triva.html - plural noun (Lifestyle and Leisure) Miscellaneous (often unusual or peripheral) facts about something; a quiz game in which the object is to answer questions eliciting such facts. Etymology: Originally the name of one such quiz game; it refers to the peripheral or trivial nature of many of the facts included in the game. History and
Usage : The craze for trivia quiz games
began in the late sixties, but really took off only with the invention in 1982 of Trivial Pursuit (a trade mark), a board game devised in Canada by two journalists, Chris Haney and Scott Abbott. This game combined the quiz element with the traditional board game format, with each player acquiring credits by answering general knowledge questions in six subject areas represented by different spaces on the board. The game was enormously successful throughout the world and was followed by many imitations using the word trivia somewhere in their name. As a
result , many people associate the word trivia not with 'matters of little importance' (its original meaning) but
with quizzes and the arcane facts that it is
always useful to know when competing in these games. Here's a question even a three-year-old could answer:
What was the best-selling new board game of the 1980s?
Trivial Pursuit.
Life Fall 1989, p.
64 Doing a column on presidential trivia is like volunteering to be the victim in a dunking booth at the
country fair. Baltimore Sun 7 Mar. 1990, section A, p.
15 Sounds readers may prefer to wait for the
paperback to appear, by which time most mistakes will have
been ironed
out . But anyone buying it will find it
invaluable for answering tricky trivia questions. Sounds 28 July 1990, p. 20
