Multiple Choice (of 4)

Correct reesapo bndeeer should ask the NEXT>

"Who wrote the play that Abraham Lincoln
was watching when he was assassinated?

1. William Shakespeare

2. Louis Bromfield

3. George Bernarrd Shaw

4. Tom Taylor

>1 rolandperkins: Wrong group, perhaps? Not sure what this is about.

"Wrong group perhaps?" (2)

The menu says that the group is "Book Talk". But I
don't know how to get it to appear in that group's menu.

>1 rolandperkins:

Correct reesapo bndeeer should ask the NEXT>

What does that even mean?

Was this supposed to be in one of the game groups?

Tom Taylor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_American_Cousin

"Tom Taylor" ( 1>5)

Correct. Please set the "NEXT".

>6 rolandperkins: Sorry, I'm still very confused. What does "reesapo bndeeer" even mean? This does look like a post meant for a game group, but I have no idea what's meant by "Please see the 'NEXT'.

Oh, "See the "NEXT" is short for "See the next question".

"Reesapo bndeeer" somehow got onto the screen when what was
intended was "responder". Is a great typist like me really
capable of writing "reesapo bndeeer" for "responder", or is my
Spellcheck just playing tricks on me again?

>8 rolandperkins:

But where did you mean to post this? It looks as though you were trying to put this in an existing game thread.

The correct answer to this (Tom Taylor) appears on another

of "Book Talk", but not on the currently "top" one. But this is
the Current One, according to the current timing.
That there's two threads is probably my fault, so my apologies.
But the question does have an answer.

All of the above.

"All of the above" -- ??!

THe question of this thread is:

Who wrote the play that Abraham Lincoln was watching
when he was assassinated?
1. William Shakespeare
2. Louis Bromfield
3. George Bernard Shaw
4. Tom Taylor

THe correct answer (4): Tom Taylor was given
by @Crypto Willobie (5), who should set the
next question.

Next question:

Who wrote All of the Above?

1. Me
2. You
3. Tom Taylor
4. He who smelt it

I'd say "You" (2). But from your point
of view, it should be "Me" (1) !

Hope it's OK to jump the line.

Which novelist wondered the following:

"With what greater latitude, then, should we appraise the exact shade of mere mortal man, with his many passions and his miserable ingenuity in error, always dazzled by the base glitter of mixed motives, everlastingly betrayed by a short-sighted wisdom."

A) Tolstoy
B) Conrad
C) Malraux
D) Dostoevksy

>15 rocketjk: I choose C (Malraux) because it seems awfully like something Either A or D might have written, and I'm not familiar with Conrad's style enough to say if it might have been him. If it isn't C, then I suggest A. :-}

Sounds more Tolstoyan than Dostoevskian to me. Conradian? --Maybe.
I'll guess (A): Tolstoy

How long do I wait to reveal the correct answer?

Hmm, I didn't think of that. My own opinion would be:
about 1/2 of a day. Good question, b t w; at least 3 options
are definite possibilities.

OK, time's up! The answer is B) Conrad. The quote is from Conrad's novel about Russian revolutionaries, Under Western Eyes. It is a touch below the level of Conrad's greatest works, but I still think it's an under-rated book. Here is the paragraph the quote comes from. I meant to include a longer passage, but realized it constituted a plot spoiler:

This much said, there is no need to tell anything more of that first interview and of the several others. To the morality of a Western reader an account of these meetings would wear perhaps the sinister character of old legendary tales where the Enemy of Mankind is represented holding subtly mendacious dialogues with some tempted soul. It is not my part to protest. Let me but remark that the Evil One, with his single passion of satanic pride for the only motive, is yet, on a larger, modern view, allowed to be not quite so black as he used to be painted. With what greater latitude, then, should we appraise the exact shade of mere mortal man, with his many passions and his miserable ingenuity in error, always dazzled by the base glitter of mixed motives, everlastingly betrayed by a short-sighted wisdom.

If I remember the rules rightly,* you are the one, @rocketjk,
to set the "NEXT".

*And I should--I invented the thread (butmultiple choice is not as
simple as it seems. In this thread it seems to be very
puzzling to several of the members, and I have no idea of how to
simplify (?) it, if that what it needs.

OK. I'll try to come up with something soon.

Sorry for the delay.

Which novelist observed the following:

We make a cage for air with holes, I thought, and man makes a cage for his religion in much the same way, with doubts left open to the weather and creeds opening on innumerable interpretations.

A) Graham Greene
B) Saul Bellow
C) Joan Didion
D) Norman Mailer

I' m guessing (A): Graham Greene.

(I ruled Norman Mailer and Joan Didion out; then ruled
Mailer back in, but thought Bellow and Greene were
more likely -- about equally likely.)

Correct!

Saint Victor Hugo in the uniform of the French Academy with a halo round his tricorn hat pointed at some noble sentiment Sun Yat Sen was inscribing on a tablet, and then I was in the nave. There was nowhere to sit except in the papal chair, round which a plaster cobra coiled; the marble floor glittered like water; and there was no glass in the windows-- We make a cage for air with holes, I thought, and man makes a cage for his religion in much the same way, with doubts left open to the weather and creeds opening on innumerable interpretations. My wife had found her cage with holes, and sometimes I envied her. There is a conflict between sun and air; I lived too much in the sun.

