Quickie Questions

Franklin Pierce had a close call in his inauguration. He was in a train accident that killed his son Bennie. If it killed him instead I know that William Rufus King would become president, but he had tuberculosis and died very early as veep. So if this happened, who replaces William Rufus King as president?

Third in line is the Speaker for the House, which would have been Linn Boyd.

My great-grandfather(paternal grandfather's dad) married my great-grandmother, and after her death married her double cousin. As grandma put it, two brothers married two sisters and got great-grandma/grandad's step-mom respectively. If great-grandad and his new wife had a child, what would be the coefficient of relationship between that theoretical child and grandad? And between that theoretical child and me?

Actually, according to the Presidential Succession Act at the time (the 1792 version), the Presidential Pro Tempore, the chair role of the Senate elected by the body for when the Vice President isn't presiding, would be next in line, and the House of Representatives Speaker after that. The act was amended to the present version later.

edited 31st May '18 6:43:17 PM by Trivialis

Two simple questions.

1. The Everyman page says that the audience is expected to identify with this character "and love will come later." Only sometimes the audience does not love said character later; that, and the fact that the phrase is a link to the Arranged Marriage page, makes me wonder if this is a reference to something. But what is that reference?

2. The Lady of War page says that this character isn't overtly sexy but does have charm "in a cool, collected Nicole Kidman way." I've got no idea what that means since the only thing I ever saw Nicole Kidman in was the Golden Compass movie, and she didn't seem charming to me in there, just suspicious. What movie(s) with her in it should I watch to get a better idea of this charm the page is alluding to?

edited 19th Jun '18 11:42:14 AM by Tensaihime

On roundabouts in the US do you all go clockwise or anti-clockwise?

In Canada it's counter-clockwise. I'd imagine it's the same in America.

It's counterclockwise in the US too, and I imagine it's the same in every country where people drive on the right side of the road.

You go in the direction that means you turn the direction that wouldn't cross the oncoming lane at a normal intersection.

Do Useful Notes pages need to go through the Trope Launch Pad, are they like work pages, or do they have their own process?

From what I've read before, Useful Notes aren't strictly required to go through TLP, but it's a good idea to do so.

In the future, I would recommend asking questions about the wiki on Ask The Tropers rather than here.

Where do you go to talk about the site layout? It seems like that T Vtropes doesn't work on my chrome unless I use the Incognito tab?

We've just had a new overhaul and a lot of stuff isn't working. If you want to talk about the new site please go here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=15300421760A59211300

Edited by WillKeaton on Jun 26th 2018 at 5:11:20 AM

What do you call a reverse griffon (lion in front, eagle at the back)?

I don't think they're a common enough concept to have a name.

I asked because reverse hippogriffs (horse in front, eagle at the back) do have a term: hippalectryons.

Edited by TroperNo9001 on Jul 6th 2018 at 1:13:40 AM

This came up. (First one on the disambiguation page, because the forum is breaking the special character.)

Edited by TParadox on Jul 5th 2018 at 12:17:13 PM

Is it true that in a parliamentary system generally a defeat of a single bill (failure to pass) proposed by the government is grounds for a motion of no confidence?

That is accurate, but it has to be a MAJOR bill, like a budget or something. You don't change government if something minor gets voted down.

What would be a good name for a notebook or document that someone keeps on hand in order to have something on hand into which he may write brief 1-to-2-line summaries of story ideas as they come to his mind, rather than wait until he comes back home and risks forgetting too many important details (if not the whole idea)?

That's pretty much just called a notebook. Or maybe a smartphone.

Let me rephrase: I make a habit of organizing my story ideas by what pre-existing work they're based on, what kind of story (AU, crossover, etc.), and all manner of other criteria. Then I have separate documents in each work-based category where I compile a quick list of story ideas that had popped into my mind but which I haven't sat down to fully flesh out and, more importantly, I haven't come up with a decent title (not even a provisional one^note I do not want to use overly long titles that qualify as large sentences, thank you very much). This way, I don't end up forgetting such ideas.

The problem is that I don't have a consistent naming approach to such documents. The best I came up with is "Concepts/Ideas for X stories", where "X" stands for the work category the document is assigned to.

Edited by MarqFJA on Jul 11th 2018 at 5:35:46 PM

Yep, that's a notebook all right.

I'm looking for an expression that illustrates that a person is follow the law, or a rule, but only by a narrow margin. Like it's illegal to posses more than 500mg of a drug, but the person always makes sure they carry exactly 490 mg of said drug.

Sounds like letter of the law and... okay, "toeing the line" seems to be used to mean fully obeying the rules, but it sounds like it should mean getting right up against the line without crossing it.

See also "I'm not touching you."