Today’s Atlantic Trivia: An Impastable Situation
On November 13, 2025, The Atlantic’s trivia section showcased an engaging mix of questions that not only tested readers’ knowledge but also provided fascinating insights into various topics. The trivia draws inspiration from the intellectual curiosity of Samuel Johnson, the 18th-century lexicographer known for his love of learning and exploration of knowledge. Johnson believed that while one might not have all the answers, knowing where to find them was crucial—a philosophy that resonates with the trivia format itself. This week’s questions ranged from the culinary arts to music theory, each accompanied by intriguing context that enhances the learning experience.
One of the standout questions focused on pasta production, specifically asking about the alloy used in Italian dies that create a rougher-textured pasta, which was revealed to be bronze. This question ties directly to a broader discussion about the potential impact of new tariffs on Italian pasta imports to the U.S., which could lead to a decline in the quality of pasta available to American consumers. Yasmin Tayag’s article, “America’s Best Pasta Is Slipping Away,” highlights the looming threat of losing gourmet pasta options, leaving Americans with less desirable alternatives. Another question explored the origins of SMS phishing scams, linking them to organized crime syndicates known as triads, shedding light on the sophisticated criminal enterprises behind seemingly innocuous text messages.
In addition to these culinary and criminal queries, the trivia also delved into the world of music, asking about the term “melisma,” which refers to the technique of singing a single syllable over multiple notes. This term is particularly relevant in discussions of contemporary artists like Rosalía, whose work blends traditional flamenco influences with modern sounds. These trivia questions not only serve to entertain but also encourage readers to engage with the content of The Atlantic more deeply, offering a chance to learn about current events, cultural phenomena, and historical facts in a fun and interactive way. As readers tackle these questions, they are invited to reflect on their own knowledge and perhaps even discover new interests, embodying Johnson’s spirit of curiosity and the joy of learning.
Updated with new questions at 1:45 p.m. ET on November 13, 2025.
The famed 18th-century lexicographer Samuel Johnson was a lover of learning. As the dictionary maker once wrote, he dedicated his life “wholly to curiosity,” with the intent “to wander over the boundless regions of general knowledge.” (He was additionally a lover of getting bored and moving on, writing of how he “quitted every science at the first perception of disgust.” Respect.)
Perhaps Johnson’s greatest legacy, though, was his ardent belief that one didn’t have to know all the answers so long as one knew where to find them. For Johnson, that place was usually in his reference books. For you and this trivia, it’s right here in
The Atlantic
.
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last week’s questions here
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Thursday, November 13, 2025
Whereas many U.S.-produced pasta shapes are extruded from dies made of Teflon-coated plastic, the Italian dies that produce a more gourmet, rougher-textured pasta are made of
what alloy
of copper and tin?
— From Yasmin Tayag’s
“America’s Best Pasta Is Slipping Away”
Those SMS phishing—or
smishing
—texts you get about unpaid tolls or late packages likely originate with a criminal operation that shares
what name
with China’s infamous organized-crime syndicates?
— From Matteo Wong’s
“The Criminal Enterprise Behind That Fake Toll Text”
What
is the music-theory term for the technique of singing a single syllable over multiple notes?
— From Spencer Kornhaber’s
“The Coolest Girl on Earth Seeks God”
And by the way, did you know that you—yes, you!—could be an expert maker of pasta without even knowing it? Pay no mind to the fact that the particular shape is called
maltagliati
, from the Italian for “badly cut.” Nor that it’s typically made from the scraps of more desirable pastas and frequently ends up so ugly that it just goes into stews. It has its own respectable name, and that’s what matters; those of us with no nonna to learn from have got to start somewhere.
See you tomorrow!
Answers:
Bronze.
Italian producers are threatening to pull their products off U.S. shelves in retaliation against newly announced pasta tariffs, Yasmin reports, which could leave Americans with our sad plastic-cut pasta from which the sauce slips right off—as she says, an “impastable situation.”
Read more.
Triad.
Matteo reports that the smishing triad itself is not directly scamming everyday folks with phones. Rather, it is selling software packages to
anybody
who would like to text you that your credit-card bill is overdue.
Read more.
Melisma.
The technique is foundational to the Catalan superstar Rosalía’s repertoire, along with flamenco-flavored handclaps and plenty of “bleeps and bangs,” as Spencer puts it. They make her album
Lux
feel familiar, but both her vocals and her sense of purpose are more intense than ever before.
Read more.
How did you do? Come back tomorrow for more questions, or
click here for last week’s
. And if you think up a great question after reading an
Atlantic
story—or simply want to share a wild fact—send it my way at
trivia@theatlantic.com
.
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
Elon Musk and other critics have taken to deriding the internet’s most popular encyclopedia by altering one letter of its name.
What
do they call the site? (Add a few more letters, and it becomes the online encyclopedia for
Star Wars
knowledge.)
— From Renée DiResta’s
“The Right-Wing Attack on [REDACTED]”
The Soviet city of Pripyat was known in local parlance as an
atomgrad
, given its purpose of supporting
what nearby facility
?
— From Anastasia Edel’s
“The Accidental Trailblazers of a New Global Condition”
What fragrance
launched in France in 1921 got its simple name from the position it occupied in a lineup of sample scents presented to the perfume’s creator?
