Tuesday, December 29, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[davey]

When the Zimbabwe category popped up, my friend and I had a few side wagers on whether they'd ask for the capital, the value of the clue, and if they'd get it right (I guessed yes, $400, and no. 1/3 ain't bad )

I kinda hate it when they do the more obscure (at least to Western audiences) capitols because they are all nearly always pronounced incorrectly. Same thing with Mali's capitol recently. Why ding for mispronunciations for things like Frances McDormand but not capitol names?

The instance I found where they "dinged" on the actor's name, the player left off the first syllable. If you can point to an example word where an initial "Mc" is completely silent, as a final "e" often is, I'll concede you have a point about the capital name.

http://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_ ... =mcdormand

So very strange that the clue's bad wording got through. How many layers of review are there anyway? And just the other day a couple of words arguably missing from a clue...And a typo recently if I remember right!... I had trouble summoning Collins' name but I didn't think I had to because of the wording. Went with Armstrong as the more common of the two remaining.

[xxaaaxx]

MB can do whatever he wants with the poll, but I'd throw this Final out and change the box to "I clicked all four FJ's." If there were such a thing as a three-way coin flip, this was it.

Might be easier to have a choice that says "I might've answered Tuesday's FJ correctly, but the wording led me away from Collins."

[econgator]

I thought about mercury for a second, then re-reading the clue noticed it referred to a precious metal. I don't think mercury falls under that description.

Platinum is currently going for about $27500/kg. Mercury? About 17.50.

[MarkyMarkm]

When the Zimbabwe category popped up, my friend and I had a few side wagers on whether they'd ask for the capital, the value of the clue, and if they'd get it right (I guessed yes, $400, and no. 1/3 ain't bad )

I kinda hate it when they do the more obscure (at least to Western audiences) capitols because they are all nearly always pronounced incorrectly. Same thing with Mali's capitol recently. Why ding for mispronunciations for things like Frances McDormand but not capitol names?

The instance I found where they "dinged" on the actor's name, the player left off the first syllable. If you can point to an example word where an initial "Mc" is completely silent, as a final "e" often is, I'll concede you have a point about the capital name.

http://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_ ... =mcdormand

Arthur Chu was negged for pronouncing "McDormand" as "McDarmand." And leaving off the e in Harare is no small mistake, Harar is actually a very prominent city in Ethiopia.

[opusthepenguin]

So Ashley gets to play again because there's a less than 50% chance she would have won if there'd been an FJ with a correct response possible. But what happens to Camille? There's a greater than 50% chance that she's out $16,002 because of that bogus FJ. Is she just supposed to laugh that off? Or do they sneak the money to her on the sly even though it's not officially recorded as part of her winnings? I mean, she's clearly not TOC material. (Nobody in this painful game was.) So at least there isn't that to worry about. But $16k is a lot to lose because the writers slipped in a clue with no correct response.

If the clue hadn't specified LANDING, I'd definitely have followed the logic of others here. Collins is the most common of the three names and the least likely to have had a big deal made about it when it happened.

[davey]

When the Zimbabwe category popped up, my friend and I had a few side wagers on whether they'd ask for the capital, the value of the clue, and if they'd get it right (I guessed yes, $400, and no. 1/3 ain't bad )

I kinda hate it when they do the more obscure (at least to Western audiences) capitols because they are all nearly always pronounced incorrectly. Same thing with Mali's capitol recently. Why ding for mispronunciations for things like Frances McDormand but not capitol names?

The instance I found where they "dinged" on the actor's name, the player left off the first syllable. If you can point to an example word where an initial "Mc" is completely silent, as a final "e" often is, I'll concede you have a point about the capital name.

http://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_ ... =mcdormand

Arthur Chu was negged for pronouncing "McDormand" as "McDarmand." And leaving off the e in Harare is no small mistake, Harar is actually a very prominent city in Ethiopia.

The Chu mistake may be arguable because of the judges' common lenience on vowels, but it's hard for an English speaker to mix up an o sound with an a sound in that syllable.
It's not hard for an English speaker to assume a silent final e. I think that explains the judges' decision.

[DadofTwins]

It really doesn't seem worth it to do some quick math in your head and wager correctly, does it?

For some reason I thought the question excluded Collins because he didn't go down onto the moon, so I went with Aldrin. Knowing the female pilot would have helped, of course. I feel extra bad about missing this one since I just submitted my astronaut candidate application.

