Today’s Atlantic Trivia: Blame It on the Bile
In a thought-provoking exploration of the evolution of human emotions, Gal Beckerman’s article in *The Atlantic* delves into new research that challenges our understanding of how emotions were perceived and experienced by our ancestors. Traditionally, the study of emotions has been framed around six basic feelings: happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise, and fear. However, historian Rob Boddice argues that these emotions may not have been universally recognized or interpreted in the same way throughout history. For instance, he highlights the ancient Greek concept of *mênis*, often translated as “rage” or “wrath,” particularly in the context of Achilles in *The Iliad*. Boddice suggests that this intense emotion might better be described as a “cosmic sulk,” indicating that our modern interpretations of historical emotions could be fundamentally flawed due to differing cultural contexts.
The article also reflects on how ancient theories of emotion, such as the belief in the four humors—blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm—shaped perceptions of well-being until relatively recently. This historical lens reveals how emotions were once thought to be governed by physical imbalances, which starkly contrasts with contemporary understandings rooted in psychology and neuroscience. Beckerman points out that the study of emotions is not just an academic exercise; it has profound implications for how we view our shared humanity across generations. The historical misinterpretations of emotions can induce a sense of vertigo, as they challenge our assumptions about continuity in human experience. Ultimately, Beckerman’s piece invites readers to reconsider the fluidity of emotional understanding and the importance of context in shaping our emotional lives, both past and present.
This exploration serves as a reminder that while we may feel a sense of shared emotional experience, the way emotions are expressed and understood can vary significantly across cultures and epochs. As we continue to grapple with our emotional landscapes in the modern world, it is essential to recognize that our ancestors may have navigated their feelings in ways that are both familiar and alien to us. This intersection of history and emotion not only enriches our understanding of human psychology but also underscores the importance of empathy and context in our interactions with others, both across time and cultures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVXn7nP2ihI
Updated with new questions at 4:50 p.m. ET on December 5, 2025.
I have much extolled here the value of new knowledge. Let us now hear a counterargument: Some months after Yale gave Mark Twain an honorary degree in 1888, the writer’s schedule cleared up enough for him to pull together a speech advising that the good people of the college learn less.
“I found the astronomer of the university gadding around after comets and other such odds and ends,” he wrote. “I told him it was no economy to go on piling up and piling up raw material in the way of new stars and comets and asteroids that we couldn’t ever have any use for till we had worked off the old stock.”
Greek would have to go “because it is so hard to spell with, and so impossible to read after you get it spelled,” and research in math “was not suited to the dignity of a college, which should deal in facts, not guesses and suppositions.”
Yale did not heed the advice, and I don’t think Twain would really have wanted you to, either. So please—guess and suppose away.
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Friday, December 5, 2025
Today’s questions all come from
Gal Beckerman’s story in the January issue
about new research into how our human ancestors experienced emotion.
In the 1960s and ’70s, six basic emotions were proposed as innate in humans: happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise, and
what emotion
that triggers the fight-or-flight response?
Until a few hundred years ago, one theory for well-being held that emotions were governed by the balance of the body’s blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm—known collectively by
what term
?
At the start of
The Iliad
,
what Greek hero
is said to be feeling
mênis
—usually translated as “rage” or “wrath”—over an insult to his honor by King Agamemnon?
And by the way, did you know that melancholy is a direct combination of the Greek roots
melan
, for “black,” and
kholē
, for “bile”? Too much black bile within the body was thought to cause sadness.
Black bile does not, in fact, cause melancholy, as thought; nor does it come from the spleen, as thought; nor does it, strictly speaking, exist. But the name stuck!
Have a great weekend.
Answers:
Fear.
We 21st-century people certainly experience these emotions, but, as Gal writes, the historian Rob Boddice argues that there’s no guarantee our forebears encountered them the same way—if at all—given the very different context in which they lived.
Read more.
Humors.
