Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

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MarkBarrett
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MarkBarrett »

davey wrote:
Vanya wrote:
davey wrote:
MDaunt wrote: The Idiot, The Gambler, The Brothers Karamazov, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Lolita, Dr. Zhivago, Eugene Onegin et al.
Lolita doesn't belong on that list. We could add Oblomov, and The Master and Margarita.
Nabokov grew up in Russia, and wrote a Russian language version of Lolita himself.
It's not a Russian novel, doesn't have Russian characters, has nothing to do with Russia.
Let's say there is a contestant or viewer who knows nothing about the story other than Lolita/Nabokov. The work is fair game for a guess (a very bad one) for the FJ! clue. That's all that has been going on. Possible wrong guesses for the clue. Lolita is possible. Unlikely, yes.
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by goatman »

davey wrote:
Vanya wrote:
davey wrote:
MDaunt wrote: The Idiot, The Gambler, The Brothers Karamazov, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Lolita, Dr. Zhivago, Eugene Onegin et al.
Lolita doesn't belong on that list. We could add Oblomov, and The Master and Margarita.
Nabokov grew up in Russia, and wrote a Russian language version of Lolita himself.
It's not a Russian novel, doesn't have Russian characters, has nothing to do with Russia.
O and BTW, 1955... interestingly; How Undervalued By Realizing It's Silly could that be? :lol:
The corridors of my mind are plastered with 3M Post-It notes!
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by davey »

MarkBarrett wrote:
davey wrote:
Vanya wrote:
davey wrote:
MDaunt wrote: The Idiot, The Gambler, The Brothers Karamazov, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Lolita, Dr. Zhivago, Eugene Onegin et al.
Lolita doesn't belong on that list. We could add Oblomov, and The Master and Margarita.
Nabokov grew up in Russia, and wrote a Russian language version of Lolita himself.
It's not a Russian novel, doesn't have Russian characters, has nothing to do with Russia.
Let's say there is a contestant or viewer who knows nothing about the story other than Lolita/Nabokov. The work is fair game for a guess (a very bad one) for the FJ! clue. That's all that has been going on. Possible wrong guesses for the clue. Lolita is possible. Unlikely, yes.
Let's say there is a member of this forum who knows nothing about the story. Putting it on a list of novels with Russian title characters is misleading.
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Bamaman »

The answer did not say it was a Russian novel.
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by davey »

Bamaman wrote:The answer did not say it was a Russian novel.
I know. Which is why I pointed out Lolita isn't a Russian title character, either, nor is there any other major character who's Russian. (There's a Russian taxi driver named Maximovich from Humbert's past in Paris. I think he's in one chapter.) Just trying to ensure it's nobody's bad guess under similar circumstances in the future... :geek:
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by alietr »

goatman wrote:Mustachio makes for strong play, I need to grow one, what a marvelous mustache! :P
I hear he went on a long run. Finally, the future contestants in the Green Room held him down and cut off his mustache. The next game, he ended up in the red.
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by opusthepenguin »

MDaunt wrote:
opusthepenguin wrote:
Bamaman wrote:I have never read that book and could not name more than one character in it. But it sounded Russian so I'll go with Anna Karenina.
Same here. It's a Russian book and it has to have a title character. So Crime and Punishment, for example, is out. It's pretty much down to Anna Karenina or Warren Peace.
The Idiot, The Gambler, The Brothers Karamazov, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Lolita, Dr. Zhivago, Eugene Onegin et al.
Unlikely, unlikely, considered and rejected because not a title character, possible but a long shot, Mrs. Penguin guessed this and it's not a terrible guess, that's a good one and should be added to the list, unlikely.
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Category 13 »

BigDaddyMatty wrote: In fairness to Hammer, Chevy did also make the Camaro, but c'mon. The Corvette is the sports car.
bpmod wrote:Sports Car => Corvette
Muscle Car => Camaro (and lots of others)

But 1953 should be pavlovian for Corvette in the context of 'car'.
Brian
My comments have been somewhat misconstrued (sp).
I was poking fun at Hammer, but he is not out of line to think or say Chevrolet made plenty of sports cars. It's just the Chevy Excecs and Corvette snobs that like to proclaim that Corvette was/is the only Chevrolet model that is worthy of the 'sports car' moniker.
As far as I'm concerned, the turbocharged Corvair Monzas were every bit a sports car, and a lot of Cosworth Vega owners like to think the same of their rides.
Of course Corvette loyalists would turn green and grow one eyebrow at that idea.

And there are a handful of people on the old car boards that will argue till their dying breath that anything other than a mid-sized sedan must not be called a muscle car. Camaros and Mustangs are 'Pony Cars' etc. etc.etc.
I couldn't care less. Let 'em think what they want to think.
Last edited by Category 13 on Wed May 06, 2015 9:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Tencent »

Distaff is an interesting word. Etymology is similar to spinster. The originate from pre-industrial textile making.
Making cloth was incredibly time intensive so women often spent loads of time indoors making spinning wool into
cloth.

A distaff is a tool used in spinning. Also it points to why textile making was one of the first uses of industrialization.
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by willwoodlen »

opusthepenguin wrote:
TenPoundHammer wrote:Unless you can't think of a French author. If you pressed me right now, I doubt I could think of one...
But we're not talking about you. We're talking about Jeopardy! contestants. It's a vanishingly rare Jeopardy! contestant who can't come up with a single French author in 5 seconds. And for 90% or more of them, Hugo will be the one they name. Others might think of Voltaire, Moliere, Verne, Racine, Rabelais, Balzac, no not Chaucer he was English, Camus, Flaubert, de Maupassant, Baudelaire, or Rimbaud. Just off the top of my head.
Spoiler
Oh, hey, I just realized I forgot Zola, even though he was in a clue last week and we talked about his book Germinal in the game thread. I am such a Dumas.


