Rare Entries Contest MSB65 begins
Mark Brader
As always, reply ONLY BY EMAIL to m...@vex.net; do not post to any
newsgroup. Entries must reach here in November 2009 (by Toronto
time, zone -5). I expect to post two reminders during the contest
period. See below the questions for a detailed explanation, which
is unchanged from last time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
0. Pick one: "conservative" or "liberal".
1. Name a geographical feature on the Earth -- anything commonly
shown on maps -- that is "large" and whose *complete* usual
short name in English is a single word starting and ending
with the letter O. If different features are known by the
same short name, they are equivalent answers.
For purposes of this question "large" means that by some
reasonable measure the feature has a length of at least
821 miles (1,321 km), or an area of at least 32,579 km�
(12,579 sq.mi.), or a population of at least 333,339.
2. Name a person that a type of telescope, or telescope
component, is named after. (Not a brand name or an individual
telescope.)
3. Name a city that was at some time the capital of the Roman
Empire, or of one of the independent parts that the Roman
Empire was at times partitioned into. (Different names for
the same city will be taken as equivalent.)
4. Name a body of water that is crossed by exactly one "long"
bridge or "long" tunnel (and no other bridge or tunnel).
"Long" means that either the overall length must be at least
7,192 ft (2,192 m), or else there must be a single bridge
span or underwater section at least half that length.
5. Give a name that is the *surname* of a man who has been
nominated for an Oscar for acting, and which if uncapitalized
becomes an English word. (See rules 4.2 and 4.3.2.)
6. Name a city where three or more daily newspapers are currently
published, in print, in the same language, each with
an average paid circulation of at least 66,666 copies.
Publications specializing in particular subjects such as
business or sports are not "newspapers" for purposes of this
question. "City" includes metropolitan areas. And "daily"
means at least 5 days per week.
7. In baseball, name a way that a player can be put out.
(If possible, be brief. Minor variations will not be counted
as distinct answers.)
8. For many places, an English word meaning a citizen or resident
of the place (a "demonym") can be produced by taking the
short name of the place and simply appending a suffix of one
or more letters, with no other changes to the word. Name such
a suffix. You must also supply a correct example of a demonym
using this suffix, but your actual answer is only the suffix.
For example, if there existed a country "Vlarps" and one
of its citizens was a "Vlarpsgoji", then "-goji" would
be a correct answer, but would have to write "goji (as in
Vlarpsgoji)" or something to that effect.
9. Name an English "question word" (like "how") that starts
with the two letters "wh". (See rule 4.3.2.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* 1. The Game
As usual, for each of the questions above, your objective is to give
an answer that (1) is correct, and (2) will be duplicated by as FEW
other people as possible. Feel free to use any reference material
you like to RESEARCH your answers; but when you have found enough
possible answers for your liking, you are expected to choose on your
own which one to submit, WITHOUT mechanical or computer assistance:
this is meant to be a game of wits.
* 2. Scoring
The scores on the different questions are MULTIPLIED to produce a
final score for each entrant. Low score wins; a perfect score is 1.
If your answer on a category is correct, then your score is the number
of people who gave that answer, or an answer I consider equivalent.
A wrong answer, or a skipped question, gets a high score as a penalty.
This is the median of:
- the number of entrants
- the square root of that number, rounded up to an integer
- double the highest score that anyone would have on this
question if all answers were deemed correct
* 2.1 Scoring Example
Say I ask for a color on the current Canadian flag. There are
26 entrants -- 20 say "red", 4 say "blue", and 1 each say "gules",
"white", and "white square". After looking up gules I decide it's
the same color as red and should be treated as a duplicate answer;
then the 21 people who said either "red" or "gules" get 21 points
each. The person who said "white" gets a perfect score of 1 point.
"White square" is not a color and blue is not a color on the flag;
the 5 people who gave either of these answers each get the same
penalty score, which is the median of:
- number of entrants = 27
- sqrt(27) = 5.196+, rounded up = 6
- double the highest score = 21 x 2 = 42
or in this case, 27.
* 2.2 More Specific Variants
On some questions it's possible that one entrant will give an answer
that's a more specific variant of an answer given by someone else.
In that case the more specific variant will usually be scored as if
the two answers are different, but the other, less specific variant
will be scored as if they are the same.
In the above example, if I had decided (wrongly) to score gules as a
more specific variant of red, then "red" would still score 21, but
"gules" would now score 1.
However, this rule will NOT apply if the question asks for an answer
"in general terms"; a more specific answer will then at best be treated
the same as the more general one, and may be considered wrong.
* 3. Entries
Entries must be emailed to the address given above. Please do not
quote the questions back to me, and do send only plain text in ASCII
or ISO 8859-1: no HTML, attachments, Micros--t character sets, etc.,
and no Unicode, please. (Entrants who fail to comply will be publicly
chastised in the results posting.)
Your message should preferably consist of just your 10 answers,
numbered from 0 to 9, along with any explanations required. Your
name should be in it somewhere -- a From: line or signature is fine.
(If I don't see both a first and a last name, or an explicit request
for a particular form of your name to be used, then your email address
will be posted in the results).
You can expect an acknowledgement when I read your entry. If this
bounces, it won't be sent again.
* 3.1 Where Leeway is Allowed
In general there is no penalty for errors of spelling, capitalization,
English usage, or other such matters of form, nor for accidentally
sending email in an unfinished state, so long as it's clear enough
what you intended. Sometimes a specific question may imply stricter
rules, though. And if you give an answer that properly refers to a
different thing related to the one you intended, I will normally take
it as written.
Once you intentionally submit an answer, no changes will be allowed,
unless I decide there was a problem with the question. Similarly,
alternate answers within an entry will not be accepted. Only the
first answer that you intentionally submit counts.
* 3.2 Clarifications
Questions are not intended to be hard to understand, but I may fail
in this intent. (For one thing, in many cases clarity could only be
provided by an example which would suggest one or another specific
answer, and I mustn't do that.)
In order to be fair to all entrants, I must insist that requests for
clarification must be emailed to me, NOT POSTED in any newsgroup.
But if you do ask for clarification, I'll probably say that the
question is clear enough as posted. If I do decide to clarify or
change a question, all entrants will be informed.
* 3.3 Supporting Information
It is your option whether or not to provide supporting information
to justify your answers. If you don't, I'll email you to ask for
it if I need to. If you supply it in the form of a URL, if at all
possible it should be a "deep link" to the specific relevant page.
There is no need to supply URLs for obvious, well-known reference
web sites, and there is no point in supplying URLs for pages that
don't actually support your answer.
If you provide any explanatory remarks along with your answers, you
are responsible for making it sufficiently clear that they are not
part of the answers. The particular format doesn't matter as long
as you're clear. In the scoring example above, "white square" was
wrong; "white (in the central square)" would have been taken as a
correct answer with an explanation.
