wiki-illiam #106: q4

[dubdobdee]

4:
i: Who demonstrated phonetic pronunciation?
ii: Whose notes were worth one hundred crowns?
iii: Who footed it in Italy, Spain, Japan and Holland?
iv: Who sold Estonia and took a Baltic Island instead?
v: Who was first to cross the North-West Passage by dog-sled?
vi: Who died during the wedding celebrations of Tove and Gythe?
vii: Who was decorated for valour following the Amiens push?
viii: Whose tale about a sixth daughter inspired Eriksen?
ix: Who is especially associated with a supernova?
x: Who was cuckolded by the Royal physician?

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

Roald Amundsen was first thru the North West Passage, in the Gjoa: but that was a boat...

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

but he did also use dog sled on the same expedition, eg to reach the magnetic north pole from gjoahaven -- so if this IS a "-sen" theme, that's there at a stretch

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

I am wondering whether viii is anything to do with Copenhagen's Little Mermaid statue? In which case it would be Hans Christian Andersen.

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Ah, I believe the sculptor was indeed named Eriksen!

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

x: One of the King Christians of Denmark/Norway (number 7 I think), was famously mad and preferred cavorting about town at night with a favourite prostitute, getting into fights with the Royal guards etc rather than what was considered proper kinging at the time. The Queen, meanwhile, had her thing with the physician Struensee, who became more or less the actual power of the state.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

Is iv a Russian/Muscovite king? I have read that bit of Ewan's History of Russia I got at the book swish but can't remember exactly who did what...

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I wonder if iii) is Peter Schmeichel? He scored loads of goals (for a goalkeeper) and is, er, of Baltic/Scandinavian origin...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Got iv) through googling.

Surely there are many possible answers to ii), given how many places use the crown as their unit of currency?

vi) is bizarrely ungoogleable!

Re: iii), what the hell does "footed it" even mean.

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Activity low + next set up (where I'm utterly without a chance haha), so I'll enter the google/wiki phase:

iii) Kat is onto something! but wrong player: Michael Laudrup played for Juventus, Lazio, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Vissel Kobe and Ajax outside of Denmark, winning league titles in Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, and in 1999 being voted the Best Foreign Player in Spanish Football over the previous 25-year period.

ii) is a PUN: , ie Carl Nielsen.

So, Danes then? Or Scandinavians at a stretch? Denmark owned Estonia at a time, I know without looking: it was near Tallinn (then Reval) that the Danish flag Dannebrog fell miraculously from the heavens as a good omen to king Valdemar II the Victorious in 1219, in time becoming the oldest national flag currently in use.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

Amundsen is Norwegian, if it's him.

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Ah, but Denmark made me think of Peter Freuchen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Freuchen) and Knud Rasmussen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knud_Rasmussen), who did stuff in Greenland -- and yup, it appears Rasmussen is our man.

i) Two great Danish linguists I thought of: Rasmus Rask (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasmus_Rask) and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Jespersen>Otto Jespersen</a>. Rask is pretty impressive; wrote an <i>Icelandic Lexicon</i>, an <i>Anglo-Saxon Grammar</i> a <i>Spanish Grammar</i>, a <i>Frisian Grammar</i>, a <i>Sami Grammar</i> and (!) an <i>Introduction to the Accra language on the Guinea Coast</i> etc etc -- but Jespersen looks more right: <i>Along with Paul Passy, he was a founder of the <b>International Phonetic Association</b>. He was a vocal supporter and active developer of international auxiliary languages. He was involved in the 1907 delegation that created the auxiliary language Ido, and in 1928, he developed the Novial language, which he considered an improvement over Ido.</i>.

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Oh noes unclosed quote...

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

re Rasmussen and the "Fifth Thule Expedition"!! This all sounds like material from Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow -- probably not accidentally, as Hoeg is Danish...

vii)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

"Consecrated in 1152, [Amiens Cathedral] hosted the wedding of King Philip II of France and Princess Ingeborg of Denmark in 1193."

PRINCESS INGEBORG! Best name ever!

Re: vii)

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Ah, that one was pretty hard to search for, found it when I realized "for valour" indicated the Victoria Cross, which apparently only three Danish-born people have been awarded (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Danish_recipients_of_the_Victoria_Cross), among them Thomas Dinesen, the younger brother of Karen Blixen!:

During the Battle of Amiens he was 26 years old, and a private in the 42nd (Royal Highlanders of Canada) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force when, on 12 August 1918 at Parvillers, France, he displayed conspicuous bravery when, five times in succession, he rushed forward alone against entrenched enemy troops and put hostile guns out of action. He was credited with killing 12 of the enemy using both bayonet and grenade, and with inspiring his comrades at a very critical stage of the action.

For this action, Dinesen was awarded the Victoria Cross (or VC). He also received the French Croix de Guerre.

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Huh now I see someone elsewhere has Victor Borge for number i! This is a more fun answer than Jespersen, and it would fit excellently if the Q only said phonetic punctuation. "Phonetic pronunciation" sounds rather pleonastic, really!

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

The ungooglable number vi may be so due to a certain sloppiness with the Scandinavian endings -- Tove is a female name, as is Gythe, but Tovi the Proud (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tovi_the_Proud) is the guy referred to:

it was on his manor at Montacute in Somerset that a black crucifix or Holy Rood was unearthed following a dream in 1030. Tovi loaded the life-sized cross onto a cart, but the oxen refused to move until he mentioned another of his estates at Waltham in Essex where he already had a hunting lodge. Tovi rebuilt the church at Waltham to house the cross, on which he bestowed his own sword. His devout second wife Gytha (or Glitha), the daughter of Osgod Clapa, adorned the figure with a crown, bands of gold and precious stones. The cross became the object of pilgrimage, notably by Harold Godwinson. It was at Tovi's wedding at Lambeth on 8 June 1042 that King Harthacnut suddenly died of a convulsion "while standing at his drink".

Moar cleanup

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

iv is probably Valdemar IV "Atterdag" (although the island isn't mentioned here):
When he ran out of money, he took Kalundborg and Søborg Castles by force. While in the midst of that campaign, he went to Estonia to negotiate with the Teutonic Knights who controlled Estonia. Danes had never migrated there in any numbers, and so for 19,000 marks Valdemar gave up Denmark's eastern province which allowed him to pay off mortgages of parts of Denmark which were more important to him.

ix is Tycho Brahe:
On 11 November 1572, Tycho observed (from Herrevad Abbey) a very bright star, now named SN 1572, which had unexpectedly appeared in the constellation Cassiopeia.