Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by whoisalexjacob »

glennfleishman wrote:
Yes, although here's the tricky part. Spanish has definite and indefinite articles, like many languages, but "cien" here is literally "100" not spoken aloud. That is it's "hundred"; the "One" or "A" is implied. In the translation, the specific unit measure was added to make it "One Hundred Years of Solitude." Literally, I guess that's correct, but it's not precisely the same.
The clue was this:
"It was first published in 1967 under the Spanish title "Cien Años de Soledad""

It's asking for the title of the book. The book has been published many times in English, and always as "One Hundred Years of Solitude". (A quick Google image search will confirm that.) The clue did not ask you to translate a string of Spanish words. So, even if you're right about the translation of the word "cien", I still think that the judges dropped the ball on this one.
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by glennfleishman »

omgwheelhouse wrote:The clue did not ask you to translate a string of Spanish words. So, even if you're right about the translation of the word "cien", I still think that the judges dropped the ball on this one.
Interesting! Thank god that their decision is final. EMOTICON EMOTICON EMOTICON.
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by seaborgium »

The cover of its Cliffs Notes says "100 Years of Solitude." Maybe that provides just enough ambiguity that "A Hundred" is accepted...?
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by whoisalexjacob »

glennfleishman wrote:
omgwheelhouse wrote:The clue did not ask you to translate a string of Spanish words. So, even if you're right about the translation of the word "cien", I still think that the judges dropped the ball on this one.
Interesting! Thank god that their decision is final. EMOTICON EMOTICON EMOTICON.
Yeah, if you take away $1600 from your score before Final Jeopardy, you probably end up losing to Matt. But maybe you'd bet the daily doubles differently, yadda yadda yadda. Or since you did so much math and put so much thought into your wager, maybe you would have won even in a 17000-12000-5600 scenario. :)
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by stevo4212 »

Now, that Final Jeopardy was frustrating. Alex gets to stand up there, look smug and feel superior, when, really it could have been any number of things, all of which are just are logical as Gone With the Wind. Its a channel devoted to classic movies - doesn't that mean the movies have to be old, maybe at least black and white or silent? - Good silent films might include Charlie Chaplin, or Sunrise. How about The Jazz Singer, the first talkie? Or, the Great Train Robbery, or Birth of a Nation, among major early pictures? It was Turner Classic Movies, right? How about Lana Turner? That might mean it's The Postman Always Rings Twice. Now, Ted Turner was married to Jane Fonda in 1994. How about Klute, or Cat Ballou? What movie had a significant anniversary in 1994? Maybe Going My Way, Double Indemnity, or Gaslight. If you like the Atlanta angle, how about a good movie about Ty Cobb or Martin Luther King?

Heck, Bette Davis had won the first ever AFI Life achievement award - maybe it was one of her movies. I felt very cheated by that photo of her, by the way. I watched a great deal of her movies: Dark Victory, Now Voyager, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? to name a few, but couldn't recognize her by that photograph.

Or, perhaps a movie largely considered to be among the best ever made, like The Godfather, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, among many others. Can anyone explain why Citizen Kane was number one on AFI's list of best films? That would be solidly on my mediocre list - the whole thing seemed to revolve around one word. I even preferred How Green Was My Valley. Who could forget the memorable scene in which Dai Bando demonstrated the Marquess of Queensberry rules, on Huw Morgan's teacher, in the middle of class?

Even if the Turner/GWTW connection you suggest is true, I still say that makes, GWTW, at best, a maximum likelihood estimate, but still that should give a thinking person no confidence in that being the right answer.

Did anyone else know hirsute from your deep knowledge of The Wonder Years? Or, maybe it's just common knowledge - even the lunch lady knew what it meant.
Last edited by stevo4212 on Mon Oct 22, 2012 6:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by stevo4212 »


It's asking for the title of the book. The book has been published many times in English, and always as "One Hundred Years of Solitude". (A quick Google image search will confirm that.) The clue did not ask you to translate a string of Spanish words. So, even if you're right about the translation of the word "cien", I still think that the judges dropped the ball on this one.
C'mon. if your interpretation of the rule is correct, Jeopardy had better make that perfectly clear before we ever set foot on the podium. Is there a place to read the official rules?

That's just pedantry, in my opinion; a is an article used to denote one of something as opposed to more than one. If we need to play by the strictest rules, one can argue he was clearing his throat, since you seem to agree that "Hundred Years of Solitude" would be correct. "What is uh, Hundred Years of Solitude" would sound just the same.

In court, someone tries to enter a sworn statement into the record, or something. The person reading it into the record sees, "100" and says "a hundred;" is the opposing counsel really going to object to the characterization of 100 as "a hundred?" I hope not.
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

glennfleishman wrote:
omgwheelhouse wrote:The clue did not ask you to translate a string of Spanish words. So, even if you're right about the translation of the word "cien", I still think that the judges dropped the ball on this one.
Interesting! Thank god that their decision is final. EMOTICON EMOTICON EMOTICON.
:lol:
I'm not as confident as omgwheelhouse that the judges dropped the ball. But I also can't go along with stevo4212 in saying the ruling was obviously correct. I think you found a real edge case here. And in my opinion, rulings on edge cases should favor the contestant. So I'm happy with the outcome, but wouldn't have been outraged if they'd ruled against you.

