Question - 698

Thought that a push to Q#700 might be worth a try; although, falling short seems to immortalize better (a la Bradman, Tendulkar, et al.)

This building (and suggestive logo) have contributed a term to business lingo related to radical innovation. What term?

Question - 696

What English word is derived from this object? (question courtesy: Divya Shankar)

Question - 694

What got its name from this sketch?

Question - 622

Hi all!!! This is Dinesh taking over for Raghu in his absence. Irregular updates and obscure trivia shall be the norm as always. Identify the blanked out portion in this airport shuttle.

Answer: This is the wiki-wiki shuttle bus that operates at the Honolulu airport in Hawaii. Wiki means quick in Hawaiian. The author of the first wiki, Ward Cunningham, was amused enough by the name to name his project after it. Wikipedia came much latter. Matti Tapaninen, Kapinjal Chowdhury, Kani, Jaggi, Krithi and Ajit got it. Well done.

Question - 618

Connect. (Hint: The white arrows in the left image)

Answer: I was looking for Ghibli - the local name for the Sirocco wind in Libya (left picture), famously mentioned in the Oscar-winning English Patient (top right). It lends its name to the wonderful Studio Ghibli (Hayao Miyazaki et al.) which is famous for producing many animated features including Miyazaki's Totoro (featured on Studio Ghibli's logo). Only Anonymous got it.

Question - 615

Connect through a term. The left-most person in the black-and-white picture is important.

Answer: The term is "bunga bunga" now popularized by the parties hosted by Silvio Berlusconi (top right). One of the earliest references to this term was in the Dreadnought hoax perpetuated on the British Admiralty by a team consisting of Virginia Woolf (left-most in the B/W pic and top left played by Nicole Kidman in The Hours). Sribharath, matti tapaninen, Abhishek, mekie, and Dinesh got it.

Question - 592

Connect.

Question - 580

What is the significance of these color mappings? (courtesy: Dinky)

Answer: The cardinal directions (NESW and Center -- the columns in the color matrix) in Far-East cultures were associated with certain colors that were used to name various geographical features, e.g. Red Sea, Black Sea etc. Krithi, Dinesh, Manix, Divya Shankar, and mekie got it. Well done.

Question - 579

What does this map depict? (courtesy: Manix)

Answer: United States of Autocomplete. Google's autocomplete feature applied to the names of each state (as of Dec 3, 2010). AJ, Krithi, Dinesh, mekie, and jamie got it. Nicely cracked.

Question - 561

Why is this store now part of rock music folklore? (Hint: it has something to do with the blanked-out part of its name)

Answer: Bono (aka Paul David Hewson) of rock legends U2 got his stage name from this hearing-aid store in Dublin named Bonavox. matti tapaninen, Krithi, Divya Shankar, Dinesh, AJ, Hirak, Iam, and Renuka got it.

Question - 555

Connect.

Answer: Theodor Escherich and the bacterium he discovered - Escherichia coli or E. coli. Ameya, Dinesh, and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 549

Connect.

Answer: The connect is Banana Republic. The clothing retailer of the same name originally started as a travel-related store with a travel/tropical-themed catalogs and magazines (top left). The term was first used to describe a dysfunctional, agriculture-dependent country by the American writer O. Henry in his book "Cabbages and Kings" (top right). The bottom cartoon is Herge's famous depiction of such a country, San Theodoros, in the Tintin comics. Iam, Dinesh, matti tapaninen, and mekie got it. Nice job.

Question - 547

Connect.

Answer: The connection is "Sirius." From top-left clockwise, the Chicago Bulls entrance music is the song Sirius, which was by the group Alan Parsons Project (the two guys). Sirius, the "dog star" is allegedly the inspiration for the Harry Potter character, Sirius Black (his animagus form is a black dog), whose family coat-of-arms is shown (motto: "Tojours Pur" or "always pure"). The dog logo with the star is of the Sirius satellite radio.

