Monday, June 9, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[econgator]

Would they have taken blackjack for the 21 Stupid Answer?

Nothing excludes it from being correct.

I wondered the same thing, because the conceit of Stupid Answers is that the words in the answer always appear in the clue. However, Alex doesn't explain this, so I'm not sure if they would neg an equivalent response that does not appear in the clue. There may be precedent for this, but I can't think of an example off the top of my head.

The $1000 clue here seems to allow it:
http://69.16.235.166/showgame.php?game_ ... id+answers

[Bamaman]

I agree there is no reason not to take it. But I'd be afraid I'd be negged and someone would rebound. I'd probably still get credit later, but the other person would still get money.

[BADuBois]

Congrats to Molly for another win, and for knowing her organs and glands.

FJ was an Instaget, being the history geek that I am. And, another cool bit of trivia, the island and its population received the George Cross (the civilian equivalent of the Victoria Cross) during WWII for its heroism in resisting Axis air attacks.

No guess on FJ! Malta's a country?! I honestly thought it was just an island that was part of another country.

Perhaps you thought it was part of the Falkland Islands? Because surely everyone's heard of the Maltese Falklands!

Tip your waiters! Try the veal!

And drive home carefully!

[gnash]

The Mediterranean is not just a sea, it is also a region. So "in" does not narrow it down to island nations. Vatican is a bad guess for many reasons, but the one given by Alex is not one of them. Vatican and San Marino, although landlocked, are on the Apennine Peninsula, which makes them Mediterranean countries. Malta was an instaget for me, but I can see Cyprus being a not-entirely-unreasonable guess, as it was under the British rule for some time.

You can't expect to be given credit for a Stupid Answer that does not repeat a word from the clue, period.

[dhkendall]

If you take the clue literally to mean "in" the Mediterranean, aren't Cyprus and Malta the only two possible answers? Since Malta used to be a British possession, I figured it was the one likely to use English.

Cyprus was also a British possession (which is why I mentioned that Cyprus wasn't a bad guess at all)

I wondered why they chose to add the bit about UN member, since I don't think it changes the answer.

Because the word "country" always needs a qualifier, who knows, there could be a group out there claiming Crete as an independent country. But, since Crete isn't a UN member ... (I've mentioned this before (maybe in the proper thread, but I doubt it), but one of my biggest "intellectual pet peeves" is people asking me how many countries there are. This can't be answered unless "country" is rigidly defined. (A bigger pet peeve is "how many national anthems there are" once people hear I'm an anthematologist. Because not only does it require a definition of "nation" from earlier, but also if former anthems are included, royal anthems, etc. I have 436 on my site, but even I don't say there's anywhere near 436 nations in the world, nor do I claim it to be a complete list of anthems.)

all I could come up with was Gibraltar, which isn't even in -- or on -- the Med ... or in -- or on -- the UN.

???? It moved??? (Gibraltar prides itself as being the gateway of the Mediterranean - one of the pillars of Hercules (the other, Jebal Musa, in Morocco) at the Strait of Gibraltar that is part of the Mediterranean.

That B&A ate me alive. I knew they wanted a Miley Cyrus song because I saw Todd in the Shadows review it, but couldn't pull the title. If I had gotten the title, "Tea Party" might've clicked, but I couldn't get that either.

If you held a gun to my head to name a Miley Cyrus song, I could only name one title - which fits the Tea Party very well, actually.

You can't expect to be given credit for a Stupid Answer that does not repeat a word from the clue, period.

I'm positive that it was sometime this season or last that someone was indeed given credit for a similar situation with a simiar category. If there was something in the clue title in quotation marks (WORLD "C"ITIES, HAIR OF THE "DOG"), or a direct quotation is being sought, that must be an exact match, but if the answer can be met as worded, I need precedence to show me it can't be.

[mrparadise]

The Mediterranean is not just a sea, it is also a region. So "in" does not narrow it down to island nations. Vatican is a bad guess for many reasons, but the one given by Alex is not one of them. Vatican and San Marino, although landlocked, are on the Apennine Peninsula, which makes them Mediterranean countries. Malta was an instaget for me, but I can see Cyprus being a not-entirely-unreasonable guess, as it was under the British rule for some time.

You can't expect to be given credit for a Stupid Answer that does not repeat a word from the clue, period.

The Med may be a region as well as a sea but I'm pretty sure they would have made it very clear they were including bordering countries if that were the case. I guess they thought that specifying "in" was sufficient. Or maybe they thought the ambiguity was part of the challenge. I hope not, that would be mean and nasty.

[TenPoundHammer]

Seriously, what led to Chinese on Stop for $400? Unless you know precisely what Chinese sounds like, that just as easily could've been Japanese, Korean. And I only knew it was Asian because the closed captioning said so. Without captions on, it might as well have been Swahili. Or Martian.

Anyone?

If you held a gun to my head to name a Miley Cyrus song, I could only name one title - which fits the Tea Party very well, actually.

I knew "The Climb" because they sent it to country radio for some strange reason.

[dhkendall]

The Mediterranean is not just a sea, it is also a region. So "in" does not narrow it down to island nations. Vatican is a bad guess for many reasons, but the one given by Alex is not one of them. Vatican and San Marino, although landlocked, are on the Apennine Peninsula, which makes them Mediterranean countries. Malta was an instaget for me, but I can see Cyprus being a not-entirely-unreasonable guess, as it was under the British rule for some time.

As best I could figure out, Malta is the only (UN) country no matter how you define Mediterranean that fits the clue.

[opusthepenguin]

No guess on FJ! Malta's a country?! I honestly thought it was just an island that was part of another country.

Perhaps you thought it was part of the Falkland Islands? Because surely everyone's heard of the Maltese Falklands!