This also addresses cosmos's question. Apparently, TPTB decided in retrospect that the wording made it sound as if the last name referred to someone who actually walked on the moon (apparently OSXpert and I were not the only two who were misled) so they're letting Ashley play again later in the week. I'm glad cosmos commented because I hadn't watched that far on the tape--I went back to watch it just now.

(Despite the wording, I really should have gotten a response about an astronaut named Eileen. My excuse is that I ruled out Collins before I got that far.)

Editing to add: started composing this before Opus's post.

All they had to do was change "lunar landing" to "lunar mission".

And why would you bet nothing?

Instaget, even though I knew Collins continued to orbit.

Except the first manned lunar mission was Apollo 8.

I know what they wanted from missing this FJ back in the day: http://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=946

Then I spent the next 28 seconds trying to figure out how to re-write the clue to make it have a correct answer.

Would it have made it too easy to change "first manned lunar landing" to "Apollo 11?" I don't see how that change would have impacted the overall get rate.

Speaking of sloppy writing, on the 4-letter verb category, there was a clue something like "to plow a field." They were going for "till."

MomofTwins said, "Plow."

Judges?

[dhkendall]

I thought the Walmart clue could've used a stronger TOM, since I was going for XYZ companies and getting nowhere.

I initially thought of XYZ co's for a fraction of a second, until I realized that it also mentioned that it's at the top of the list. I (and most people) know that Walmart is at the top, and it's sufficiently low in the alphabet to be plausible. Boom. Done.

"Wait, it can't be Good Friday, that's 3 days before Easter!" Derp.

To be fair, Jesus made the same mistake ("I will rise again on the third day") and he's the son of God, so ...

Somehow I recognize Armstrong and Aldrin, but have NHO Michael Collins to my knowledge. I had no guess and couldn't even pull the two I did know in 30 seconds.

My problem was "OK, there's Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz - dammit, what's his last name? Lightyear? No, don't be silly. Armstrong? "Buzz Armstrong" sounds right, but Neil's Armstrong, there's no way there'd be two Armstrongs there. Dammit, I can't remember his last name! Hope it's not him!" (My coin flip came up on the wrong side, both sounded like equally good choices.)

Did not think platinum was that high in the periodic table; I thought it was down near palladium in the 40s. But mercury was still not a good neg, being liquid at normal atmospheric conditions and all.

I said mercury, too, and justified it by thinking it might be solid as part of an ore.

I was correct; the only important one is called cinnabar.

DEFINITELY not to be confused with Cinnabon.

When the Zimbabwe category popped up, my friend and I had a few side wagers on whether they'd ask for the capital, the value of the clue, and if they'd get it right (I guessed yes, $400, and no. 1/3 ain't bad )

I kinda hate it when they do the more obscure (at least to Western audiences) capitols because they are all nearly always pronounced incorrectly. Same thing with Mali's capitol recently. Why ding for mispronunciations for things like Frances McDormand but not capitol names?

The instance I found where they "dinged" on the actor's name, the player left off the first syllable. If you can point to an example word where an initial "Mc" is completely silent, as a final "e" often is, I'll concede you have a point about the capital name.

http://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_ ... =mcdormand

Arthur Chu was negged for pronouncing "McDormand" as "McDarmand." And leaving off the e in Harare is no small mistake, Harar is actually a very prominent city in Ethiopia.

I think it was given because "Harare" could be pronounced by English rules as "Harar" if you've never heard it said before and only seen it in writing. That's a long standing rule that has made acceptable some very strange pronunciations.

[bpmod]

"Wait, it can't be Good Friday, that's 3 days before Easter!" Derp.

To be fair, Jesus made the same mistake ("I will rise again on the third day") and he's the son of God, so ...

No. Or are you one of those obit writers that don't know the difference between "in his third year" and "at three years of age"?

First day: Friday. Second day: Saturday. Third day: Sunday. It's not hard.

Brian

[hbomb1947]

COLLINS WAS NOT ON THE FIRST LUNAR LANDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I SPECIFICALLY RULED THAT NAME OUT BECAUSE OF THAT INCONTROVERTIBLE FACT! GAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE IDIOT WRITERS??!?!!?!!

Good news, friend. Did you see Alex's message at the end? I think you can count yourself right here.

A wrong answer is still a wrong answer.