* 4. Interpretation of questions
These are general rules that apply unless a question specifically
states otherwise.
* 4.1 Geography
* 4.1.1 Countries
"Country" means an independent country. Whether or not a place is
considered an independent country is determined by how it is listed
in reference sources.
For purposes of these contests, the Earth is considered to be divid-
ed into disjoint areas each of which is either (1) a country, (2) a
dependency, or (3) without national government. Their boundaries
are interpreted on a de facto basis. Any place with representatives
in a country's legislature is considered a part of that country rather
than a dependency of it.
The European Union is considered as an association of countries, not
a country itself.
Claims that are not enforced, or not generally recognized, don't count.
Places currently fighting a war of secession don't count. Embassies
don't count as special; they may have extraterritorial rights, but
they're still part of the host country (and city).
Countries existing at different historical times are normally
considered the same country if they have the same capital city.
* 4.1.2 States or provinces
Many countries or dependencies are divided into subsidiary political
entities, typically with their own subsidiary governments. At the
first level of division, these entities are most commonly called
states or provinces, but various other names are used; sometimes
varying even within the same country (e.g. to indicate unequal
political status).
Any reference to "states or provinces" in a question refers to
these entities at the first level of division, no matter what they
are called.
* 4.1.3 Distances
Distances between places on the Earth are measured along a great
circle path, and distance involving cities are based on the city
center (downtown).
* 4.2 Entertainment
A "movie" does not include any form of TV broadcast or video release;
it must have been shown in cinemas. "Oscar" and "Academy Award" are
AMPAS trademarks and refer to the awards given by that organization.
"Fiction" includes dramatizations of true stories.
* 4.3 Words and Numbers
* 4.3.1 Different Answers
Some questions specifically ask for a *word*, rather than the thing
that it names; this means that different words with the same meaning
will in general be treated as distinct answers. However, if two or
more inflectional variants, spelling variants, or other closely
related forms are correct answers, they will be treated as equivalent.
Similarly, if the question specifically asks for a name, different
things referred to by the same name will be treated as the same.
* 4.3.2 Permitted Words
The word that you give must be listed (or implied by a listing,
as with inflected forms) in a suitable dictionary. Generally
this means a printed dictionary published recently enough
to show reasonably current usage, or its online equivalent.
Other reasonably authoritative sources may be accepted on a
case-by-case basis. Words listed as obsolete or archaic usage
don't count, and sources that would list those words without
distinguishing them are not acceptable as dictionaries.
* 4.3.3 Permitted Numbers
Where the distinction is important, "number" refers to a specific
mathematical value, whereas "numeral" means a way of writing it.
Thus "4", "IV", and "four" are three different numerals representing
the same number. "Digit" means one of the characters "0", "1", "2",
etc. (These definitions represent one of several conflicting common
usages.)
* 4.3.4 "Contained in"
If a question asks for a word or numeral "contained" or "included"
in a phrase, title, or the like, this does not include substrings or
alternate meanings of words, unless explictly specified. For example,
if "Canada in 1967" is the title of a book, it contains the numeral
1967 and the preposition "in"; but it does not contain the word "an",
the adjective "in", or the numeral 96.
* 4.4 Tense and Time
When a question is worded in the present tense, the correctness of
your answer is determined by the facts at the moment you submit it.
(In a case where, in my judgement, people might reasonably be unaware
of the facts having changed, an out-of-date answer may be accepted as
correct.) Questions worded in the present perfect tense include the
present unless something states or implies otherwise. (For example,
Canada is a country that "has existed", as well as one that "exists".)
Different verbs in a sentence bear their usual tense relationship to
each other.
You are not allowed to change the facts yourself in order to make an
answer correct. For example, if a question asks for material on the
WWW, what you cite must already have existed before the contest was
first posted.
* 5. Judging
As moderator, I will be the sole judge of what answers are correct,
and whether two answers with similar meaning (like red and gules)
are considered the same, different, or more/less specific variants.
I will do my best to be fair on all such issues, but sometimes it is
necessary to be arbitrary. Those who disagree with my rulings are
welcome to complain (or to start a competing contest, or whatever).
I may rescore the contest if I agree that I made a serious error and
it affects the high finishers.
* 6. Results
Results will normally be posted within a few days of the contest
closing. They may be delayed if I'm unexpectedly busy or for
technical reasons. If I feel I need help evaluating one or more
answers, I may make a consultative posting in the newsgroups before
scoring the contest.
In the results posting, all entrants will be listed in order of score,
but high (bad) scores may be omitted. The top few entrants' full
answer slates will be posted. A table of answers and their scores
will be given for each question.
* 7. Fun
This contest is for fun. Please do have fun, and good luck to all.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "If any form of pleasure is exhibited, report
m...@vex.net | to me and it will be prohibited." --DUCK SOUP
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Mark Brader
> 4. Name a body of water that is crossed by exactly one "long"
> bridge or "long" tunnel (and no other bridge or tunnel).
> "Long" means that either the overall length must be at least
> 7,192 ft (2,192 m), or else there must be a single bridge
> span or underwater section at least half that length.
For purposes of this question, the extent of a "body of water" is
determined by how it is named. For example, the Colorado River is
one body of water although it is interrupted by Lake Powell and Lake
Mead (at least), and thus consists of three or more separate sections.
Similarly, a "bridge" or "tunnel" may consist of multiple bridge
structures or multiple tunnel structures if they are known by a
single name and essentially form part of the same route.
A copy of this posting will now be emailed to everyone people who
has already entered the contest. Anyone who has already entered
and wishes to change their answer to question 4 in view of this
clarification is welcome to do so. My apologies for the inconvenience.
--
Mark Brader "A clarification is not to make oneself clear.
Toronto It is to PUT oneself IN the clear."
m...@vex.net -- Lynn & Jay, "Yes, Prime Minister"
Mark Brader
This is a reminder of the current Rare Entries contest.
As always, reply ONLY BY EMAIL to m...@vex.net; do not post to any
newsgroup. Entries must reach here in November 2009 (by Toronto
contest period.
In this reposting, I have incorporated a clarification into
question 4. Everything else below this point is the same as in
the original contest posting.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
0. Pick one: "conservative" or "liberal".
1. Name a geographical feature on the Earth -- anything commonly
shown on maps -- that is "large" and whose *complete* usual
short name in English is a single word starting and ending
with the letter O. If different features are known by the
same short name, they are equivalent answers.
For purposes of this question "large" means that by some
reasonable measure the feature has a length of at least
821 miles (1,321 km), or an area of at least 32,579 km�
(12,579 sq.mi.), or a population of at least 333,339.
2. Name a person that a type of telescope, or telescope
component, is named after. (Not a brand name or an individual
telescope.)
3. Name a city that was at some time the capital of the Roman
Empire, or of one of the independent parts that the Roman
Empire was at times partitioned into. (Different names for
the same city will be taken as equivalent.)
