Rare Entries contest MSB71 begins
Mark Brader
As always, reply ONLY BY EMAIL to m...@vex.net; do not post to
any newsgroup. Entries must reach here by Tuesday, May 24, 2011
(by Toronto time, zone -4).
See below the questions for a detailed explanation, in which rule
2.2 has been corrected and the example in rule 2.1 has been changed
to conform. These corrections implement a change I announced at the
time of contest MSB69 but forgot to then actually put into the rules,
regarding wrong answers that relate to specific correct answers.
Now, this time around I'm going to be on vacation and off-net for most
of the contest period. Therefore, after the first couple of days
I will *not* be acknowledging entries as they arrive. I will ask a
friend to post one reminder in the middle of the contest period, and
I intend to post a second one when I come back a couple of days before
the contest ends.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
0. Pick one: "Conservative", "Liberal", "New Democratic", or
"Quebecois".
1. Name a newspaper which at some time in the 20th century
was published daily (at least 5 days per week) in London,
in English, for national distribution for sale in Great
Britain. (Papers that were given away rather than sold do
not qualify.)
2. Name a chemical element whose name in English starts with C.
3. Give a single word in English, used in the grammar of English
to designate a part of speech.
4. Name a movie title containing at least three different
(unequal) digits, *excluding* digits that form part of a
date or time. The title must be the primary title of the
movie in the Internet Movie Database <http://www.imdb.com>.
The movie must be a feature film telling a fictional story,
not a short or documentary. See also rules 4.2 (for "movie")
and 4.3.3 (for "digit"). Of course rule 4.3.4 does *not* apply
(since this is about characters, not words or numerals).
5. Name two adjacent countries (see rule 4.1.1) now existing,
whose entire mutual border is (or formerly was) an inland
water border (i.e. consisting of lakes and/or rivers).
6. Name an author who wrote 50 or more works of fiction featuring
the same major character. You must name the character, but
this does not form part of your answer.
7. Give a surname that is shared by (1) someone who has been
president of the US and (2) someone who has been nominated
for an Oscar in one of the four acting categories.
8. Usually each athlete in the Olympic games is said to compete
as part of a "team" representing one independent country.
Name such a team at any past Olympics that did *not*
represent one then-independent country (again, see rule
4.1.1). (You must mention which year you have in mind,
but this does not form part of your answer.)
9. Give an adjective, in English, which can be applied to an
object or person being described or discussed, in order to
express the fact, claim, or possibility that this object or
person never actually existed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* 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 "blue 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.
"Blue 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.
If a wrong answer is clearly associated with a specific right
answer, I will score the right answer as if the wrong answer was a
more specific variant of it. In the above example, if there were
3 additional entrants who said "white square", then "white square"
would be scored as wrong, but the score for "white" would be 4, not 1.
"More specific" scoring 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 | "Europe contains a great many cathedrals, which were
Toronto | caused by the Middle Ages, which means they are very old,
m...@vex.net | so you have to take color slide photographs of them."
| -- Dave Barry
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Alan Curry
Mark Brader <m...@vex.net> wrote:
>* 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",
Where did the 27th entrant go, and does he have the bellhop's missing
dollar?
>"white", and "blue 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.
>
>"Blue 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.
25 is right out.
--
Alan Curry
Mark Brader
Rare Entries contest to more precisely cover what I intended to
ask for. Everyone who has already entered will be notified by
email and may change their answer on this question if they wish.
(Anyone who submits an entry and sees this posting afterwards is
also free to change their answer on that question if they wish --
just mention in your email that that's what you're doing.)
For the sake of simplicity I'm reposting the entire original
contest posting with the correction incorporated. Everything
below this paragraph is the same as in the original posting
except for question 5. My apologies for the inconvenience.
whose entire mutual border is (or formerly was) an *inland
water border* (i.e. consisting of lakes and/or rivers), or an
inland water border plus one or more offshore continuations
of the border into seawater.