French was my second major in college, so I had a bunch of names in my head as possible answers, which was as unhelpful as having no names in my head. The only narrowing factor in the clue was that it was a 19th-century author. Yes, the "Les" wording in the title mentioned might have led one to the right author, but not if the "Les" connection never occurred to one. To add to the difficulty, the clue referred to a poem, but the correct author is not known primarily as a poet. If, based on the clue's wording, one tried to come up with a poet, one had been misled by the clue. As has been pointed out, this ended up not being a ballet clue but a French lit clue, but whatever help that provided was almost no help at all. I'm more inclined than some others to give Dan a break for his paralysis when faced with such a tricky clue.
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by opusthepenguin »

willwoodlen wrote:French was my second major in college, so I had a bunch of names in my head as possible answers, which was as unhelpful as having no names in my head. The only narrowing factor in the clue was that it was a 19th-century author. Yes, the "Les" wording in the title mentioned might have led one to the right author, but not if the "Les" connection never occurred to one.
With French as a second major, I imagine it wouldn't. "Oh look, it's a title that begins with 'The'. How unusual!" :D Ok, to be fair, it begins with "The" coupled with a plural noun.

English speakers might think of Les Miserables because the title, by tradition, is left untranslated. If we knew it in English as "The Miserable Ones" or "The Dispossessed" or "The Outsiders," we wouldn't make the "Les" connection either. If you think in French, there's no reason "Les" should lead you to Hugo over, say, Dumas and Les Trois Mousquetaires. (For the seriously French impaired who can't work this out, that's "The Three Mouseketeers".)

(Note: I spent a while trying to think how I could subtly work this around to some conclusion like "'Les' is more" or "I couldn't care 'Les'." But the magic just wasn't happening in my brain today.)
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by opusthepenguin »

willwoodlen wrote:To add to the difficulty, the clue referred to a poem, but the correct author is not known primarily as a poet. If, based on the clue's wording, one tried to come up with a poet, one had been misled by the clue. As has been pointed out, this ended up not being a ballet clue but a French lit clue, but whatever help that provided was almost no help at all. I'm more inclined than some others to give Dan a break for his paralysis when faced with such a tricky clue.
Well put. I think there's only one person who has a right to yell at Dan and say, "Ring in and guess SOMETHING, you idiot!!!!!!" And that person is Dan himself. I know I'd be yelling at the TV in his situation. But if anyone gave me a hard time about it, I'd get very defensive and say "You don't know what it's like up there." Unless I was at a party with a bunch of former contestants. In which case, I don't think there'd be a problem. They'd refrain from criticizing and would all be sympathetic. They DO know what it's like up there.

We've been on a rabbit trail about nineteenth-century French NOVELISTS. But the clue, as you remind us, would more naturally lead to a poet. I'm not as confident that almost every J! contestant can name a nineteenth-century French poet on command. I think the majority could but a not insignificant number would draw a blank. I can name Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and ... Verlaine(?).
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by willwoodlen »

opusthepenguin wrote:
willwoodlen wrote:French was my second major in college, so I had a bunch of names in my head as possible answers, which was as unhelpful as having no names in my head. The only narrowing factor in the clue was that it was a 19th-century author. Yes, the "Les" wording in the title mentioned might have led one to the right author, but not if the "Les" connection never occurred to one.
With French as a second major, I imagine it wouldn't. "Oh look, it's a title that begins with 'The'. How unusual!" :D Ok, to be fair, it begins with "The" coupled with a plural noun.

English speakers might think of Les Miserables because the title, by tradition, is left untranslated. If we knew it in English as "The Miserable Ones" or "The Dispossessed" or "The Outsiders," we wouldn't make the "Les" connection either. If you think in French, there's no reason "Les" should lead you to Hugo over, say, Dumas and Les Trois Mousquetaires. (For the seriously French impaired who can't work this out, that's "The Three Mouseketeers".)

(Note: I spent a while trying to think how I could subtly work this around to some conclusion like "'Les' is more" or "I couldn't care 'Les'." But the magic just wasn't happening in my brain today.)

But the explanation of the attempt is amusing, so thanks!
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Re: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by willwoodlen »

opusthepenguin wrote:
willwoodlen wrote:To add to the difficulty, the clue referred to a poem, but the correct author is not known primarily as a poet. If, based on the clue's wording, one tried to come up with a poet, one had been misled by the clue. As has been pointed out, this ended up not being a ballet clue but a French lit clue, but whatever help that provided was almost no help at all. I'm more inclined than some others to give Dan a break for his paralysis when faced with such a tricky clue.
Well put. I think there's only one person who has a right to yell at Dan and say, "Ring in and guess SOMETHING, you idiot!!!!!!" And that person is Dan himself. I know I'd be yelling at the TV in his situation. But if anyone gave me a hard time about it, I'd get very defensive and say "You don't know what it's like up there." Unless I was at a party with a bunch of former contestants. In which case, I don't think there'd be a problem. They'd refrain from criticizing and would all be sympathetic. They DO know what it's like up there.

We've been on a rabbit trail about nineteenth-century French NOVELISTS. But the clue, as you remind us, would more naturally lead to a poet. I'm not as confident that almost every J! contestant can name a nineteenth-century French poet on command. I think the majority could but a not insignificant number would draw a blank. I can name Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and ... Verlaine(?).

Oui! And Musset and Heredia and others I can't come up with right now. It's been a long time....
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