4. Name a body of water that is crossed by exactly one "long"
bridge or "long" tunnel (and no other bridge or tunnel).
"Long" means that either the overall length must be at least
7,192 ft (2,192 m), or else there must be a single bridge
span or underwater section at least half that length.
For purposes of this question, the extent of a "body of water"
is determined by how it is named. For example, the Colorado
River is one body of water although it is interrupted by Lake
Powell and Lake Mead (at least), and thus consists of three
or more separate sections.
Similarly, a "bridge" or "tunnel" may consist of multiple
bridge structures or multiple tunnel structures if they
are known by a single name and essentially form part of the
same route.
5. Give a name that is the *surname* of a man who has been
Mark Brader
entries in! Don't let these contests die for lack of interest!
As always, reply ONLY BY EMAIL to m...@vex.net; do not post to any
newsgroup. Entries must reach here in November 2009 (by Toronto
6 days remaining.
Mark Brader
| As usual, for each of the items above, your objective is to give a
| response that (1) is correct, and (2) will be duplicated by as FEW
| other people as possible. Feel free to use any reference material...
There were 31 entrants this time, and GARMT DE VRIES-UITERWEERD is
the winner once again. Hearty congratulations! Close behind him
are Rob Parker and Erland Sommarskog.
These are their slates of answers (some abbreviated). As always, you
should be reading this in a monospaced font for proper tabular alignment.
GARMT DE VRIES-U. ROB PARKER ERLAND SOMMARSKOG
[0] Liberal Liberal Liberal
[1] Oruro Orinoco Ondo
[2] Kirkham Cassegrain Maksutov
[3] Trier Constantinople Nicaea
[4] Hvalfj�r�ur Western Scheldt Vestmannasund
[5] Tone Finch Bridges
[6] Amsterdam Singapore Stockholm
[7] Misses a base Tagged stealing Foul fly caught
[8] -k -er -ese
[9] Whence Which Whose
| Please do not quote the questions back to me, and do send only
| plain text in ASCII or ISO 8859-1: no HTML, attachments, Micros--t
| character sets, etc., and no Unicode, please. (Entrants who fail
| to comply will be publicly chastised in the results posting.)
Mark Hardwidge, Robert Pyle, Isabel Gibson, Erland Sommarskog, and
Pete Gayde (listed in random order), you are chastised! All of you!
To review the scoring:
| Low score wins; a perfect score is 1.
|
| If your answer on a category is correct, then your score is the number
| of people who gave that answer or an answer I consider equivalent. If
| wrong, or if you skip the question, you get a high score as a penalty.
| The scores on the different questions are *multiplied* to produce a
| final score. ... It is also possible that I may consider one answer
| to be a more specific variant of another: in that case it will be
| scored as if they are different, but the other, less specific variant
| will be scored as if they are the same.
See the questions posting for the penalty score formula.
Here is the complete table of scores.
RANK SCORE ENTRANT Q0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9
1. 1008 Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd 14 1 2 1 1 4 1 3 1 3
2. 2352 Rob Parker 14 7 1 2 1 1 2 1 3 2
3. 3360 Erland Sommarskog 14 1 3 1 1 1 2 5 1 8
4. 8064 Brian Tivol 14 4 2 6 1 1 1 1 2 6
5. 9520 Peter Smyth 17 1 2 7 2 1 2 5 1 2
6. 16320 Steven Taschuk 17 5 1 1 8 2 2 3 1 2
7. 44064 Robert Pyle 17 4 1 9 4 1 1 1 3 6
8. 48384 Duncan Booth 14 2 3 9 WR 1 1 2 2 1
9. 56448 James Dow Allen 14 7 1 9 1 1 2 1 2 WR
10. 58752 Stephen Perry 17 1 1 6 2 4 3 3 1 8
11. 64260 Alan Curry 17 5 3 2 2 3 1 7 1 3
12. 85680 Joshua Kreitzer 17 5 1 2 1 3 2 7 2 6
13. 154224 Dave Filpus 17 7 1 9 3 1 2 2 2 6
14. 190512 Nick Selwyn 14 2 1 9 3 1 3 7 4 3
15. 205632 Dan Unger 17 2 1 9 4 1 3 7 1 8
16. 228480 Ted Schuerzinger 17 4 2 7 4 1 2 5 2 3
17. 239904 Lieven Marchand 17 3 1 7 8 1 2 7 3 2
18. 282240 Lejonel Norling 14 WR 3 6 1 1 2 5 1 8
19. 342720 John Drew 17 7 1 9 2 1 2 5 2 8
20. 460992 Tom Salinsky 14 WR 1 7 2 1 2 7 2 6
21. 573440 Bruce Bowler 14 5 1 2 WR 4 1 2 4 8
22. 580608 Don Piven 14 2 3 1 WR WR 3 3 2 3
23. 626688 John Gerson 17 1 WR 6 2 WR 2 2 2 8
24. 774144 Barbara Grenier 14 3 1 6 8 1 2 3 4 WR
Isabel Gibson 17 5 1 6 3 WR 1 3 4 8
Alan Morgan 17 7 3 7 8 4 1 5 1 3
Mark Hardwidge 14 3 3 9 8 4 2 1 3 6
Pete Gayde 17 7 2 WR 4 4 2 1 3 4
Haran Pilpel 17 7 2 9 8 3 WR 1 2 4
Andrew Bull 17 WR 3 7 8 1 3 5 2 4
2-no...@temporary-address.org.uk 14 4 3 7 8 WR 3 5 3 4
Scores of 1,000,000 or worse are not shown.
Here is the complete list of answers given. Each list shows correct
answers in the order worst to best (most to least popular). The
notation ">>>" means that "more specific variant" scoring was used.
| 0. Pick one: "conservative" or "liberal".
17 Conservative
14 Liberal
A closer election than I anticipated!
| 1. Name a geographical feature on the Earth -- anything commonly
| shown on maps -- that is "large" and whose *complete* usual
| short name in English is a single word starting and ending
| with the letter O. If different features are known by the
| same short name, they are equivalent answers.
|
| For purposes of this question "large" means that by some
| reasonable measure the feature has a length of at least
| 821 miles (1,321 km), or an area of at least 32,579 km�
| (12,579 sq.mi.), or a population of at least 333,339.
7 Orinoco (river, Colombia/Venezuela: 2,100 km)
5 Oslo (city, Norway: 580,000)
4 Ontario (province, Canada; 13,000,000)
3 Ohio (state, US; 11,000,000)
2 Okavango (region, Namibia: 48,000 km�)
2 Osasco (city, Brazil: 700,000)
1 Ogbomosho (city, Nigeria: 430,000)
1 Ondo (state, Nigeria; 3,500,000)
1 Oruro (department, Bolivia; 440,000)
1 Oshikoto (region, Namibia; 39,000 km�) (see below)
1 Oyo (state, Nigeria: 5,600,000)
WRONG:
1 Carabobo
1 Oman
1 Osaka
Thank goodness for countries whose names end in -ia!