Mark Brader
I am posting on Mark's behalf while he is off-net. Mark asked me to post
this on or around Thursday 12th May; assorted issues mean you get it
today.
All text below this first line was written by Mark and is taken directly
from his revised contest posting, so that "I" means Mark.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As always, reply ONLY BY EMAIL to m...@vex.net; do not post to any
newsgroup. Entries must reach here by Tuesday, May 24, 2011 (by
Toronto time, zone -4).
See below the questions for a detailed explanation, in which rule
2.2 has been corrected and the example in rule 2.1 has been changed
to conform. These corrections implement a change I announced at the
time of contest MSB69 but forgot to then actually put into the rules,
regarding wrong answers that relate to specific correct answers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
0. Pick one: "Conservative", "Liberal", "New Democratic", or
"Quebecois".
1. Name a newspaper which at some time in the 20th century
was published daily (at least 5 days per week) in London,
in English, for national distribution for sale in Great
Britain. (Papers that were given away rather than sold do
not qualify.)
2. Name a chemical element whose name in English starts with C.
3. Give a single word in English, used in the grammar of English
to designate a part of speech.
4. Name a movie title containing at least three different
(unequal) digits, *excluding* digits that form part of a
date or time. The title must be the primary title of the
movie in the Internet Movie Database <http://www.imdb.com>.
The movie must be a feature film telling a fictional story,
not a short or documentary. See also rules 4.2 (for "movie")
and 4.3.3 (for "digit"). Of course rule 4.3.4 does *not* apply
(since this is about characters, not words or numerals).
5. Name two adjacent countries (see rule 4.1.1) now existing,
whose entire mutual border is (or formerly was) an *inland
water border* (i.e. consisting of lakes and/or rivers), or an
inland water border plus one or more offshore continuations
of the border into seawater.
6. Name an author who wrote 50 or more works of fiction featuring
Mark Brader
reach here by Tuesday, May 24, 2011 (by Toronto time, zone -4) -- as I
write you have 2 days and a bit under 3 hours left. As always, replyalready received will be acknowledged shortly, and future ones will be
acknowledged when I see them.
Everything below this point is the same as in the revised original
contest posting. See below the questions for a detailed explanation,
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 only 21 entrants this time. The winner is DAN TILQUE.
Lukewarm congratulations! In second place was Erland Sommarskog,
and in third place, the entrant whose email address is
rthe...@hotmail.com.
These are their slates of answers (some abbreviated). As always, you
should be reading this in a monospaced font for proper tabular alignment.
DAN TILQUE ERLAND SOMMARSKOG rthe...@hotmail.com
[0] Conservative Quebecois Liberal
[1] Daily Star Independent British Worker
[2] Cadmium Cerium Cerium
[3] Determiner Verb Exclamation
[4] Pu-239 491 Jeanne Dielman, ...
[5] Germany/Luxembourg Argentina/Paraguay Finland/Sweden
[6] Stan Lee Sid Roland Rommerud Evan Hunter
[7] Washington Jackson Garfield
[8] Bermuda Ex-USSR countries Flack & Robertson
[9] Mythological Hypothetical Ideal
| 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.)
Erland Sommarskog and Pete Gayde are duly chastised.
