Trotting out the trivia

So what's the most trivial thing you know, she asked, but I had to think about it.

We were in the English Department office spouting off about the kinds of things English professors spout off about--tracing the etymology of palimpsest, quoting lines from The Importance of Being Earnest, ranking our favorite Nicola Walker roles--when the youngest among us marveled over our wealth of useless knowledge and asked What's the most trivial thing you know?

It depends upon how you define trivial.

Oscar Wilde gave The Importance of Being Earnest the subtitle A Trivial Play for Serious People, but its effect on Wilde's career and the careers of many actors and on the history of theatrical comedy itself was hardly trivial.

Likewise, the date of the Battle of Hastings might show up on a Jeopardy answer or a Trivial Pursuit card, but the battle had a non-trivial impact on the soldiers whose heads were smashed in and, ultimately, on the development of the English language. I wouldn't consider the date useless, either, because I use it every day as part of an important online password. (Don't tell anyone! It's a secret.)

Anyone who has earned a PhD possesses a wealth of knowledge essential to some narrow area of study but trivial to anyone outside that area. For instance, Theodore Dreiser might pop up in a trivia quiz as the author of An American Tragedy and Sister Carrie, but without breaking a sweat I can tell you the date of his momentous road trip from Manhattan to Indiana (1913) and relay his response to two northwestern Ohio towns: Dreiser relished the vibrant bar scene in Hicksville, but he dismissed Bowling Green as a hick town redolent of pig farming. I have lived in Hicksville and earned my Ph.D. in Bowling Green so I can state confidently that Dreiser would be amazed at how the two towns have switched roles.  

But is that the most trivial thing I know? I know Donnie Osmond's birthday, many of the lyrics to the Gilligan's Island musical version of Hamlet, when Hunter S. Thompson was stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, and how to say duck in Russian (ootka)--knowledge useful to a Russian duck-breeder, perhaps, but not so relevant to my daily life.

I studied Russian for three years in high school so I've probably forgotten more Russian words than most Americans will ever know, but that doesn't mean I would be able to find my way around Moscow. Looking lost while saying ootka isn't going to get me anywhere except, maybe, the loony bin.

Anyone in possession of a large reservoir of trivial knowledge has to be careful about trotting it out in public. This is one reason I love academe: if I mention the Battle of Hastings or Oscar Wilde--or, for that matter, Gilligan's Island--among my colleagues, someone is bound to know what I'm talking about, while the general public tends to look askance at eggheads who make obscure allusions.

And this is one of the things I'll miss when I finally retire: sitting around the department office spouting off about the kinds of things English professors spout off about. Will my wealth of useless knowledge atrophy, or will I annoy everyone who comes near me by spewing a fountain of obscure trivia?

For that matter, how much trivia have I already forgotten? Maybe the most trivial thing I ever knew has already drifted away into some forgotten limbo. 

So even after thinking about it for a few days, I still don't know how to answer the question--but I'm happy to work in a place where it's not unusual for such a question to be asked.