You do not have to go back very far to find ways of understanding emotion so different from ours that they can undermine our sense of shared humanity across centuries; Gal writes that Boddice’s research “can induce a sense of vertigo.”
Read more.
Achilles.
Boddice points to
mênis
as an example of an emotion we’ve misinterpreted across millennia; he thinks of
mênis
(after studying ancient Greece) as something more like “cosmic sulk.”
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 formidable fact—send it my way at
trivia@theatlantic.com
.
Thursday, December 4, 2025
In economics,
what term
describes the behavior whereby people follow through with an action because they have invested time or resources into it, even when changing course would benefit them?
— From Valerie Trapp’s
“The One Line Americans (Weirdly) Choose to Wait In”
The
desaparecidos
, or “disappeared ones,” were victims of the Dirty War, which occurred in
what country
during its military rule in the 1970s and ’80s?
— From
The Atlantic
’s
list of this year’s 10 most thought-provoking books
The end of the Egyptian, Mycaenaean, and Hittite empires due to trade disruption and natural disasters is known as the collapse of
what historical era
named for its people’s use of a metal alloy?
— From Linda Kinstler’s
“What History’s Fallen Societies Have in Common”
And by the way, did you know that ancient Egypt’s hieroglyphics could be written from either left to right or right to left? To determine which direction applies, a reader need only find a hieroglyph with a face; its gaze always points to the place the reader should begin.
Reading English doesn’t require such a hint, but just so we’re not left out of the fun: 🐔
Answers:
Sunk-cost fallacy.
This is one possible reason that so many American shoppers stick with a self-checkout line even when a cashier’s line becomes shorter, Valerie reports, but social science says that the biggest driver could be our relatively newfound reluctance to engage with strangers.
Read more.
Argentina.
The
desaparecidos
are passing out of living memory; Haley Cohen Gilliland’s
A Flower Traveled in My Blood
—one of
The Atlantic
’s selections—bursts with reporting that “forces us to consider both the price of forgetting the past and the ache of remembering it.”
See the rest of the picks.
Late Bronze Age.
Kinstler assesses a new book’s argument that something like the apocalypse that contemporary forecasters warn about has already happened many times over—and that many of humanity’s collapses have actually been pretty productive.
Read more.
Wednesday, December 3, 2025
From the
edition of The
Atlantic
Daily
by Will Gottsegen:
Today’s questions all come from
Caitlin Flanagan’s essay reflecting on
a childhood spent going to the movies with her father.
In
Sunset Boulevard
, the fading star Norma Desmond replies to the suggestion that she “used to be big” with: “I am big. It’s the pictures that” did
what
?
“You’ll never go in the water again” was the tagline of
what 1975 summer blockbuster
?
In
The Wizard of Oz
, Dorothy has
what last name
—a word for a weather event not dissimilar to the twister that lifts her out of Kansas?
One of the most popular films of the 1970s disaster craze—remade in 2006—follows passengers climbing to the bottom (or top?) of
what capsized luxury liner
?
What Alfred Hitchcock movie
opens with a scene in a pet shop, where the protagonist inquires about some odd animal behavior outside?
And by the way, did you know that the famous “underwater” shot that opens
Sunset Boulevard
—with a camera apparently at the bottom of a swimming pool looking up at a floating drowned man—was captured entirely on dry land?
The cameras of the 1950s couldn’t be submerged, so the director, Billy Wilder, installed a mirror on the bottom of the pool and shot from above to keep the equipment dry. Actors, then as now, were plenty waterproof—so William Holden ended the shoot soaked.
Answers:
“Got small.”
The movies of Caitlin’s youth felt so much bigger, she writes, thanks partly to her father’s enthusiasm for them, but also thanks to the apparent intellectual exhaustion of Hollywood. “We’re running out of stories to tell one another,” she argues—but many of us would be too tired or inattentive to listen anyway.
Read more.
Jaws
.
Gale.
The Poseidon.
The Birds
.