To me, the crucial point is that we're dealing with a translation. Had GGM written in English and titled his book, "One Hundred Years of Solitude", I have no doubt the answer "A Hundred Years..." or "uh ... Hundred Years...." would have been ruled incorrect. As omgwheelhouse rightly points out upstream, they did not accept A Million Years B.C. as equivalent to One Million Years B.C. He also rightly points out that Cien Años de Soledad has always (as far as I can tell) been published in English translation as One Hundred Years of Solitude. But (also as far as I can tell), despite the different packaging, all English editions use Gregory Rabassa's translation. If the work weren't still under copyright, a publisher might well commission a new translation and that translation might well be titled A Hundred Years of Solitude and have a tedious translator's preface explaining why this title is preferable.

You see this sort of thing all the time with books that are no longer under copyright. Everybody knows Dostoyevsky wrote The Brothers Karamazov. But you can buy a copy of his book The Karamazov Brothers if you want. Depends on which translator you prefer.

So, bottom line: for copyright reasons, the official title is One Hundred Years of Solitude, but it is not an untrue statement to say that Garcia Marquez wrote A Hundred Years of Solitude. Ruling is for the defendant, Glen Fleishman. He may keep the money and advance to the next game. ;)


P.S. Now that I think about it, Glenn, you could have given us even more of an edge case. I wonder what the judges would have said if you'd replied, "What is A Hundred Years of Loneliness?"
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

stevo4212 wrote:Or, perhaps a movie largely considered to be among the best ever made, like The Godfather, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, among many others.
Citizen Kane was my wife's guess. I thought it was a good one and toyed with the possibility as well. If you think the TOM is the C in TCM, it makes perfect sense. CK has long been considered the classic movie. Yet it was rarely if ever shown on TV to my recollection. It might make sense to kick off the new channel by showing a movie that everyone's heard about but many have not seen. The down side to this is that many find Citizen Kane underwhelming. I felt a businessman like Ted Turner wouldn't risk it. People tune in, watch the classic, and say, "Oh. So that's what a classic is. No more for me, thanks."

I think I considered The Wizard of Oz, which others have mentioned being their guess. Again, I felt a businessman wouldn't have used it, but for a different reason. TWoO was on TV constantly. Well ... at least once a year. And it was hyped whenever it came on, and families popped popcorn and made a night of it. EVERYONE had seen the movie already. Multiple times. So the message Ted would be sending is, "We're showing the same stuff you've already seen repeatedly on the networks." Nix that. Keep thinking.

I didn't recognize April 14 as being a significant date. Didn't know it's the date Lincoln was shot and the date Titanic went down. But I sensed that it was the TOM. It was so darned specific. (Had I known the Lincoln date, it would have been a mild argument against Gone with the Wind.) So I postulated that it was on or right before Easter. In fact, Easter was April 3 that year. But Easter can be as late as April 25, so the 14th wasn't outside the range. I might have been tempted by The Ten Commandments had I thought of it. But I'd have rejected it for the same reason I rejected The Wizard of Oz. Most people had already seen it repeatedly. It wasn't a draw. It didn't distinguish the station.

So instead, figuring I'd be wrong, and knowing I wouldn't be surprised if Citizen Kane was right, I went with ... Easter Parade.

Of course, once Alex identified the TOM, I instantly knew the correct response. It seemed to make sense from a business standpoint too. GWTW had made its network TV premiere in 1976 to huge hype and was watched in 47.5 percent of US households. Including mine. I got bored after a while and wandered off to watch Wonder Woman on the black and white set in my parents' room. But Mom and Sis kept watching. (Was Dad out of town on business or something? I can't imagine him sitting through that two-night event. But he wasn't watching the other TV with me, either.) And in 1989 (I think) GWTW had a successful limited re-release in theaters. So it hadn't lost its status as a moneymaking crowd pleaser.

What I didn't know is that it's Ted Turner's favorite movie. I didn't know he'd bought the rights to the thing. I didn't know that TCM was the second network that Ted launched with GWTW. The first was TNT in 1988. Had I known all that (especially the last one!), the Turner TOM would have leaped out at me. As it was, I didn't even notice it because "April 14" and "classic" seemed the obvious TOMs. I'm not saying I'd have gotten it right if they'd omitted the "April 14". But I think it's more likely.
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by OrangeSAM »

stevo4212 wrote:...
Heck, Bette Davis had won the first ever AFI Life achievement award - maybe it was one of her movies. I felt very cheated by that photo of her, by the way. I watched a great deal of her movies: Dark Victory, Now Voyager, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? to name a few, but couldn't recognize her by that photograph.
Mrs OS picked her out right away, but I didn't.
...Did anyone else know hirsute from your deep knowledge of The Wonder Years? Or, maybe it's just common knowledge - even the lunch lady knew what it meant.
I know it because I am the very model of a modern hirsute man. I'm afraid that a photo of me will appear in some dictionary as a graphic illustration of the word.
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Vanya »