I guessed Collins (I had no idea who the shuttle pilot was, but Aldrin seemed too uncommon of a surname to have also been hers; and I thought Armstrong was too obvious. So on that basis I went with Collins. I didn't interpret the clue as implying that the Apollo 11 astronaut had to have actually walked on the moon, and in reasoning it through I specifically noted that the clue hadn't stated that the astronaut in question had strolled on the lunar surface.) But had I gone with Aldrin or Armstrong, since TPTB have treated the clue as flawed I would do what I did earlier this season when I negged on

Spoiler

the Formula 1 clue to which there was no correct response to the clue as worded:

I would treat the FJ as if it had never happened, and not count it towards my total for the week.

Of course, if Ashley had wagered properly, she would have been the outright champion and then I guess TPTB would have brought Camille back.

Considering that Ashley had a cheering section in the audience, I was surprised that I didn't hear any cheering from them during the game, since she was doing well up until the FJ.

[seaborgium]

So, was this a draw for the intermediate form of Shore's, or a loss? I'm not sure how it's scored.

Draw. Camille won trying to cover, and she would have won with a Shoretegic bet. Whether a game is a win, loss, or draw for Shoretegy is a matter of how a cover wager's results compare with a Shoretegic one's.


I ruled out Collins because of the clue's wording, and went for Armstrong because I've heard of more Armstrongs than Aldrins. I definitely would have chosen Collins had I believed his name to be on the table.

Of course, if Ashley had wagered properly, she would have been the outright champion and then I guess TPTB would have brought Camille back.

They would have brought them both back.

[MarkBarrett]

This is the second time in a row that I exceeded the combined Coryat, even with four negs and only $22,800 tonight. (I had $27,000 yesterday.) Jeopardy must be holding secret auditions in Subaru dealerships.
MB can do whatever he wants with the poll, but I'd throw this Final out and change the box to "I clicked all four FJ's." If there were such a thing as a three-way coin flip, this was it.

I have the combined Coryat as $23,200. For the poll I will continue to monitor the posts here and figure out the best way to handle today's FJ! clue and the choices.

9/10 for me in TV and Movies as I said Scritch instead of Scrat.

The Good Wife coupled with Good Times was perfectly fair for the $200 box. The three tonight did not know Chicago. Most nights it would have had a correct response without incident. I enjoyed the pairings as each set had a show I watched and one I did not watch. If the powers at CBS had any kind of brains they would revive Cold Case with the occasional TV movie like those Tom Selleck/Jesse Stone ones.

The FJ! category had me way off with my precalls of Occam, Murphy, Ponzi and Gerry.

The clue made me laugh as earlier this evening I watched an episode of The Sixties that CNN aired about the space program. Thanks to prior J! clues I knew Collins was the last name to lock in even while spotting the problem with the wording.

Of course the wording was not going to throw me since I was the guy who needed the education years back about exactly where Collins was in relation to the moon landing.

Yes, too bad about Patricia's wager since it could have made an even bigger mess for the show in having none of the women playing their last game. Too bad Claudia is not due back yet as her playing Ashley and Camille would be interesting.

I got the Steelers like Patricia did for the 6-time Super Bowl winners. For anyone who did not get the right team in time the penalty is not being allowed to make a sports-related complaint post the next time it warrants.

[aeq5006]

Patricia has a rather distinctive way of thinking. Is there a term for it? Is it a particular accent?

Did Alex pronounce "stereotype" with a long e?

All they had to do was change "lunar landing" to "lunar mission".

That would be ambiguous as to whether it included previous Apollo missions.

I thought Chicago and South Africa were tough for the top box.

By "Chicago", do you mean the clue that told the contestants that it was both the city of one of the most famous seventies shows, and the city of what has been widely hailed as the best show on broadcast TV?

Yes, I ran Animated Movie Characters. I needed only "Hi, I'm Josh Gad" to get Olaf.

And the first half of the Jessica Rabbit clue was enough for me to guess.

I kinda hate it when they do the more obscure (at least to Western audiences) capitols because they are all nearly always pronounced incorrectly. Same thing with Mali's capitol recently.

A bit ironic for someone who doesn't know how to spell the word to express irritation at capitals not being pronounced correctly.

Did not think platinum was that high in the periodic table; I thought it was down near palladium in the 40s.

Also, "silvery" was arguably TOM.

Arthur Chu was negged for pronouncing "McDormand" as "McDarmand." And leaving off the e in Harare is no small mistake, Harar is actually a very prominent city in Ethiopia.