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. 72 Dan Tilque 9 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 2
2. 96 Erland Sommarskog 3 2 4 2 2 1 1 1 1 1
3. 120 rthe...@hotmail.com 5 1 4 1 2 1 1 3 1 1
4. 720 Stephen Perry 9 WR 2 2 1 2 2 1 1 1
5. 1152 John Gerson 9 2 1 1 1 4 2 2 1 4
6. 1296 Dan Unger 3 2 3 3 2 2 1 2 3 1
7. 1440 Peter Smyth 5 2 3 WR 1 4 1 1 1 1
8. 1920 Nick Selwyn 4 1 5 3 1 1 1 2 4 4
9. 2160 Ted Schuerzinger 4 1 5 3 WR 1 1 3 1 2
10. 2700 Alan Curry 5 1 5 6 3 1 2 3 1 1
11. 3456 Kevin Stone 9 2 1 6 1 1 2 2 WR 1
=11. 3456 Duke Lefty 3 1 4 6 1 WR 2 3 1 1
13. 4800 Bruce Bowler 5 WR 3 1 1 WR 2 1 4 1
14. 5832 Haran Pilpel 9 2 1 6 3 1 2 3 3 1
15. 7776 Joshua Kreitzer 9 2 3 3 2 4 3 2 1 1
Grip 9 1 2 3 1 WR 1 2 3 4
Pete Gayde 4 2 5 3 1 2 3 2 4 2
Rob Parker 5 2 4 WR 1 2 2 2 1 4
Dave Filpus 4 1 5 6 3 1 3 2 WR 2
334...@gmail.com 9 WR 3 2 2 4 2 3 4 1
Lejonel Norling 9 2 3 6 2 1 2 WR WR 1
Scores of 10,000 or worse are not shown.
And here is the complete list of answers given. Each list shows correct
answers in the order worst to best (most to least popular).
| 0. Pick one: "Conservative", "Liberal", "New Democratic", or
| "Quebecois".
9 Conservative
5 Liberal
4 New Democratic
3 Quebecois
The above table is in order of the parties' standings before the
election, but for the first time ever, the NDP won more seats than
the Liberals and now stand in second place.
| 1. Name a newspaper which at some time in the 20th century
| was published daily (at least 5 days per week) in London,
| in English, for national distribution for sale in Great
| Britain. (Papers that were given away rather than sold do
| not qualify.)
2 Daily Chronicle (-1930)
2 Daily Express
2 Financial Times
2 Independent (1986-)
2 Morning Star (1930-)
1 British Worker (1926)
1 Daily Herald (1911-64)
1 Daily Mail
1 Daily Mirror (1903-)
1 Daily Star (1978-)
1 Daily Telegraph
1 Sun (1964-)
1 Times
WRONG:
1 Evening Standard
1 Globe (-1921)
1 Hendon and Finchley Times
The three wrong answers are or were, as far as I can determine,
London papers rather than national ones.
I was reluctant to accept the British Worker, a temporary publication
during the General Strike of 1926. On page 1 it prominently called
itself an "Official Strike News Bulletin" and not a newspaper, but
I decided I had to consider it as one anyway. Besides, it did carry
occasional small items besides the strike news, such as weather.
| 2. Name a chemical element whose name in English starts with C.
5 Cobalt
4 Cerium
3 Chromium
3 Copper [= Kupfer]
2 Carbon
1 Cadmium
1 Caesium
1 Calcium
1 Chlorine
There are 11 correct answers and 9 of them were given. The two
that weren't are the two radioactive elements that start with C:
californium and curium.
The question was "name an element", not "give a word", so there was
no point in naming it in a foreign language. Of course "cesium" would
have been scored as equivalent to "caesium" if anybody had given it.
| 3. Give a single word in English, used in the grammar of English
| to designate a part of speech.
6 Conjunction
3 Adverb
3 Preposition
2 Determiner [= Determiners]
2 Verb
1 Exclamation
1 Interjection
1 Pronoun
WRONG:
1 Infinitive
1 Predicate
Almost 1/3 of the field picked "conjunction", and nobody picked "noun"
or "adjective". *Hmmm!*
"Exclamation" and "interjection" are, I believe, alternative terms
with the same meaning; since the question was "give a word", not
"name a part of speech", they count separately.
"Infinitive" is a verb form; the corresponding part of speech is
"verb". And a "predicate" is a part of a sentence and not a part
of speech.
| 4. Name a movie title containing at least three different
| (unequal) digits, *excluding* digits that form part of a
| date or time. The title must be the primary title of the
| movie in the Internet Movie Database <http://www.imdb.com>.
| The movie must be a feature film telling a fictional story,
| not a short or documentary. See also rules 4.2 (for "movie")
| and 4.3.3 (for "digit"). Of course rule 4.3.4 does *not* apply
| (since this is about characters, not words or numerals).
