seaborgium wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2020 11:22 pm
You reported having nothing to go off from the clue. How about just trying one thing on for size instead of immediately giving up and declaring an FJ TOM-less?
Because I have to recognize that there is something to try on in the first place. Sometimes there just plain isn't a TOM in the clue and it's a full-force YEKIOYD.
IDK that one and I got it right.
I still don't think "Devon Island" is anywhere close to a TOM.
Again, you haven't addressed this point. Is an English-speaking country literally the only country that could ever, ever, ever possibly have an English-named landmark of any kind?
In Final Jeopardy, yes.
Edit: Easter Island and the Falklands. Now you name two islands/island territories with English names that don't belong to English-speaking countries.
Last edited by seaborgium on Thu Jan 16, 2020 11:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
seaborgium wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2020 11:29 pm
In Final Jeopardy, yes.
Citation needed that isn't this episode.
Citation needed that insisting to the contrary will help you solve FJ.
So the key is to look at literally every word under an electron microscope, and hope and pray that maybe possibly the vaguest of connections might steer me anywhere close to the response.
Wednesday's was something that I actually did have familiarity with, but the key words completely stalled me out. I literally had no idea what to even guess.
seaborgium wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2020 11:29 pm
In Final Jeopardy, yes.
Citation needed that isn't this episode.
Citation needed that insisting to the contrary will help you solve FJ.
So the key is to look at literally every word under an electron microscope, and hope and pray that maybe possibly the vaguest of connections might steer me anywhere close to the response.
Wednesday's was something that I actually did have familiarity with, but the key words completely stalled me out. I literally had no idea what to even guess.
I explained how (actually) literally one word could be helpful but you don't want it to be.
For kicks go to the Archive search box and one by one put in each of the Emmys correct responses. It will become obvious how those kind of award-winning names do not stick for you, unfortunately, as each have multiple hits in the 2010s.
MarkBarrett wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 7:42 pm
For kicks go to the Archive search box and one by one put in each of the Emmys correct responses. It will become obvious how those kind of award-winning names do not stick for you, unfortunately, as each have multiple hits in the 2010s.
Kyra Sedgwick was the $200 box. Her last two hits as a response are in 2017 (triple stumper when spotted The Closer) and 2014 ($1,200 when spotted "Kevin Bacon"). Before even that you have to go all the way back to 2005, where she was a $2,000 box again with The Closer as the TOM. That seems like awfully sporadic use for a top-box clue. If the pin is a TV show, then I typically expect it to be one one of the Big Three, FOX, or maybe Netflix. Not TBS, which has what, 62 viewers on a good day?
To be fair, I did recognize both Gillian Anderson = The X-Files and Julianna Margulies (now there's a Hawley-Smoot name for you) = ER after the fact.
Random thought: What is your primary use of the archive -- to learn about new things, get a refresher or stuff you may have encountered, or to defend your ignorance ("It only showed up X times, so why should I care?")? Feels like you could make better use of your time on the archive, especially if you're in the pool.
QBall wrote: ↑Tue Jan 21, 2020 1:33 pm
Random thought: What is your primary use of the archive -- to learn about new things, get a refresher or stuff you may have encountered, or to defend your ignorance ("It only showed up X times, so why should I care?")? Feels like you could make better use of your time on the archive, especially if you're in the pool.
I admittedly don't use the Archive much except to check on how likely something is to come up again. If it's something like Ryan Gosling that keeps coming up and makes me go "NHOI" every single time, then yeah I should probably work on getting that one in my mental file. But if it's only come up twice in 10 years, then probably not.
I didn’t know Grafton had a title picked out for Z. But there aren’t many words (much fewer than a thousand) that could be a reasonable word for her book. I took a guess and won imaginary money. I think Zenith would have fit if she had chosen that. Zebra, not so much.
I didn’t know patio was Spanish and don’t even recall seeing Spanish in the answer. But I know what the concrete slab behind my house is called.
Bamaman wrote: ↑Tue Jan 21, 2020 8:05 pm
I didn’t know Grafton had a title picked out for Z. But there aren’t many words (much fewer than a thousand) that could be a reasonable word for her book. I took a guess and won imaginary money. I think Zenith would have fit if she had chosen that. Zebra, not so much.
I just froze up because "Zero" was not one on the list of hundreds and hundreds of words I was trying to sift through.