All numbers have been rounded to two significant digits; all
population figures are from <http://www.citypopulation.de>.
I've shown populations wherever the place qualifies as correct
based on that, but some places also qualify on other criteria
(Ontario meets all three).
Some English-speakers would say that the complete short name
of the Orinoco in English is "Orinoco River", but I decided
that the bare "Orinoco" is clearly common enough to accept.
As it happens, this was also the most common answer, so ruling
it correct made only a factor of 2's difference in how it scored.
There was one other answer whose correctness needed work to decide
on. The Oshikoto administrative region does not qualify based
on area or population, and two significantly different values
can be found on the Internet for its area: 38,653 km�, which is
"large", and 26,607 km�, which isn't. Wikipedia, for example,
shows both values on different pages, or it did when I checked.
Different web sites in Namibia likewise show both values.
The only explanation that makes sense to me is that the boundaries
of the region have changed, and I've found maps on the Web that
confirm this. In fact, I actually found one page *on the Oshikoto
regional council's official web site* that shows two different
shapes for the region -- without commenting on the difference!
That page is <http://oshikoto-rc.org/geographics/index.html>.
The lower map just shows Oshikoto, with the "constituencies"
that make it up, while the upper map shows all of Namibia, with
Oshikoto and the other regions that make it up. But Oshikoto
on the upper map is missing its southwestern part as compared
to the lower map, and is only about 2/3 of the size.
Most other maps I found that showed the current regions agreed
with the lower one (the larger Oshikoto), for example this map
<http://www.met.gov.na/programmes/nnep/1.Introduction/map_namibia%20regions.jpg>
on the national government web site. By the scale shown on one
of these, I estimated an area around 40,000 km�. So the smaller
version of the region must be about 27,000 km�, fitting with
the two numerical values I found.
But what I haven't been able to find is any *dated* maps or
anything textual about the change, to be able to tell *which
way* it changed -- whether it's a recent change and the few
small-Oshikoto maps are the newest ones, or a change long enough
ago that most maps are now correct. But in the absence of decent
evidence, I'm going with the majority of maps and ruling the
answer correct.
Incidentally, this is the second time this sort of thing has
happened with Namibian regions in one of these contests; the last
time, it was the Caprivi region in the northeast of the country.
Compare its boundaries as shown the two pages cited above.
Last year, in contest MSB59, I decided that the smaller version
of that region was correct -- which happened to make it a wrong
answer -- and this happens to agree with the same maps I'm
accepting as correct for this contest.
| 2. Name a person that a type of telescope, or telescope
| component, is named after. (Not a brand name or an individual
| telescope.)
3 Dmitri Maksutov
3 Hans Wolter
3 Sir Isaac Newton
2 Allan Kirkham
2 Henri Chr�tien
2 James Gregory
1 Adrien Poncet (platform)
1 Albert Bouwers
1 Alvan Clark (lens)
1 August Pfund
1 Christian Huyghens (eyepiece)
1 George Dolland
1 George Ritchey
1 Giovanni Amici
1 J.L. Houghton
1 James Nasmyth
1 Jesse Ramsden (eyepiece)
1 Johannes Kepler
1 Laurent Cassegrain (see below)
1 Peter Barlow (lens)
1 Yrj� V�is�l�
WRONG:
1 Richard Dunn (specific telescope)
Answers were fairly well divided; any correct answer got you a
decent score. Answers not tagged above with a type of part all
relate to types of telescopes.
Again, one answer here was tricky to evaluate. The Cassegrain
telescope is a common design, and if the entrant had just said
"Cassegrain" I would've accepted the answer at once. But the
entrant said "Laurent Cassegrain", and it turns out that there's
conflicting information out to the first name of the person it
was named after. Some sites web say Laurent Cassegrain, some
say Guillaume Cassegrain, and some say N. Cassegrain.
Wikipedia's article on the telescope says the invention "has been
attributed to Laurent Cassegrain", which seems inconclusive.
Their article on Laurent Cassegrain contains a long discursion
on the other people identified as possibly having invented the
thing, and then says: "After a long and meticulous investigation,
including a search for unpublished manuscripts and the analysis of
parish registers in the places where Cassegrain lived (Chartres
first and then Chaudon, near Nogent-le-Roi), the man was finally
identified as the catholic priest Laurent Cassegrain..."
"Long and meticulous"? That sounds as though it was lifted
from an article, but it doesn't say where, so it's hard to tell
what weight to give it -- it might be advocating a dubious point
of view. However, at the end of the WP article there is a link
to a 1997 journal article, for which the abstract is available
free -- and that's clearly where the words came from. If it's
in a scientific journal, presumably it is a reliable source,
so I'm accepting this answer as correct.
| 3. Name a city that was at some time the capital of the Roman
| Empire, or of one of the independent parts that the Roman
| Empire was at times partitioned into. (Different names for
| the same city will be taken as equivalent.)
9 Milan (Italy) (293-402) [= Mediolanum]
7 Rome (Italy) (BC era - 293)
6 Ravenna (Italy) (402-476)
2 Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey) (330-1453)
2 Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia) (293-313)
1 Nicaea (Iznik, Turkey) (1204-1261)
1 Nicomedia (Izmit, Turkey) (293-330)
1 Soissons (France) (457-486)
1 Trier (Germany) (293-313)
WRONG:
1 Segusio (Susa, Italy)
All the dates shown above should be regarded as approximate --
the Empire's declining period contains many periods of conflict
where it's not exactly clear which things should be counted as
real, and the Internet sourecs I used might have glossed over
some details.
All answers given were at least arguably correct except one,
which as far as I could determine was only ever a provincial
capital once that area was part of the Empire.
Most entrants stuck with the capitals in Italy; more distant parts
of the Empire, such as during the Tetrarchy period, scored much
better. Even the most obvious of the divided-empire capitals,
Constantinople, scored about as well as the Tetrarchy capitals.
I was rather amused to realize that two of the correct answers
had the similar ancient names of Nicaea and Nicomedia, and have
the even more similar modern names of Iznik and Izmit, and are
only about 30 miles apart, *and* one is at the east end of a
narrow lake, the other at the east end of a narrow bay.
| 4. Name a body of water that is crossed by exactly one "long"
| bridge or "long" tunnel (and no other bridge or tunnel).
| "Long" means that either the overall length must be at least
| 7,192 ft (2,192 m), or else there must be a single bridge
| span or underwater section at least half that length.
|
| For purposes of this question, the extent of a "body of water"
| is determined by how it is named. For example, the Colorado
| River is one body of water although it is interrupted by Lake
| Powell and Lake Mead (at least), and thus consists of three
| or more separate sections.
|
| Similarly, a "bridge" or "tunnel" may consist of multiple
| bridge structures or multiple tunnel structures if they
| are known by a single name and essentially form part of the
| same route.
