50 Fun Facts About Odd One Out

Three of these fruits count as true berries in botany: which odd one out is an accessory fruit instead?

Strawberry flesh grows from the flower's receptacle, so botanists call it an aggregate accessory fruit. Each seed-like speck on the outside is the real fruit, an achene.

Three of these instruments are brass: which odd one out is a woodwind played with a single reed?

Saxophone bodies are usually made of brass, but the reed makes the instrument a woodwind. Its inventor, Adolphe Sax, wanted the projection of brass with the agility of a woodwind.

Three of these Australian animals are marsupials: which is the odd one out?

Platypus mothers lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young, which makes them monotremes, not marsupials. Only five living species do so: the platypus and four kinds of echidna.

Three of these were Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: which is the odd one out?

Colosseum crowds averaging some 65,000 watched gladiators, animal hunts and even mock sea battles. The amphitheatre did make a modern list, the New 7 Wonders of the World.

Three of these cities are national capitals: which is the odd one out?

Sydney lost out to Canberra, a capital built from scratch as a compromise between the rival claims of Sydney and Melbourne.

Three of these moons orbit Jupiter: which odd one out is the largest moon of Saturn?

Titan is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, one thicker than Earth's. It also has stable lakes and seas of liquid on its surface.

Three of these actors played James Bond on film: which odd one out starred as the spy Harry Palmer?

Michael Caine played Harry Palmer, a rough-edged crook turned spy, in five films that began with The Ipcress File in 1965.

Three of these countries are in Africa: which odd one out is a South American neighbour of Brazil?

Guyana lies on the Atlantic coast between Venezuela and Suriname. It is the only country in mainland South America with English as its official language.

Three of these Shakespeare plays are tragedies: which odd one out is a comedy about shipwrecked twins?

Twelfth Night centres on Viola and Sebastian, siblings separated at sea. The comedy is believed to have been written as entertainment for the close of the Christmas season.

Three of these men ruled as Roman emperors: which odd one out was a dictator killed before the empire began?

Julius Caesar was dictator of the Roman Republic until his assassination in 44 BC. His heir Augustus became the first emperor 17 years later, in 27 BC.

Three of these are deserts: which is the odd one out?

Serengeti plains host one of the world's largest land animal migrations, with herds of blue wildebeest, gazelles and zebras moving between Tanzania and Kenya.

Three of these comedians were members of Monty Python: which is the odd one out?

Rowan Atkinson, the star of Blackadder and Mr. Bean, first found fame on the sketch show Not the Nine O'Clock News and later led the Johnny English spy spoofs on film.

Three of these children's books are by Roald Dahl: which odd one out was written by Julia Donaldson?

The Gruffalo is a picture book illustrated by Axel Scheffler that has sold over 13.5 million copies and won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.

Three of these bones are found in the human leg: which odd one out runs from shoulder to elbow?

Humerus is the name of the long bone of the upper arm. Its rounded head meets the shoulder blade to form the shoulder joint, and its lower end meets the radius and ulna.

Three of these constellations share names with zodiac signs: which odd one out depicts a hunter from Greek myth?

Orion carries a famous marker: three of its bright stars form a short straight line known as the Belt.

Three of these actors have played the Doctor in Doctor Who: which odd one out starred as Sherlock Holmes?

Benedict Cumberbatch played the detective in the BBC series Sherlock from 2010 to 2017 and won a Primetime Emmy Award for the role.

Three of these words name types of triangle: which odd one out is a shape with four equal sides?

Rhombus is the name for a quadrilateral whose sides all have the same length, which makes every square a special case with right angles.

Three of these films were directed by Steven Spielberg: which odd one out was James Cameron's 1984 breakthrough?

The Terminator stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a cyborg assassin sent back from 2029, and Cameron co-wrote it with producer Gale Anne Hurd.

Three of these countries use the euro: which odd one out pays with a currency called the krona?

Sweden kept the krona after its voters turned down the euro in a 2003 referendum. A yes vote would have brought the single currency in at the start of 2006.

Three of these novels are by the author of Pride and Prejudice: which odd one out is Charlotte Brontë's?

Jane Eyre first appeared in 1847 under the pen name Currer Bell and was presented to readers as an autobiography.

Three of these musicals have music by Andrew Lloyd Webber: which odd one out adapts a Victor Hugo novel?

Les Misérables began as a French show with music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel Hugo published in 1862. It is sung-through, with the story carried in song instead of spoken scenes.

Three of these presidents are carved on Mount Rushmore: which odd one out led the Union Army to victory?

Ulysses S. Grant was Commanding General when the Civil War ended in 1865, then served as the 18th president from 1869 to 1877.

Three of these composers belong to the Baroque era: which odd one out was a Romantic pianist from Poland?

Chopin wrote mainly for solo piano. A child prodigy raised in Warsaw, he left his homeland at 20 and settled in Paris a year later.

Three of these astronauts flew on Apollo 11: which odd one out was the first American to orbit Earth?

John Glenn circled the globe aboard Friendship 7 in February 1962, which made him the third American in space and the fifth human.

Three of these European countries are landlocked: which odd one out has a long coast on the Adriatic Sea?