Bamaman wrote: ↑Tue Jan 21, 2020 8:05 pm
I didn’t know patio was Spanish and don’t even recall seeing Spanish in the answer. But I know what the concrete slab behind my house is called.
"It's a Spanish word for an interior courtyard" threw me so far off course that I couldn't backtrack in time. I've lived in four houses in my life and none of them had a patio. One of them was on a triangular lot and technically didn't even have a backyard.
So I don't know what's going on, but it feels like the past few days my batting average has had a severe uptick. For about the past three weeks my Coryats have been averaging closer to $27,000, and I set a new record of $37,200 on 1/29. I'm still not super hot on FJ!, but compared to my usual trend of "getting exactly zero FJ!s right between Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day" it's still a step up. Even the few misfires I've had haven't bothered me because I'm just getting that many right to balance it out again.
Are the boards playing easier for anyone else the past couple weeks? Is the unseasonably warm weather in my area giving me a clearer head? Confidence that I'll get The Call? A divine sign that The Call is imminent? A purely coincidental positive trend that I should latch onto anyway?
TenPoundHammer wrote: ↑Thu Feb 06, 2020 7:28 pm
"French" was MONSTROUS negbait on Suriname for $400. I actually said "WHAT?!" on that one. "Dutch Guyana" is utterly unfamiliar to me.
Hell no on the negbait. The clue specifically said it was part of the country's old name. There is currently a French Guiana so it couldn't have been that. (Never mind that French Guiana isn't even a country.)
Then why did one person say French anyway, and the other two have no idea?
TenPoundHammer wrote: ↑Thu Feb 06, 2020 7:28 pm
"French" was MONSTROUS negbait on Suriname for $400. I actually said "WHAT?!" on that one. "Dutch Guyana" is utterly unfamiliar to me.
Hell no on the negbait. The clue specifically said it was part of the country's old name. There is currently a French Guiana so it couldn't have been that. (Never mind that French Guiana isn't even a country.)
Then why did one person say French anyway, and the other two have no idea?
Because there is a French territory called French Guiana adjacent to Guyana. It was easy for them to get confused between the two, but the country Guyana was a former Dutch colony.
TenPoundHammer wrote: ↑Thu Feb 06, 2020 7:28 pm
"French" was MONSTROUS negbait on Suriname for $400. I actually said "WHAT?!" on that one. "Dutch Guyana" is utterly unfamiliar to me.
Hell no on the negbait. The clue specifically said it was part of the country's old name. There is currently a French Guiana so it couldn't have been that. (Never mind that French Guiana isn't even a country.)
Then why did one person say French anyway, and the other two have no idea?
Because there is a French territory called French Guiana adjacent to Guyana. It was easy for them to get confused between the two, but the country Guyana was a former Dutch colony.
If there is a decent enough chance for a TS like that, then I still say negbait. All three of them clearly glommed onto "French" and then stalled out when it was wrong.
TenPoundHammer wrote: ↑Thu Feb 06, 2020 7:28 pm
"French" was MONSTROUS negbait on Suriname for $400. I actually said "WHAT?!" on that one. "Dutch Guyana" is utterly unfamiliar to me.
Hell no on the negbait. The clue specifically said it was part of the country's old name. There is currently a French Guiana so it couldn't have been that. (Never mind that French Guiana isn't even a country.)
Then why did one person say French anyway, and the other two have no idea?
Because there is a French territory called French Guiana adjacent to Guyana. It was easy for them to get confused between the two, but the country Guyana was a former Dutch colony.
If there is a decent enough chance for a TS like that, then I still say negbait. All three of them clearly glommed onto "French" and then stalled out when it was wrong.
They tried so hard to steer all of you away from saying French. The clue specifically said it's the former name of Suriname. Suriname and French Guiana are both things that currently exist, so neither could be the current or former name of the other. The fact that you have to zero in on "_____ Guiana" and ignore everything else to respond "French" makes it not negbait.
It's like when J! asked for a composer whose brother Modest did something or other, and a contestant responded, "Who is Mussorgsky?" The name Modest doesn't make the clue negbait for Mussorgsky, because the clue specifically mentioned that Modest was the composer's brother's name.
I ask, "Why would Modest Mussorgsky have a brother named Modest?" with the same tone that I ask, "Why would Suriname's former name be the name of a current piece of France near it?"