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
From the
edition of The
Atlantic
Daily
by David A. Graham:
Minoxidil is the active ingredient in many products that treat
what common condition
, known scientifically as alopecia?
— From Yasmin Tayag’s
“America Refuses to Go [REDACTED]”
The company Lifetouch is the largest U.S. provider of
what product
typically offered once an academic year, in early fall?
— From Annie Midori Atherton’s
“What’s the Point of [REDACTED] Anymore?”
What hard-boiled detective
sported a famous two-way wrist radio across America’s mid-century comic strips?
— From Ian Bogost’s
“Get Your Kid a Watch”
And by the way, did you know that Garry Trudeau, the creator of
Doonesbury
, won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for his work with the comic strip? Gerald Ford, who was then president, said that year that “there are only three major vehicles to keep us informed as to what is going on in Washington: the electronic media, the print media, and
Doonesbury
, not necessarily in that order.”
Only one other comic strip—called
Bloom County
—has won the Pulitzer Prize; Garfield is going to have to bring some real nuance to his thoughts about Mondays if he’s ever going to compete.
Answers:
Hair loss.
Yasmin reports on how the hair-loss-prevention industry, which has long focused on thinning in men, is ready to welcome the many Millennial women who are warming up to the idea of Rogaine. But there’s still a big stigma around seeking treatment.
Read more.
School photos.
The Photo Day tradition seems silly considering that every parent has a camera in their pocket now, but families still shell out for the (often ludicrously expensive) school shots, Atherton writes. They’re kitschy and awkward—but that might be the point.
Read more.
Dick Tracy.
Ian, who recently purchased a smartwatch for his youngest daughter, writes that the low end of the kid-watch market is full of useless “Dick Tracy novelties.” So he went full Apple, and he has found that the watch is the perfect training “phone” for his kid.
Read more.
Monday, December 1, 2025
From the
edition of The
Atlantic
Daily
by David A. Graham:
William Shakespeare’s only son, who died at age 11, had
what name
—just a letter off from one of the bard’s most famous tragic heroes?
— From James Shapiro’s
“The Long History of the [REDACTED] Myth”
In AI-safety discussions, the likelihood that artificial intelligence causes global cataclysm is popularly expressed as
what statistical term
?
— From Charlie Warzel’s
“The World Still Hasn’t Made Sense of ChatGPT”
Germans sometimes call their country “
Das Land der Dichter und Denker
,” or the land of
what two vocations
—the former of which would apply to, say, Rilke, Schiller, and Goethe, and the latter to Hegel, Heidegger, and Arendt (or you right now)?
— From Isaac Stanley-Becker’s
“The New German War Machine”
And by the way, did you know that Shakespeare’s grave doesn’t bear his name? What it does bear is a curse. The engraving warns would-be tamperers, “Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare, / To dig the dust enclosed here. / Blessed be the man that spares these stones, / And cursed be he that moves my bones.”
Evidence suggests that the curse didn’t ward off everyone; ground-penetrating radar revealed in 2016 that Shakespeare’s skull is almost certainly missing. Of course, researchers could have opened the grave to make sure—but would you take that risk?
Answers:
Hamnet.
The myth that Hamnet’s death begot the tragedy of
Hamlet
has persisted for centuries, Shapiro writes, but the fact that it is compelling—see Chloé Zhao’s new movie,
Hamnet
—does not mean that it is true.
Read more.
p(doom).
Whether or not you use the term, you’ve probably considered the probability of AI-occasioned doom, Charlie writes as ChatGPT turns three. In fact, that mental precarity is already a big chunk of AI’s legacy, he argues, and the tech’s ever-evolving nature heightens the anxiety.
Read more.
Poets and thinkers.
To varying degrees over the decades, this self-conception has been about both taking pride in Germany’s intellectual tradition and renouncing the country’s militarism. As Isaac reports, this makes for a fraught transition as Germany gradually abandons pacifism and rearms against a destabilized world.
Read more.