8 English Channel (UK/France) (Channel Tunnel 50 km)
4 Straits of Mackinac (MI, USA) (Mackinac Bridge 8.0 km)
3 Northumberland Strait (NB/PE, Canada) (Confederation Bridge
12.9 km) [= Abegweit Passage]
2 Chesapeake Bay (VA, USA) (Chesapeake Bay Bridge 6.9 km) (see
below)
2 Gulf of Corinth (Greece) (Rio-Antirrio Bridge 3.1 km)
2 Humber Estuary (England, UK) (Humber Estuary Bridge 2.2 km)
[= Humber]
1 Akashi Strait (Japan) (Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge 3.9 km)
1 Golden Gate (CA, USA) (Golden Gate Bridge 2.7 km)
1 Hangzhou Bay (China) (Hangzhou Bay Bridge 36 km)
1 Hvalfj�r�ur (Iceland) (Hvalfj�r�ur Tunnel 5.8 km)
1 S�dra Skrams�sund (Sweden) (Musk�tunneln 2.9 km)
1 Vestmannasund (Faroe Is.) (V�gar Tunnel 4.9 km)
1 Western Scheldt (Netherlands) (Westerscheldetunnel 6.6 km)
WRONG:
1 Glacier du G�ant (France) (Tunnel du Mt-Blanc) (not a
watercourse)
1 Lake Michigan (no crossings)
1 Lake Pontchartrain (LA, USA) (four bridges, see below)
All correct answers qualified on the overall-length criterion,
so those are the numbers shown above.
The Channel Tunnel is one of the most famous crossings of the
type asked for, so I wasn't terribly surprised to see a collision
on it. There are certainly are other correct answers that weren't
given, and I suspect there are a lot of them. Two that come to
mind immediately are the Narrows between Staten Island and Long
Island in New York City, and Tsugaru Strait between Honshu and
Hokkaido in Japan. I expect the Florida Keys highway provides
more answers.
I did not intend Chesapeake Bay to be a correct answer: there
are two crossings from the Delmarva Peninsula to the mainland,
the Chesapeake Bay Bridge going west and the Chesapeake Bay
Bridge-Tunnel going south. But while my first-draft wording
said there must be no other "crossing" of the body of water, I
decided to change it to "bridge or tunnel" to avoid any suggestion
that I meant to count ferries or something. (I could have said
"road or rail crossing", but I was hoping some entrants would go
wrong by looking at road maps and giving bodies of water with
one road and one rail crossing; but in fact nobody did. Also,
"rail crossing" might in interpreted to include a train ferry.)
Well, the Bridge-Tunnel is not a "bridge *or* tunnel", so for
purposes of this question, as finally worded, it doesn't count.
In some instances I had to make judgements involving the extent
of a named body of water.
I did not find any reference that described the Straits of
Mackinac as part of Lake Michigan -- the normal description
was that the strait *connects* Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.
One site described the Mackinac Bridge as being "at the boundary"
between the two lakes, but I did not find anything describing
it as crossing Lake Michigan. And there is no other bridge or
tunnel across Lake Michigan, so that lake is a wrong answer.
(Of course, hydrologically the two named lakes and the strait
are all just one big lake, but the question specifically said
it was about *named* bodies of water.)
The Rio-Antirrio Bridge looks as though it's in a similar
situation, crossing a strait that connects the Gulfs of Patras
and of Corinth. But I didn't find a map that showed a name for
this strait, and I did find at least one reference describing the
Gulf of Patras as *part of* the Gulf of Corinth. Further, the
bridge's official web site says it crosses the Gulf of Corinth.
So I accepted that answer.
As to the Abegweit Passage, I found it described specifically
as a *part of* Northumberland Strait. I decided that since
this is the one part of the strait that the bridge crosses,
the fairest thing was to treat the two answers as equivalent.
Turning now to the other wrong answers, a glacier may be made
on frozen water, but I do not believe that qualifies it as
a watercourse. And while Lake Pontchartrain has only one
bridge that crosses right over the middle, there are shorter
ones crossing the narrower eastern end, which is still named as
part of the lake and not a bay.
| 5. Give a name that is the *surname* of a man who has been
| nominated for an Oscar for acting, and which if uncapitalized
| becomes an English word. (See rules 4.2 and 4.3.2.)
4 Cooper (Jackie: 1930/31; Gary: 1936, 1941*, 1942, 1943, 1952*;
Gladys: 1942, 1943, 1964; Chris: 2002*)
>>> 1 [WRONG] Gary Cooper
>>> 1 [WRONG] Jackie Cooper
4 Tone (Franchot: 1935)
3 Stack (1956)
2 Young (Roland: 1937; Loretta: 1947*, 1949; Gig: 1951, 1958,
1969*; Burt: 1976)
>>> 1 [WRONG] Gig Young
1 Bridges (1971, 1974, 1984, 2000)
1 Buttons (Red: 1957*)
1 Chandler (Jeff: 1960)
1 Crosse (Rupert: 1969)
1 Finch (Peter: 1971, 1976*)
1 Firth (Peter: 1977)
1 Garner (James: 1985)
1 Hanks (Tom: 1988, 1993*, 1994*, 1998, 2000)
1 Hopper (Dennis: 1986)
1 Hurt (John: 1978, 1980; William: 1985*, 1986, 1987, 2005)
1 Irons (Jeremy: 1990)
1 March (Fredric: 1930-31, 1931-32*, 1937, 1946*, 1951)
1 Moody (Ron: 1968)
1 Parks (Larry: 1946)
1 Rains (Claude: 1939, 1943, 1944, 1946)
1 Stamp (Terence: 1962)
1 Wills (Chill: 1960)
WRONG:
1 Gary Cooper (asked for surname only)
1 Gig Young (asked for surname only)
1 Jackie Cooper (asked for surname only)
1 Morris (no official nominee lists in 1928/29 when Chester
Morris supposedly nominated)
* indicates winners.
I specifically asked for a surname so that if there were any
cases like Gary Cooper and Chris Cooper, they would count as
equivalent. Curiously, the three entrants who went wrong and
gave a full name all chose names where it would have mattered.
However, since those answers included an identifiable surname,
I still charged them as "more specific versions" against people
who gave only the surname.
While checking out these answers, incidentally, I was amused
to note that Gig Young's win was for playing a character named
"Rocky", while Burt Young's nomination was for the movie "Rocky".
Except for minor collisions on Cooper and Tone, answers were
pretty well divided. One entrant wondered if there were more
correct answers than I expected; yes, there were.