Question - 499

What is this?

Answer: This is a political cartoon parodying the redrawing of legislative districts in Massachusetts during an election in 1812 to align more favorably with party affiliations. Its resemeblence to a salamander made the cartoonist term it a gerrymander and the name stuck. Kamal Rathi, Ameya, Akshay, anon, Matti Tapaninen, Vetti, Jamie (you must have known the etymology too, right?), anon and Kr!sh got it. Well done.

Question - 479

This was the first of its kind and gave rise to the term that defines this genre. What term?

Answer: The term is "soap opera." Clara, Lu, and Em (shown above) was radio's first soap opera, so called because of its sponsor 'Super Suds', a Colgate-Palmolive-Peet product. Anand, Arvind, Adi, Iam, Mohan, Hirak, Avi, and Nemani got it. Well done.

Question - 469

Shown is an illustration of a biblical story. What is the etymological significance?

Answer: This is Rembrandt's painting "Belshazzar's Feast". In the Biblical story, a hand mysteriously appears during the feast and pronounces doom on the king's reign by writing on the wall. The phrase "writing on the wall" originates from this incident. Rohan, AJ, Manix, Karthik, Nemani and anon got it. Well done.

Question - 447

Who is this? What phrase owes its etymology to a feature of this painting?

Update: Many correctly identified the person but no one got the phrase I am looking for. It is not a nickname of the man in the painting. Rather, the phrase is derived from a feature of this and other paintings of this man and in fact was uttered by him in connection with his portraits. It is now idiomatically used in all kinds of situations (and not just in reference to him).

Answer: The person is Oliver Cromwell as was correctly identified by Matti Tapaninen, Pavan, Nihar, anon, Rithwik, Krithi, Hirak, Adi and DrDate. Cromwell wanted his portraits to not cover up his facial blemishes and was known to have instructed a painter to paint his face as it is "warts and all". This phrase has now come to mean taking something as a whole and not concealing the unattractive parts. Adi, Matti Tapaninen, Pavan and DrDate got the etymology right as well. Well done all.

Question - 436

Logo of which organization? Which now common phrase owes its etymology to this symbol?

Answer: This is the logo of the Pinkerton detective agency the members of whom served as a kind of private militia. The agency was employed by many industrialists to infiltrate and keep a check on labour unions including the Molly Maguires, a case that was fictionalized in the Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of Fear. The logo gave rise to the term Private eye for a detective. Kaushik, Karthik, Matti Tapaninen, Arvind, Raghu, Ajinkya, Iam, Abhra, Rithwik, Ramji, v. chandrashekar, Adi, Rajesh, the novice and Hari all got the agency right. Some got the etymological connect I had in mind as well. Well done.

Question - 421

This is a screen shot from a film. Identify the character highlighted.

Hint: Only 2 correct replies so far. The film is Italian and the question is etymological.

Answer: The movie is Fellini's La Dolce Vita and the character is an annoying photographer named Paparazzo from whose name we get the word paparazzi. Fellini supposedly took the name from a dialect of Italian in which it describes an annoying noise like the buzzing of a mosquito. Raghu, Rajeev, Anand, v.chandrashekar, Kaushik, rajesh, Amresh, Ramji, Ajinkya, Karthik and Arvind got it. Well done.

Question - 415

The lady is shown portraying a famous character from a famous opera. Her aria towards the end of the opera is particularly famous. Identify character, opera and a related phrase.

Answer: The character is Brunhilde from Richard Wagner's famous opera "Der Ring des Nibelungen". The opera concludes with a 10 minute long aria by her and she is typically portrayed as a fat woman with helmet, spear and shield. Her character is supposed to have given rise to the phrase "It ain't over till the fat lady sings" which is a very standard sports cliche especially in American sports. Raghu, AJ, Iam, Rajesh and Ajinkya got it. Some people went with Lady Godiva which will be a future question for sure. Well done all.