Leaving off the "e" constitutes following the standard rules of English pronunciation. Pronouncing "o" as "a" does not. If Chu had said "MacDormand", that would be a better comparison.

[Volante]

Just for fun, I'd like to propose an alternate clue leading to the same answer:
"The first female space shuttle pilot shares this last name with a famous tv soap opera vampire."

"...and bestselling young adult fiction writer."

For FJ, I didn't remember Eileen Collins' name, unfortunately, but I figured it wasn't Aldrin, and guessed that it wasn't Armstrong. I'll take it.

Same here, more or less, except the name Collins rang a slightly louder bell than the other two.
Felt that they were trying to be tricky with the wording too. "Apollo 11" would too obviously include all three. Sometimes its good to think like a clue writer. "Why, exactly, did they choose this otherwise awkward wording?..."

I kinda hate it when they do the more obscure (at least to Western audiences) capitols because they are all nearly always pronounced incorrectly. Same thing with Mali's capitol recently. Why ding for mispronunciations for things like Frances McDormand but not capitol names?

Foreign languages use different rules of pronunciation. It's why Kiribatee always gets accepted. If you only ever see it in print, you'd never realize it's '-bas' when raised speaking American English.

[hbomb1947]

For the poll I will continue to monitor the posts here and figure out the best way to handle today's FJ! clue and the choices.)

My thoughts on how to handle it: at the very least, those of us who were correct with Collins should have the chance to check that off; and people who go 5/5 (I won't be one of them, after missing Monday's FJ) should have the option of a checking a box for that. There could also be a box along the lines of "I was correct on all four other FJ's and was misled on Tuesday's FJ."

[This Is Kirk!]

I did not know about Alex's post-game comment until I came here. Why did they wait until after the ads?

On my station I'm pretty sure they aired Alex's comment before the ads.

I've got to say I'm confused as to why this was confusing. I figured it was either Armstrong or Collins and the clue not specifically mentioning it was someone who walked on the moon actually pushed me further toward Collins for my answer. But I could have sworn the word "mission" was in the wording. It really should have been.

[MarkyMarkm]

I think it was given because "Harare" could be pronounced by English rules as "Harar" if you've never heard it said before and only seen it in writing. That's a long standing rule that has made acceptable some very strange pronunciations.

Right. But that's my issue: if you had never heard and only seen Frances McDormand's name in writing, it would be very reasonable for someone to assume it would be pronounced with a short "o." You create, in effect, two different standards of pronunciation for English/commonly Anglicized words and those for others, and you penalize those who do know the proper pronunciations.

Arthur Chu was negged for pronouncing "McDormand" as "McDarmand." And leaving off the e in Harare is no small mistake, Harar is actually a very prominent city in Ethiopia.

Leaving off the "e" constitutes following the standard rules of English pronunciation. Pronouncing "o" as "a" does not. If Chu had said "MacDormand", that would be a better comparison.

Leaving off the "e" follows standard rules of English pronunciation for certain words. You might expect curare pronounced with a silent "e" to be accepted, but yarmulke or gefilte pronounced with a silent "e" should certainly not be.

[Volante]

Arthur Chu was negged for pronouncing "McDormand" as "McDarmand." And leaving off the e in Harare is no small mistake, Harar is actually a very prominent city in Ethiopia.

Leaving off the "e" constitutes following the standard rules of English pronunciation. Pronouncing "o" as "a" does not. If Chu had said "MacDormand", that would be a better comparison.

Leaving off the "e" follows standard rules of English pronunciation for certain words. You might expect curare pronounced with a silent "e" to be accepted, but yarmulke or gefilte pronounced with a silent "e" should certainly not be.

Except those don't follow standard rules of English to begin with. Should someone be negged for pronouncing 'yahmuhka' with a pirate 'yar'?
(First time I realized that's how the word was pronounced was from Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song...)

[Bamaman]

I once knew a guy who said the first time he saw the word "yarmulke" in print was when he was working at a radio station and was reading an article on air about one.

[Vermonter]

43R with successful Tease-out on astrochick named "Collins," reasoned I should stick with my first knee-jerk, knowing that J! would love an FJ based on "That guy who stayed in Columbia while the other 2 dudes landed Eagle on the Moon..."

Like this one?
http://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=2073

With just as bad a wager out of second place! (From my perspective, anyway; others might disagree)