-- The Quiet American by Graham Greene.

"Hugo . .. ; pointed at some noble sentiment Sun Yat Sen
was inscribing . . ."

Quite an interesting quote. I didn't know the dates of either {Sun Yat Sen
or Victor Hugo --that Hugo would ever have heard of Sun.

>26 rolandperkins: "that Hugo would ever have heard of Sun."

I doubt that's what is meant. I think the passage is describing a mural on a temple wall, painted by someone who was creating a tableau of cultural heroes not necessarily contemporary to each other. That point is a little hard to discern from the excerpt I quoted, though.

"describing a mural on a temple . . . not necessarily contemporary
to each other."" (26>27)

Okay. I meant that I doubted Hugo would have heard of Sun. Is VH just
imagined in the quote?

>28 rolandperkins: The narrator is looking at a mural on a wall, on which is painted a portrait of Hugo next to a portrait of Sun, with Hugo pointing at something Sun was doing in the painting, but that doesn't mean that the real Hugo had ever heard of Sun. It's just a painting on a wall, is what I'm getting at. You could just as easily paint Gengis Khan handing a Big Mac to Abraham Lincoln.

Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?

". . .doesn't mean that the real Hugo has ever heard of Sun . . ." (28>29)

Right, that's what I was asking about; thanks.

>30 rolandperkins: As I mentioned above, the context was obscure if all you have is the excerpt I supplied. At any rate, you guessed correctly, so now it's your turn!

The first European power to attempt invading Russia
was led by:

A. George III (Britain)

B. Napoleon Bonaparte (French Empire)

C. Adolph Hitler (Germany)

D. Charles XII (Sweden)

I'll say D.

yeah, D

Correct, @rocketjk and @Crypto-Willobie!
As timed almost 2 hours before @Cryptowillobie,
@rocketjk should set the "NEXT".

Who was the first American president who was not born an English subject?

A) Andrew Jackson
B) John Quincy Adams
C) Martin Van Buren
D) John Tyler

I would guess (C) (b. 1782), -- 6 years after the
Declaration of Independence though I suppose from
the British point of view he was born a British subject.

>37 rolandperkins: Do you really know Martin Van Buren's birthday by heart?

No, I looked it up in the World Book Encyclopedia.
Is it correct?

>39 rolandperkins: It's correct. But my personal view is that these sorts of exercises are more fun if one tries to figure out an answer through deduction first before hitting the books (or google, as the case may be). However, it's your game, so however you want to work it is good with me.

Anyway, it's your turn!

"deduction first before hitting the books..."
How would this affect the Multiple Choice format. It would
seem to me to be workable within the present format --
personal choice of whether or not to consult a reference
source ?

>42 rolandperkins: They way I look at it is that there's no challenge to it if we can look answers up.

Okay; I would say proceed -- each to her/his own taste. I personally
might be dead in some of these games without any looking up, so would
like to retain that option.

NEXT: The last frequent All-Star whose lastML
baseball playing years were as a player-manager was:

A. Pete Rose

B. Lou Boudreau

C. Joe Cronin

D. Mel Ott

A.

A.: Pete Rose. Correct!
Please set the "NEXT".

These athletes all played for which professional sports team?

Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe, George "Mule" Suttles, Willie Wells, George Crowe, Carlos Ascanio

A) The Cleveland Browns
B) The New York Highlanders
C) The New York Black Yankees
D) The Green Bay Packers

Suttle . . . Ascanio. God, what era are they from? I go back to
1941, (mostly for baseball) and George Crowe (Boston Braves, 1950s) is the only
name I recognize!

Answer: C. The New York Black Yankees

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Black_Yankees

I'll have another up tomorrow.

OK, who spoke the following:

"So, let no one delude themselves that our work is done. By unconcern, by neglect, by complacent beliefs that our labors in the field of human rights are completed, we of today can seed our future with storms that would rage over the lives of our children and our children's children. Yesterday, it was commonly said the Black problem was a southern problem. Today, it is commonly said that the Black problem is an urban problem – a problem of the inner city. But as I see it, the truth is that the Black problem today, as it was yesterday and yesteryear, is not a problem of regions or states or cities or neighborhoods. It is a problem, a concern, and responsibility of this whole nation."

A) Martin Luther King
B) Lyndon Johnson
C) Bill Clinton
D) James Baldwin

C

Not C. I'll give this one more day.

B ?

>53 rolandperkins: Yep! It's from, I believe, his very last public speech.

I think Johnson's record on civil rights is considered mixed, but it's a hell of a speech.

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/lbjfinalspeech.htm

Of these 4 vice-presidents who became president, the
ONLY one to later gain an elected term was'

A. Gerald R. Ford

B. Calvin Coolidge

C. Chester A, Arthur

D. Andrew Johnson

B.

Calvin Coolidge is correct! (55-56). (That he was elected
in his own right, in 1924, after finishing Warren G. Harding's term
is probably the least known of the many Coolidge Miscellanea.)

Do you have a multiple choice question for us,
@rocketjk?