I wonder if Jeopardy would accept "The One Hundred Years' War."
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Volante »

OrangeSAM wrote:
stevo4212 wrote:...
Heck, Bette Davis had won the first ever AFI Life achievement award - maybe it was one of her movies. I felt very cheated by that photo of her, by the way. I watched a great deal of her movies: Dark Victory, Now Voyager, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? to name a few, but couldn't recognize her by that photograph.
Mrs OS picked her out right away, but I didn't.
I knew the shot and made the Baby Jane connection...I just picked the wrong female lead. :roll:
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Spaceman Spiff »

Volante wrote:
OrangeSAM wrote:
stevo4212 wrote:...
Heck, Bette Davis had won the first ever AFI Life achievement award - maybe it was one of her movies. I felt very cheated by that photo of her, by the way. I watched a great deal of her movies: Dark Victory, Now Voyager, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? to name a few, but couldn't recognize her by that photograph.
Mrs OS picked her out right away, but I didn't.
I knew the shot and made the Baby Jane connection...I just picked the wrong female lead. :roll:
At least you didn't pick Victor Buono!!!! :!: :roll:
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by bpmod »

OrangeSAM wrote:
stevo4212 wrote:...
Heck, Bette Davis had won the first ever AFI Life achievement award - maybe it was one of her movies. I felt very cheated by that photo of her, by the way. I watched a great deal of her movies: Dark Victory, Now Voyager, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? to name a few, but couldn't recognize her by that photograph.
Mrs OS picked her out right away, but I didn't.
I looked at the picture and said "Those eyes... it's those eyes. Hmmm, Carly Simon, or Warren Beatty?" :mrgreen:

Brian
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by Turd Ferguson »

opusthepenguin wrote:The Frank Zappa reference probably isn't a compliment per se, but I think it can come from a place of love. It's a reference to Zappa's best-selling single "Valley Girl" as "sung" by his daughter Moon Unit. Mark Barrett embedded it above. You can also click on this link to watch it. That's a parody of actual Valspeak, of course; but there are similarities to your own style of speech. Ditto for the reference to SNL's The Californians.
What I noticed most was Abby's "uptalk", though is there a more fitting place for turning ordinary sentences to questions than on this show? Besides, as suggested in this NYT column from earlier this year, uptalk is hardly exclusive to Valley Girls anymore - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/scien ... d=all&_r=0 (Though I don't know if saying Dubya used uptalk in his speeches is the best way of "legitimizing" it)

For this FJ!, I think I had heard that fact before (or maybe just the GWTW - Turner association), but if you have nothing else to go on, The Wizard Of Oz is always a good "guess" for a J! response about an old movie, since it seems to come up all the time, perhaps partly due to the Sony lot connection that Alex has mentioned on more than one occasion.
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by opusthepenguin »

Vanya wrote:I wonder if Jeopardy would accept "The One Hundred Years' War."
I assume they would. A quick search of Google Books turns up several hits that seem respectable enough.
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by stevo4212 »

Maybe numbers in titles are a special case, even if the title is written in English as "One Hundred Years of Solitude." An Ordinary person would inevitably reimagine the title as "100 Years of Solitude." This makes sense, because the words "One Hundred"are a proxy for 100. At that point, it just becomes natural that he would refer to the number as A hundred, as opposed to 200. So, to say "A Hundred years of Solitude" clearly and uniquely identifies the book requested.

Not sure that "Hundred Years of Solitude" is incorrect. Where do we draw the line as to how much of the title a person must specify? Surely, "The Wealth of Nations" suffices for "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations."
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by whoisalexjacob »

stevo4212 wrote:Maybe numbers in titles are a special case, even if the title is written in English as "One Hundred Years of Solitude." An Ordinary person would inevitably reimagine the title as "100 Years of Solitude." This makes sense, because the words "One Hundred"are a proxy for 100. At that point, it just becomes natural that he would refer to the number as A hundred, as opposed to 200. So, to say "A Hundred years of Solitude" clearly and uniquely identifies the book requested.

Not sure that "Hundred Years of Solitude" is incorrect. Where do we draw the line as to how much of the title a person must specify? Surely, "The Wealth of Nations" suffices for "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations."
Did you somehow miss the references to One Million Years B.C., or are you intentionally ignoring them for the sake of your argument?
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by econgator »

omgwheelhouse wrote:Did you somehow miss the references to One Million Years B.C., or are you intentionally ignoring them for the sake of your argument?
It's not a perfect equivalence.

I would put this in the same camp as 1001 Nights/One Thousand and One Nights/A Thousand and One Nights/One Thousand Nights and a Night.
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by stevo4212 »

One Million Years BC was likewise a bad call by the judges. One Million >> 1,000,000 >> A Million are exactly the same. The title is only written as One Million due to some rule of grammatical construction.
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Re: Friday, October 19, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion (SPOILERS)

Post by econgator »

stevo4212 wrote:One Million Years BC was likewise a bad call by the judges. One Million >> 1,000,000 >> A Million are exactly the same.
There I disagree. It was named, in English, One Million Years B.C.. There's no translation error.
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