3 Murder at 1600 (1997)
2 4.3.2.1. (2010)
2 491 (1964)
2 Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
1 1, 2, 3, Whiteout (2007)
1 102 Dalmatians (2000)
1 31 North 62 East (2009)
1 976-EVIL (1988)
1 GP506 (2008)
1 Highway 301 (1950)
1 Pu-239 (2006)
1 Salň, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
1 The 601st Phone Call (2006)
1 The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)
1 U-571 (2000)
WRONG:
1 Girl No. 217 (1945) (primary title "Chelovek No. 217")
Answers here were fairly well divided, with only a minor collision
on "Murder at 1600", incidentally one of three on the list that I've
seen. All were correct except one, where the entrant did not use the
IMDB's primary title. The "1 2 3" in "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3"
is derived from a time of day, but it's a train number, so this is
not a wrong answer.
Several entrants failed to render the titles correctly as they appear
in the IMDB -- for example, 4.3.2.1. was given by one entrant as
4.3.2.1 -- but nothing in this question explicitly required me to
be stricter than usual about spelling, so I treated these answers
as correct. The renderings shown above are the correct ones.
| 5. Name two adjacent countries (see rule 4.1.1) now existing,
| whose entire mutual border is (or formerly was) an *inland
| water border* (i.e. consisting of lakes and/or rivers), or an
| inland water border plus one or more offshore continuations
| of the border into seawater.
4 Argentina, Uruguay (Uruguay, de la Plata)
2 DR Congo, Tanzania (L. Tanganyika)
2 Moldova, Romania (Prut, Danube)
1 Argentina, Paraguay (Pilcomayo, Brazo Sur, Paraguay, Paraná)
1 Armenia, Iran (Aras)
1 Azerbaijan, Turkey (Aras)
1 Benin, Niger (Mékrou, Niger)
1 Botswana, Zambia (Zambezi)
1 Central African Republic, DR Congo (Bomu, Ubangi)
1 Finland, Sweden (rivers)
1 Germany, Luxembourg (Our, Sauer)
1 Guyana, Suriname (Corentyne)
1 North Korea, Russia (Tumen)
WRONG:
1 Croatia, Hungary
1 Israel, Jordan
1 Malawi, Tanzania
Gotta love that Rio de la Plata.
The Croatia-Hungary border follows a river for most of its length but
then diverges from it and crosses the Danube. The Malawi-Tanzania
border is similar. For Israel and Jordan it was not necessary to
trace the border to know that it was wrong; the two countries share
shoreline on both the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, and since the
former is below sea level, the two cannot be connected by water.
| 6. Name an author who wrote 50 or more works of fiction featuring
| the same major character. You must name the character, but
| this does not form part of your answer.
3 Erle Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason)
2 G.K. Chesterton (Father Brown)
2 Georges Simenon (Jules Maigret)
2 Prentiss Ingraham (Buffalo Bill)
2 Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe)
2 W.E. Johns (Biggles)
1 Evan Hunter (Steve Carella)
1 Gus Edson (Dondi) (comic strips)
1 John Swartzwelder (Bart Simpson) (TV episodes)
1 Luis Senarens (Jack Wright)
1 Sid Roland Rommerud (Klas Bergendahl)
1 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes)
1 Stan Lee (Spider-Man) (comic books)
1 Tom Batiuk (John Darling) (comic strips)
Answers here were well divided and all were apparently correct.
The only one I'm not sure about is Evan Hunter; according to various
sources he wrote 55 novels about the detectives of the 87th Precinct
and his usual lead characters such as Carella appear in *almost* all
of them. If any one of the major characters appears in 50 or more
of the books, Hunter is a correct answer, and I gave the entrant the
benefit of the doubt.
I deliberately worded the question so that visual media such as TV
episodes would be acceptable, and all the entrants who made such
choices scored a 1. Where no medium is mentioned in the answer list,
it was novels and/or short stories.
| 7. Give a surname that is shared by (1) someone who has been
| president of the US and (2) someone who has been nominated
| for an Oscar in one of the four acting categories.