My reference for all details is the official Oscar database at
<http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/BasicSearchInput.jsp>.
| 6. Name a city where three or more daily newspapers are currently
| published, in print, in the same language, each with
| an average paid circulation of at least 66,666 copies.
| Publications specializing in particular subjects such as
| business or sports are not "newspapers" for purposes of this
| question. "City" includes metropolitan areas. And "daily"
| means at least 5 days per week.
3 London (Sun, Mail, Mirror)
3 Seoul (Chosun, JoongAng, Dong-a)
2 Bangkok (Thai Rath, Kom Chad Luek, Khao Sod)
2 Berlin (Bild, Welt, Tagesspiegel)
2 Chicago (Tribune, Sun-Times, Herald)
2 Los Angeles (Times, News, Press-Telegram)
2 New York (Times, News, Post)
2 Singapore (Lianhe Zaobao, Lianhe Wanbao, Shin Min News)
2 Stockholm (Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen)
2 Sydney (Australian, Herald-Sun, Times)
1 Amsterdam (Telegraaf, Volkskrant, Trouw)
1 Beijing (Reference News, People's, Evening News)
1 Madrid (Pais, Mundo, ABC)
1 Moscow (Komsomolets, Pravda, Izvestia)
1 New Delhi (Times of India, Hindustan Times, Pioneer)
1 Paris (Monde, Figaro, Lib�ration)
1 Porto Alegre (Zero Hora, Correio do Povo, Di�rio Ga�cho)
1 Tokyo (Yomiuri, Asahi, Mainichi)
WRONG:
1 Tel Aviv (Yedioth Ahronoth, Maariv)
Where possible the three papers listed for each city are those
with the highest circulation. I have omitted words like "Daily".
When I asked the question I knew of three correct answers among
English-speaking cities -- New York, London, and Toronto, each
with four or more papers meeting the criteria -- and I was sure
that a bunch of big capital cities like Paris and Tokyo would also
prove to be correct. Entrants were able to find a wide range of
correct answers, including some US cities that qualified because
of suburban papers.
Evaluating the answers in some cases proved difficult and for
several of them I had to resort to trusting Wikipedia. In the
case of Tel Aviv, I started with WP's "List of newspapers in
Israel", which lists 21 daily papers. Of the listed papers, these
are irrelevant because they're business papers: Calcalist, Globes,
TheMarker. These are irrelevant because they're distributed
at no charge: Israel HaYom, Israel Post. These are irrelevant
because the table shows a circulation well under 66,666: Hamodia,
Jerusalem Post, Nasha Strana, Yated Ne'eman. These are irrelevant
because they are not really daily but "several times a week":
Al-Ittihad, Kul al-Arab, Panorama, al-Sennara. Israel-Nachrichten
is irrelevant because it's the only paper in German.
There are three Russian-language papers in the list, but WP's
article on Vesti says (contrary to the list of newspapers)
that it's now the only one that's still daily, and also that it
apparently fails to qualify as to circulation.
That brings us down to four papers published in Hebrew, and
somewhat to my to my surprise, all four of these are in fact
published in Tel Aviv. So the only issue is their circulation.
For Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv, it is clearly over 66,666 copies.
<http://www.meriajournal.com/en/asp/journal/2008/september/gilboa/index.asp>
says that Israeli papers tend to be secretive about their
circulation (advertisers there are more interested in the number
of readers, and many copies are read by multiple people), but in
the case of Haaretz, both this source and the paper's WP article
indicate a paid circulation just under the cutoff.
As to the fourth Hebrew paper, Makor Rishon, it was a weekly for
years but is now a daily. WP has nothing on its circulation and
neither does any other source I can find, but nothing mentions
it as a newspaper of large circulation -- the other article I
just cited hardly mentions the paper at all. I deduce that its
circulation is probably less than that of Haaretz. And therefore,
Tel Aviv is a wrong answer.
| 7. In baseball, name a way that a player can be put out.
| (If possible, be brief. Minor variations will not be counted
| as distinct answers.)
7 Tagged [= Grounds out; Force out]
>>> 1 Tagged while stealing
5 Flies out [= Foul fly caught; Caught]
5 Strikes out
>>> 1 Strikes out on foul bunt
>>> 1 Strikes out, 1st base occupied and 0 or 1 out
3 Misses touching a base
3 Passes a preceding runner
2 Batting out of turn (see below) [= Illegal substitution]
2 Departs from baseline [= Abandons base running]
1 Base coach assistance
1 Bats from outside batter's box
1 Infield Fly rule
1 Tampered with bat
I judged that a runner being tagged or having his destination base
tagged in a force-out situation was a minor variation and should
score as equivalent, but that being tagged out on a steal was
distinct enough to be considered a more specific case. Similarly,
I judged that it was a minor variation whether a batted ball was
fair or foul when caught, or whether a player merely strayed from
the baseline or actually abandoned the attempt to run the bases.
If on the third strike the catcher misses catching the ball and
either first base is vacant or there are already 2 outs, then
the batter is not out and can try to get on base. Therefore
strikeouts come in four types: when the third strike happens,
either first base is occupied with 0 or 1 outs, or the ball is
caught by the catcher, or both, or it's hit foul. I classified
them accordingly and the entrant who thought of this scored a 1.
According to the rules of Major League Baseball, if a player
is found to be batting out of turn, he is *not* out; in some
cases nobody is out, and in other situations it's the player who
*should* have been batting who is put out. And I found nothing
at all in the MLB rules to justify one entrant's answer about
a base runner being out if he is found to have been an illegal
substitute -- the rules are apparently silent about what happens
in a case of illegal substitution not involving a pitcher.
However, this entrant (whose answer was based on Wikipedia)
located a set of baseball rules used at the high-school level
that do provide for an illegal substitute being put out. While I
intended the question to refer to the MLB rules, I didn't say
so, and I don't want to search through every other league's
rulebooks that might exist. So I decided to allow both of the
above answers, but treat them as minor and equivalent variations.
There are, of course, other infrequent types of outs that were
not given.
| 8. For many places, an English word meaning a citizen or resident
| of the place (a "demonym") can be produced by taking the
| short name of the place and simply appending a suffix of one
| or more letters, with no other changes to the word. Name such
| a suffix. You must also supply a correct example of a demonym
| using this suffix, but your actual answer is only the suffix.
|
| For example, if there existed a country "Vlarps" and one
| of its citizens was a "Vlarpsgoji", then "-goji" would
| be a correct answer, but would have to write "goji (as in
| Vlarpsgoji)" or something to that effect.
4 -vian (Peruvian)
3 -der (Michigander)
3 -er (Finlander)
2 -an (Chilean)
2 -i (Israeli)
2 -lese (Congolese)
2 -ling (Earthling)
2 -n (Russian)
2 -sider (Sydneysider)
1 -anian (Guamanian)
1 -ard (Savoyard)
1 -ese (Japanese)
1 -ian (Oregonian)
1 -ite (Brooklynite)
1 -k (Bosniak)
1 -man (Chinaman)
1 -nian (Panamanian)
1 -te (Chennaite)
I love it. -vian more common than -an or -ian; -der as common
as -er; -lese more common than -ese. One of the entrants who
said -ling was afraid there'd be a collision in it, but only
two tried that one.
