Minister from 1969 to 1974 was Golda Meir, not Goldie Hawn" and "President Truman was not impeached for cannibalism."

[teapot37]

I'm waiting for some smart aleck to start listing fake corrections. E.g., "Israel's Prime Minister from 1969 to 1974 was Golda Meir, not Goldie Hawn" and "President Truman was not impeached for cannibalism."

The London Underground was not a political movement!

[bpmod]

The London Underground was not a political movement!

Weren't they on Hogan's Heroes?

Brian

[goatman]

Good catch on DH Lawrence and EM Forster about Taos, NM, also home to Georgia O'Keefe.]

Oooh, sorry. Though Georgia O'Keeffe spent time in Taos, she is better known for the many years she lived near Abiquiu.

O-O, tyvm ElPi! Another fact that goats almost knew: Ghost Ranch...

[Winchell Factor]

Prompted by this thread, I shelled out the price for a 5th ed., to replace my heavily corrected, annotated, dogeared (and misplaced--temporarily, I hope) 4th ed.

To spot check, I turned to the page on royalty. It's a train wreck. I can understand that Salman succeeded his brother Abdulllah as King of Saudi Arabia after this edition went to press, but there's just no excuse for listing Faud (who died in 2005) as the current King. Nor for listing Rainier, who also died in 2005, as the current Prince of Monaco. There are other errors on that list, too.

I'm not very optimistic that 5th edition will be an improvement over the 4th. I hope I turn out to be wrong. But at the moment, my advice about this book stays the same: it's a helpful aggregator of information, sorted into categories, but if you think something might be wrong, there's a good chance it is. Check it against other sources.

[goatman]

Ferrill is not a principal reference, it's a memory jogging tool. Be sure the darn clues are the right ones; considering he's got about 15K items listed now, it's a darned useful tool. I go through mine and cross-check. TYVM for the royalty reality check, I'll double-check those. Many parts of the book are not organized in a very useful way IMHO, e.g., the "AKA" section is a list of famous or notorious persons alphabetically by their real, birth or given names, which is utterly useless if you don't know it! For instance; you want to look up Marilyn but can't recall WTH was her real name?! DOH! If you can't remember Norma Jean Baker (Mortensen) then you must resort to tediously searching the list. The Oscar lists are also mind-numbing. I try to eat those in small doses. Over and over. LOL

One of these days I'll buckle down, sort through my 200 notebooks and collate the recurring clues. We need a section on PC & internet lingo and phrases.
First and last lines, chapters of classics and characters would be super helpful. Ferrill's book is a starting point, not the end-all be-all by any means!
Time to write a better book!!

[MarkBarrett]

I'll put it in this thread. If anyone ever comes across more information about Chuck Forrest and Mark Lowenthal following through on their threat to update their book please share.

Dumb question: How do I know which earlier edition I have of the Ferrill book? Do the 2nd, 3rd and 4th all have that marking on the cover therefore mine is the 1st? Or I should look for something inside?

[Bamaman]

Why do they even put out a print version of this? I can find out most of that stuff on Wikipedia for free. Why would I buy a book that is seemingly full of errors.

[MinnesotaMyron]

Dumb question: How do I know which earlier edition I have of the Ferrill book? Do the 2nd, 3rd and 4th all have that marking on the cover therefore mine is the 1st? Or I should look for something inside?

4th says so on the cover, 5th is called "Game Show Trivia" (and also says 5th). I've never seen the 3rd edition. I'm not sure if the 2001 edition is the 1st or second (I think first.)

[MarkBarrett]

Dumb question: How do I know which earlier edition I have of the Ferrill book? Do the 2nd, 3rd and 4th all have that marking on the cover therefore mine is the 1st? Or I should look for something inside?

4th says so on the cover, 5th is called "Game Show Trivia" (and also says 5th). I've never seen the 3rd edition. I'm not sure if the 2001 edition is the 1st or second (I think first.)

My copy has 2000 inside and the dedication is:

For Sara Jean and Seth Joseph the great joys in my life.

The editors are Linda Clark and Jeanne Gibbons