[lisa0012]

Malta, the one European country I continually miss on Sporcle quizzes.

[skullturf]

Seriously, what led to Chinese on Stop for $400? Unless you know precisely what Chinese sounds like, that just as easily could've been Japanese, Korean. And I only knew it was Asian because the closed captioning said so. Without captions on, it might as well have been Swahili. Or Martian.

Anyone?

Japanese words and names are commonly multisyllabic. Also, Japanese isn't a tone language like the Chinese languages.

I believe Korean isn't a tone language either, but I confess that I probably wouldn't be able to tell Korean from other languages based on the sound. (Very rarely have I ever heard Korean being spoken at all.)

I also can't tell the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin. Watching at home, I just said "Chinese". It was partly just an educated guess -- I was gambling that they were more likely to ask about a more common language.

There aren't very many languages I would be able to precisely identify from the sound. Oftentimes, the best I can do is make a vague guess along the lines of "vaguely Eastern European sounding" or "vaguely Indian sounding". But I just gambled that they were asking about a common language, and the overall sounds struck me as Chinese-ish.

[econgator]

???? It moved??? (Gibraltar prides itself as being the gateway of the Mediterranean - one of the pillars of Hercules (the other, Jebal Musa, in Morocco) at the Strait of Gibraltar that is part of the Mediterranean.

I always figured it connected the Atlantic and the Med but wasn't part of either.

[MarkBarrett]

Was that buzzer sound from the game "Operation?" It did not sound right.

Heather's story was about ducking at a Cardinals game and her boyfriend catching a pop fly. Were they in the field or in the stands?

When play for Sports Talk began at $600 and I heard NASCAR I thought that would take care of any run opportunities. Pole position was a get more from arcade knowledge, "Prepare to qualify" than from following the real thing.

Often I mention precalls off the FJ! category. The Mediterranean seemed so wide open I did not give it another thought until the clue came up. It was nice to see I had company for eliminating Cyprus and only having Gibraltar for a guess. I knew that was not U.N., but it was the only English place coming to me. Not being able to think of Malta in 30 seconds is pretty sad, but that is how I often play such clues.

I'd like to think if I had used the break time for a head start on thinking it would have helped.

Molly has won three games. The quite capable returning champ from the start of the Thursday game may have lost out on a lot more than just that one game. Nice job by Molly in the Glands category to put herself in position to win on the TS FJ! clue.

[hbomb1947]

???? It moved??? (Gibraltar prides itself as being the gateway of the Mediterranean - one of the pillars of Hercules (the other, Jebal Musa, in Morocco) at the Strait of Gibraltar that is part of the Mediterranean.

I always figured it connected the Atlantic and the Med but wasn't part of either.

I think that's correct.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... ow-current

[davey]

The Jack London DD was vicious negbait.

Agreed. I don't think it's playing fair to do that on a DD. The trivium in question is far from common knowledge. So a contestant gets stuck trying to decide which way the writers are trying to psych her out. On a regular clue, I'd say this would've been sneaky but fair. Caveat buzzer and all that. I'm glad Molly didn't lose due to their dirty trick.

A Daily Double gives you more time to think, not less...Why would "The Call of the Tame" inspire "The Call of the Wild"? Of course it'll pop into anyone's head but a moment's reflection will tell you it doesn't add up. It helps to know a bit about Jack London's books besides the titles too, of course.

I got stuck on Gibraltar for FJ and couldn't get past the rock, though I know it's not a country...But thanks to dhkendall for putting it on the Mediterranean...

[cosmos]

If they asked for the tallest building on the U.S. mainland, would you exclude One World Trade Center because it's on an island, and Manhattan is not part of the U.S. mainland?

I figured it was "major" that eliminated Key West. Florida is on the mainland. Key West is part of Florida. I've seen references that define mainland as the continental U.S. including islands on the continent.

[seaborgium]

I've seen a Stupid Answers category where one player was unclear on the concept and gave a technically correct response once or twice, without being negged.

So what precluded Key West on American Cities for $1000? That was my only miss.

Mainland

And major. ("Major" is, of course, subjective, which is why they threw in the fact about the small railway town, but it helped me pick Miami over Brownsville.)

I figured the implication was lowest place in the lower 48, not the mainland thereof. Bit of hairsplitting IMO.

So did you think the railroad went straight from the mainland to Key West, or hopped from key to key?

I believe Korean isn't a tone language either, but I confess that I probably wouldn't be able to tell Korean from other languages based on the sound. (Very rarely have I ever heard Korean being spoken at all.)

You are correct; Korean isn't tonal.

I was suspicious of the FJ clue, since they don't often narrow it down to two for you. Like someone suggested earlier in the thread, I thought maybe Cyprus had had English imposed on it at one point or another, but I felt more certain that England had controlled Malta fairly recently.

[cosmos]

Stupid question about stupid answers: Could you omit his first name and simply say the son of Gutzon Borglum is Borglum? Or would that be too stupid?

[boson]

I'm with gnash in thinking FJ meant countries bordering the Med, and not just islands in it. I debated between Malta and Israel for 10 seconds or so before settling on Malta. It turns out Israel doesn't have English as an official language (at least, anymore).

So: are there any countries bordering the Med, or that could otherwise be thought of as being Mediterranean countries, that have English as an official language? Gibraltar, as a colony, doesn't count.

I think we'll end up with Malta as the sole correct answer either way, and the strict reading of "in the Med" meaning an island isn't needed.

Edit: I missed DHK's post above saying essentially the same thing.

[seaborgium]

http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=2450
Stupid Answers, $1,000:
"Since 1970 the General Synod has governed this church of England"
Tom Morris: "What is the Anglican Church?"
It was accepted.