This question was inspired by the fact that I either am now or
previously was (in alphabetical order) an Albertan, a Briton, a
Canadian, an Edmontonian, an Englishman, an Etobian, a Guelphite,
a Londoner, a Nottinghamian, an Ontarian, a Torontonian, and
a Waterlooan -- 12 words that are formed in 11 different ways
from the corresponding place names. 5 of them involve changing
an ending (-ain to -on, -a to -ian, -land to -lishman, -coke
to -an, -o to -an) while the other 6 are of the type asked for
in this question. All of these 6 were given by entrants, and
I'm not aware of any correct answers that weren't.
| 9. Name an English "question word" (like "how") that starts
| with the two letters "wh". (See rule 4.3.2.)
8 Who [= Whose; Whom]
6 Wherefore
4 Why
3 Whence
3 Whither
2 Where
2 Which
1 Whoever
WRONG:
1 Wherefrom
1 Whodunit
Wherefore? Well, wherefore *not*?
"Who", "whom", and "whose" are all inflectional variants,
to they count as equivalent under rule 4.3.1. ("Whose" can
also be an inflection of "which", but not as a question word,
so that's irrelevant.) This makes them collectively the more
common answer, followed by "wherefore". ("Wherefore"? Why,
whoever would have predicted that?)
On the other hand, nobody picked "what" or "when", and only one
person picked *any* of the -ever words that exist as emphatic
variants of several of the correct answers.
As to the wrong answers, the etymology of "whodunit" is clearly a
question, but its only meaning in every dictionary that I or the
entrant checked is a noun, meaning a mystery or detective story.
And while apparently some people (particularly in India) do use
"wherefrom" to mean "whence", its only use in all dictionaries
checked is "from which", as in "The mistake wherefrom the wrong
answer originates." And the standard of this contest is "found
in dictionaries", not "found in use".
Thank you all for playing. Contest MSB66 will follow almost
immediately, allowing it to be completed before Christmas.
--
Mark Brader | "You have seen this incident, based on sworn
Toronto | testimony. Can you prove that it didn't happen?"
m...@vex.net | -- Ed Wood, Plan 9 from Outer Space
Andrew B.
I must be missing something here - why are Oman and Osaka wrong?
Mark Brader
>>| 1. Name a geographical feature on the Earth -- anything commonly
>>| shown on maps -- that is "large" and whose *complete* usual
>>| short name in English is a single word starting and ending
Andrew Bull:
> I must be missing something here - why are Oman and Osaka wrong?
It's more fun to let you find it yourself. Read it again...
--
Mark Brader | "I can direct dial today a man my parents warred with.
Toronto | They wanted to kill him, I want to sell software to him."
m...@vex.net | -- Brad Templeton
Andrew B.
> Mark Brader:
>
> >>| 1. Name a geographical feature on the Earth -- anything commonly
> >>| shown on maps -- that is "large" and whose *complete* usual
> >>| short name in English is a single word starting and ending
> >>| with the letter O. ...
>
> Andrew Bull:
>
> > I must be missing something here - why are Oman and Osaka wrong?
>
> It's more fun to let you find it yourself. Read it again...
I see. It's ridiculous the number of times I had to re-read that...
Alan Curry
Mark Brader <m...@vex.net> wrote:
>
>I judged that a runner being tagged or having his destination base
>tagged in a force-out situation was a minor variation and should
>score as equivalent,
Minor variation? Those are 2 completely separate rules, requiring different
observations to make the call (in one case it's whether the tag happened
before the runner touched the base, in the other case it's a matter of who
touched the base first), and not applicable in the same situations.
> 4 -vian (Peruvian)
Ha! I called it! In my submission, "predict collisions on Peru-vian and
Earth-ling". This suffix also ties in to question 1 via "Oslo-vian" (did
anyone give that as the example in their official answer?)
> 3 -der (Michigander)
> 3 -er (Finlander)
> 2 -an (Chilean)
> 2 -i (Israeli)
> 2 -lese (Congolese)
> 2 -ling (Earthling)
And there's the other prediction.
> 2 -n (Russian)
> 2 -sider (Sydneysider)
> 1 -anian (Guamanian)
Glad to get a 1 here. I picked Guamanian not just because it is at the head
of the longest list of correct answers formed by removing one letter at a
time (-anian -nian -ian -an -n) but because the question instantly reminded
me of the episode of The Critic where Duke runs for President. Preparing for
the Guam primary, he says "I don't even know what to call them. Guambats? The
Guamish? Guammy Bears?"
I didn't know the real answer without looking it up. And if you google those
three joke answers, it looks like they're catching on and are now to some
degree "real" themselves. Luckily I didn't discover this until after I
submitted my answers. I might have been tempted to say "-bat".
> 1 -ard (Savoyard)
> 1 -ese (Japanese)
> 1 -ian (Oregonian)
> 1 -ite (Brooklynite)
> 1 -k (Bosniak)
> 1 -man (Chinaman)
> 1 -nian (Panamanian)
> 1 -te (Chennaite)
>
>I love it. -vian more common than -an or -ian; -der as common
>as -er; -lese more common than -ese. One of the entrants who
>said -ling was afraid there'd be a collision in it, but only
>two tried that one.
>
>This question was inspired by the fact that I either am now or
>previously was (in alphabetical order) an Albertan, a Briton, a
>Canadian, an Edmontonian, an Englishman, an Etobian, a Guelphite,
>a Londoner, a Nottinghamian, an Ontarian, a Torontonian, and
>a Waterlooan -- 12 words that are formed in 11 different ways
>from the corresponding place names. 5 of them involve changing
>an ending (-ain to -on, -a to -ian, -land to -lishman, -coke
>to -an, -o to -an) while the other 6 are of the type asked for
>in this question. All of these 6 were given by entrants, and
>I'm not aware of any correct answers that weren't.
I don't see Maine-r on the list, though it naturally completes the series
started by Michigan-der and Vermont-er (Finland-er spoils the fun of having
the full series be U.S. States)
After predicting collision on Earth-ling, I looked for other space-based
answers, but couldn't find any interesting ones. Is the adjective form of an
unpopulated place automatically a demonym, waiting to become useful as soon
as colonization begins, or alien microbes are discovered? Venusians,
Plutonians, and Andromedans are only hypothetical now, but the places are
real, the words are real, and the usage of the words as demonyms is readily
understood. But the suffixes are just duplicates of more boring places.
Saturnine has a unique suffix (at least I didn't find any -ine answers on
Earth), but unfortunately Saturnian is the more likely demonym.
