“The question was reasonably obscure — What was the last opera in Wagner’s “Ring” cycle? — but Ruthie Duskin knew the answer. ‘The Dusk of the Gods,’ she intoned into the microphone. A fellow panelist leapt to correct her. ‘It’s Gott-dam … Gott-dam,’ he stammered, as the producers of the live radio broadcast winced. ‘He means the German name, Götterdämmerung,’ Ruthie interrupted. ‘But in English, it’s what I said.’ She was 7 years old.”