— From Yasmin Tayag’s
“The Patches That Want to Fix Your Sleep, Sex, and Focus”
And by the way, did you know that Harry S. Truman’s middle name is not Stephen or Samuel or Sullivan but just S?
For this fact, I must thank
Atlantic
Trivia reader Jeff A., who additionally argues that the letter technically shouldn’t be followed by a period: “Harry S. Truman” would be like writing “Franklin Delano. Roosevelt.”
You’d think that the double-named George H. W. Bush with his two middle names could have donated one to round out Truman’s S … though that would have made him Harry Sherbert Truman—a bit too sugary-sounding for a commander in chief.
Answers:
Wokipedia.
The dig comes from “woke,” of course; those critics accuse Wikipedia of progressive partisanship. DiResta argues that the real reason Musk and his crew want to kneecap Wikipedia is because AI relies so much on the site for its training. Manipulating Wikipedia, therefore, is akin to “working the referees.” (And for what it’s worth, that
Star Wars
site is
Wookiee
pedia.)
Read more.
Chernobyl.
The survivors of the nuclear disaster there—especially the children—were failed by the Soviet state in the aftermath. A new book explores how that generation became worldwide symbols of the “shared peril” of all humanity in a borderless world, Edel writes.
Read more.
Chanel No. 5.
Yasmin writes that the beauty world has traded in conscious consumption since at least the 1920s when Coco Chanel’s pick became synonymous with wealth and luxury. She worries that the wellness industry’s new supplement patches might have more to do with appearance than anything else.
Read more.
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
From the
edition of The
Atlantic
Daily
by David A. Graham:
What book
written by then–Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg is frequently used as shorthand for the “girlboss” flavor of feminism that peaked in the 2010s?
— From Sophie Gilbert’s
“
All’s Fair
Is an Atrocity”
The memoir of the scientist James Watson took its name from
what shape
that Watson and his partner, Francis Crick, identified as the physical form of DNA?
— From Kathryn Paige Harden and Eric Turkheimer’s
“The Paradox of James Watson”
What software company
co-founded by Peter Thiel has the same name as the magical crystal ball of the
Lord of the Rings
series?
— From Adam Serwer’s
“Why Elon Musk Needs Dungeons & Dragons to Be Racist”
And by the way, did you know that Veterans Day—observed on the 11th day of the 11th month to honor the World War I armistice that occurred in the 11th hour—was for a few years in the 1970s commemorated on, oh, the 24th day or the 27th day (or really any day from the 22nd to the 28th) of the 10th month?
Federal law in 1971 bumped Veterans Day, Memorial Day, and Washington’s Birthday to always-on-a-Monday status. The travel industry was thrilled by the jump in three-day weekends; veterans were not thrilled by the loss of the 11/11 significance. The vets won out, and the observance returned to November 11 in 1978.
Answers:
Lean In
.
The dream is alive at the divorce-law firm depicted in Ryan Murphy’s new
All’s Fair
, which Sophie says is less a television show than it is an episode-length Instagram Reels session, where scenes of dazzling moving images pass fleetingly and almost incoherently.
Read more.
Double helix.
The discovery was the greatest achievement of Watson, who died this week. Harden and Turkheimer ask: How does one hold that brilliance next to the bigotry directed at women, gay people, and Black people?
Read more.
Palantir.
Adam explores how J. R. R. Tolkien (consciously or not) set the fantasy genre down a path of reinforcing racial and gender stereotypes—which appears to be no problem at all for many right-wing figures in government and tech.
Read more.
Monday, November 10, 2025
From the
edition of The
Atlantic
Daily
by David A. Graham:
The film
Bugonia
takes its name from the ancient belief that a cow’s carcass could spawn
what pollinators
, whose numbers have declined dangerously in recent years?
— From Shirley Li’s
“An Intimate Portrait of Humanity at Its Worst”
Hours before the government shutdown caused millions of Americans to lose their food stamps, Donald Trump hosted a decadent Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago with
what F. Scott Fitzgerald novel
as its theme?
— From Jonathan Chait’s
“Senate Democrats Just Made a Huge Mistake”
Mark Twain once said that when a speaker of
what language
dives into a sentence, you won’t see him again until he reaches the other side of the ocean, carrying in his mouth the verb—which this language frequently places much later in a sentence than where it would occur in English?
— From Ross Benjamin’s
“The Costs of Instant Translation”
And by the way, did you know that interpreting by whispering real-time translations into someone’s ear is known as
chuchotage
? The word is French, so soften those
ch
’s into
sh
’s, make that
g
into a velvety
zzzhh
, and recognize just how whispery the word itself sounds; that’s why the French formed it that way in the first place.
Answers:
Bees.
The word
bugonia
is never uttered in the Yorgos Lanthimos project, Shirley notes, but the idea of life from death—on a planetary scale—is central to his study of a moribund civilization.
Read more.
The Great Gatsby
.
I can’t say for sure that this was a reason public polling on the shutdown looked so bad for Trump, but I have a hunch, old sport. Jonathan writes that Democrats were likely surprised that the shutdown they’d forced was drawing political blood, and that they made a huge mistake in withdrawing the knife.
Read more.
German.
Benjamin writes that German’s delayed-verb structure invites uniquely collaborative conversations for learners; his partner would often supply at the very end of the sentence the verb that Benjamin was grasping for. That sort of beauty gets lost when learners rely on machine translation.
Read more.