--
Alan Curry
Mark Brader
>> I judged that a runner being tagged or having his destination base
>> tagged in a force-out situation was a minor variation and should
>> score as equivalent,
> Minor variation? Those are 2 completely separate rules, requiring
All the same, I stand by the ruling.
> I don't see Maine-r on the list, though it naturally completes the series
> started by Michigan-der and Vermont-er (Finland-er spoils the fun of having
> the full series be U.S. States)
I just showed the first example that people gave. The -er and -n entrants
chose a total of five different places between them, including New York
(of course, they might have meant the city) and Utah.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "Don't try this at work."
m...@vex.net -- Dennis Ritchie
James Dow Allen
> 9 Milan (Italy) (293-402) [= Mediolanum]
Milan??? Trebizond would have scored optimally, it appears....
> 5 Strikes out
> >>> 1 Strikes out on foul bunt
> >>> 1 Strikes out, 1st base occupied and 0 or 1 out
Do I understand this right? Whoever came up with these
strike out special cases not only scores 1, but increases
the scores of anyone just saying "strike out". Clever.
> 4 -vian (Peruvian)
Haha! I avoided this trap with the oldest trick in
the book: Not thinking of it.
> WRONG
> 1 Wherefrom
Wherefrom?? An Indian word??? Whoever tried this is obviously
not in the same league as the guy with that clever strike out answer.
James Dow Allen
Duncan Booth
> Turning now to the other wrong answers, a glacier may be made
> on frozen water, but I do not believe that qualifies it as
> a watercourse.
A glacier isn't a watercourse, but the question didn't ask for a
watercourse. It asked for a 'body of water'. I looked at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_of_water for a list of types of bodies of
water and that includes Glacier.
Another example of referring to a glacier as a body of water is
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/4126979/The-mystery-of-Antarcticas-
speeding-glacier.html
> With the possible exception of the ice that covers Greenland, the West
> Antarctic ice shelf is the most important body of water in the world.
> If it thaws, the results will be disastrous for millions, raising sea
> levels and flooding coastal cities such as London, New York, Tokyo and
> Calcutta.
--
Duncan Booth http://kupuguy.blogspot.com
Ted Schuerzinger
-xman (as in Manxman) wasn't given. I didn't think of it until last
night, however.
--
Ted S.
fedya at hughes dot net
Now blogging at http://justacineast.blogspot.com
Mark Brader
> > I'm not aware of any correct answers that weren't.
> -xman (as in Manxman) wasn't given. I didn't think of it until last
> night, however.
Hah, good one! Harder to think of than one involving a nationality.
--
Mark Brader "Elaborative, polysyllabic multipartite agglu-
Toronto tinations can obfuscate and become obstructive
m...@vex.net to comprehensibility." -- Chris Torek
Mark Brader
> > Turning now to the other wrong answers, a glacier may be made
> > on frozen water, but I do not believe that qualifies it as
> > a watercourse.
> A glacier isn't a watercourse, but the question didn't ask for a
> watercourse. It asked for a 'body of water'.
Oops, right. But I don't accept it as that either.
--
Mark Brader "Exercise 5-3: ... When should you
Toronto have stopped adding features...?"
m...@vex.net -- Kernighan & Pike
Richard Heathfield
> Mark Brader:
>> > Turning now to the other wrong answers, a glacier may be made
>> > on frozen water, but I do not believe that qualifies it as
>> > a watercourse.
>
> Duncan Booth:
>> A glacier isn't a watercourse, but the question didn't ask for a
>> watercourse. It asked for a 'body of water'.
>
> Oops, right. But I don't accept it as that either.
What the heck is it a body of, if not water? :-)
Personally, I see it as being similar to
#include "/dev/tty"
i.e. a creative answer that should be allowed, but which is likely to
result in a change in the rules.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line vacant - apply within
Andrew B.
> Mark Brader:
>
> > > I'm not aware of any correct answers that weren't.
>
> Ted Schuerzinger:
>
> > -xman (as in Manxman) wasn't given. I didn't think of it until last
> > night, however.
>
> Hah, good one! Harder to think of than one involving a nationality.
I was tempted to submit xman, but I thought it'd be disallowed as I've
never heard it referred to as "Man" as opposed to "the Isle of Man".
Erland Sommarskog
> 7 Orinoco (river, Colombia/Venezuela: 2,100 km)
I often submit what first comes into my mind, but my intuition told me
that Orinino would not score well. I few more crossed my mind,
including
> 1 Oruro (department, Bolivia; 440,000)
But eventually I went through the index in one of my atlases. I could
not resist the temptation of
> 1 Ondo (state, Nigeria; 3,500,000)
"Ondo" means "evil" as in "be of evil" in Swedish, you see.
> 9 Milan (Italy) (293-402) [= Mediolanum]
This was a collision I was not able to be part of. I had no idea that
Milan was ever capital of the Roman empire (or part it). Ignorance is
bliss.
> 8 English Channel (UK/France) (Channel Tunnel 50 km)
> 4 Straits of Mackinac (MI, USA) (Mackinac Bridge 8.0 km)
> 3 Northumberland Strait (NB/PE, Canada) (Confederation Bridge
> 12.9 km) [= Abegweit Passage]
> 2 Chesapeake Bay (VA, USA) (Chesapeake Bay Bridge 6.9 km) (see
> below)
> 2 Gulf of Corinth (Greece) (Rio-Antirrio Bridge 3.1 km)
> 2 Humber Estuary (England, UK) (Humber Estuary Bridge 2.2 km)
> [= Humber]
> 1 Akashi Strait (Japan) (Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge 3.9 km)
> 1 Golden Gate (CA, USA) (Golden Gate Bridge 2.7 km)
> 1 Hangzhou Bay (China) (Hangzhou Bay Bridge 36 km)
> 1 Hvalfj�r�ur (Iceland) (Hvalfj�r�ur Tunnel 5.8 km)
> 1 S�dra Skrams�sund (Sweden) (Musk�tunneln 2.9 km)
> 1 Vestmannasund (Faroe Is.) (V�gar Tunnel 4.9 km)
> 1 Western Scheldt (Netherlands) (Westerscheldetunnel 6.6 km)
This is wonderful! I said to myself, there must be tons of correct
answers, and still 8 collides on a single answer. And indeed, the
list includes a straight which is less than 100 km from where I live -
and I was not even aware of it. But there may be more correct answers
in the Stockholm area.
The first Swedish answer that came to my mind was Kalmarsund, and then
�resund, although I'm uncertain how Mark would score than one, since there
is a road and railway connection. But since it's a combined railway and
road up to Pepparholm, it should be OK.
I picked my answer from the Faroe Islands, and there is one more
correct answer there. The Faroes themselves might suggest North Atlantic.
However, I think the single bridge to cross the North Atlantic is
too short to qualify.
--
Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, esq...@sommarskog.se