Croatia counts more than 1,000 islands and islets in the archipelago strung along its shore.

Three of these languages descend from Latin: which odd one out belongs to the Uralic family alongside Finnish?

Hungarian is the most widely spoken Uralic language, with about 14 million speakers. Its distant relatives include Finnish and Estonian rather than the tongues of its neighbours.

Three of these English monarchs were Tudors: which odd one out was the first king from the House of Stuart?

James I already ruled Scotland as James VI when the crowns were united in 1603. He then based himself in England and went back north only once, in 1617.

Three of these writers were Russian: which odd one out wrote in German and came from Prague?

Franz Kafka is best known for The Metamorphosis, yet only a minority of his works were published in his lifetime and they drew little attention.

Three of these are wine grape varieties: which odd one out is a pale lager named after a Bohemian city?

Pilsner takes its name from Plzeň, where the world's first pale lager was produced in 1842.

Three of these goddesses are Greek: which odd one out formed Rome's Capitoline Triad with Jupiter and Juno?

Minerva was Rome's goddess of wisdom, and her sacred owl became a lasting symbol of knowledge.

Three of these books are in the New Testament: which is the odd one out?

Proverbs is one of the wisdom books of the Hebrew Bible and, unlike most of scripture, almost never mentions the Exodus or the covenant at Sinai.

Three of these prime ministers led Labour governments: which odd one out led the Conservatives in the 1990s?

John Major served as prime minister from 1990 to 1997, winning the 1992 general election before Labour swept him from office.

Three of these rocks are igneous: which odd one out is a metamorphic rock formed from limestone?

Marble forms when heat and pressure recrystallise limestone, and the purest white stone comes from very clean limestone or dolomite.

Three of these countries belong to the European Union: which odd one out declined to join after two referendums?

Norway voted on joining in 1972 and 1994 and declined both times, even though a large majority of its parliament had backed entry in 1972.

Three of these characters appear in Hamlet: which odd one out is the scheming villain of Othello?

Iago serves as Othello's standard-bearer and is married to Emilia, the attendant of the general's wife Desdemona.

Three of these women were wives of Henry VIII: which odd one out was proclaimed queen for just nine days?

Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen on 10 July 1553 and deposed on 19 July, when the Privy Council declared for her cousin Mary instead.

Three of these planets have moons: which odd one out is a moonless world that spins backwards?

Venus has no natural satellites and turns very slowly clockwise on its axis, the opposite direction to most planets, including Earth.

Three of these novels were written by Charles Dickens: which odd one out is William Makepeace Thackeray's satire?

Vanity Fair follows the scheming Becky Sharp through the Napoleonic Wars and came out in 1848 with the subtitle A Novel without a Hero.

Three of these scientists gave their names to chemical elements: which odd one out has an Australian city instead?

Charles Darwin was honoured in 1839, when HMS Beagle surveyed a northern harbour and an officer named it after his former shipmate.

Three of these are shapes of pasta: which odd one out is an Italian rice used for risotto?

Arborio is a rice named after a town in the Po Valley of Piedmont. Orzo is the trap here: it is pasta cut to look like a large grain of rice.

Three of these poets were English Romantics: which odd one out was a modernist who won the 1948 Nobel Prize?

T. S. Eliot published The Waste Land in 1922, more than a century after the Romantics' heyday, and is counted among the greatest poets of the English language.

Three of these are fielding positions in cricket: which odd one out is a back in rugby union?

Fly-half is one of the seven backs in a rugby union side, a player who is often a good kicker and generally directs the back line.

Three of these operas were composed by Puccini: which odd one out is Verdi's story of the doomed Violetta?

La Traviata is based on The Lady of the Camellias, a play by Alexandre Dumas fils, and was originally going to be named after its heroine.

Three of these are dwarf planets: which odd one out is a moon that circles Neptune backwards?

Triton is larger than every known dwarf planet, and it is the only large moon in the Solar System to orbit against its planet's rotation.

Three of these cities have hosted the Summer Olympics: which odd one out lost three bids in a row?

Madrid's campaign for the 2020 Games was its third consecutive bid and its fourth overall, and it ended in a tie-break defeat to Istanbul.

Three of these US states were among the Thirteen Colonies: which odd one out joined the Union as the 14th state?

Vermont was admitted in March 1791. Congress had already voted to admit Kentucky, which had to wait until 1792 to become the 15th state.

Three of these elements are halogens: which odd one out is a nonmetal named after the Greek word for moon?

Selenium was discovered in 1817 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, who saw how closely it resembled tellurium, an element already named for the Earth.

Three of these capitals stand on the Danube: which odd one out sits on the smaller River Dâmbovița?

Bucharest is built on the banks of the Dâmbovița, which flows into the Argeș, itself a tributary of the Danube.

Three of these events are part of the decathlon: which odd one out ends the women's heptathlon instead?

800 metres is the last of the seven heptathlon events, run on the second day. Decathletes close their ten events with a race almost twice as long.

Three of these Shakespeare comedies are set in Italy: which odd one out takes place in Vienna?

Measure for Measure centres on Angelo, a puritan deputy left in charge of the city while its Duke spies on his subjects disguised as a friar.