3 Adams (John 1797-1801, John Q. 1825-29; Amy 2005 2008 2010,
Nick 1963)
3 Garfield (James 1881; John 1938 1947#)
2 Arthur (Chester 1881-85; Jean 1943#)
2 Grant (Ulysses 1869-77; Cary 1941# 1944#, Lee 1951 1970 1975*
1976)
2 Hayes (Rutherford 1877-81; Helen 1931/32#* 1970*)
2 Taylor (Zachary 1849-50; Elizabeth 1957# 1958# 1959# 1960#*
1966#*)
2 Washington (George 1789-97; Denzel 1987 1989* 1992# 1999#
2001#*)
1 Harding (Warren 1921-23; Ann 1930-31)
1 Harrison (William 1841, Benjamin 1889-93; Rex 1963# 1964#*)
1 Jackson (Andrew 1829-37; Glenda 1970#* 1971# 1973#* 1975#,
Samuel L. 1994)
1 Kennedy (John 1961-63; Arthur 1949 1951# 1955 1957 1958, George
1967*)
WRONG:
1 Carter (Jimmy 1977-81; none)
If I didn't goof, * indicates Oscar wins and # indicates nominations
or wins for acting in a leading role.
The answer "Carter" was an unintentional trap. Helena Bonham Carter
has been nominated for an Oscar twice (1997#, 2010), but she has a
double-barreled surname -- it's Bonham Carter, not Carter.
Answers were fairly well divided. As far as I know, there are two
correct answers that weren't given: "Ford" (Gerald 1974-77; Harrison
1985#) and "Johnson" (Andrew 1865-69, Lyndon 1963-69; Ben 1971*,
Celia 1946#).
| 8. Usually each athlete in the Olympic games is said to compete
| as part of a "team" representing one independent country.
| Name such a team at any past Olympics that did *not*
| represent one then-independent country (again, see rule
| 4.1.1). (You must mention which year you have in mind,
| but this does not form part of your answer.)
4 Australasia (Australia + New Zealand, 1908)
3 Palestine (1996)
1 Australia (1920)
1 Bermuda (1936)
1 Edwin Flack and George Robertson (1896, tennis)
1 Puerto Rico (1948)
1 Rhodesia (1928)
1 Saarland (1952)
1 Sweden-Denmark mixed team (1900, tug of war)
1 Trinidad and Tobago (1948)
1 Unified Team of ex-USSR countries (1992)
1 Unified Team of Germany (West + East + Saarland, 1956)
1 US Virgin Islands (1968)
WRONG:
1 Cuba (1900) (individual contestants)
1 East Timor (2000) (individual contestants)
1 United Arab Republic (1960) (then independent country)
In each case, the dates shown beside the answers represent the earliest
relevant year I know about.
When scoring this question, I learned that my word "usually"
in the question actually applied only to the period from the 1908
games onward. Before that, all contestants competed as individuals
and not as representatives of their countries, and in team events,
athletes from different countries might compete on the same team.
This accounts both for the two correct answers from before 1908 and for
the fact that Cuba (which became independent in 1902) was incorrect.
The East Timorese athletes who competed in 2000 (before East Timor's
independence was recognized) also entered as individuals, unlike
those from Palestine.
| 9. Give an adjective, in English, which can be applied to an
| object or person being described or discussed, in order to
| express the fact, claim, or possibility that this object or
| person never actually existed.
4 Imaginary
2 Fictitious
2 Mythological
1 Conjectural
1 Fabulous
1 Hypothetical
1 Ideal
1 Mythic
1 Mythical
1 Notional
1 Ostensive
1 Phantasmic
1 Phantom
1 Spurious
1 Supposed
1 Unauthenticated
There sure are enough of them, aren't there? The collision on
imaginary" was impressive, but my favorite answer was "unauthenticated".
--
Mark Brader | "...not one accident in a hundred deserves the name.
Toronto | [This occurrence] was simply the legitimate result
m...@vex.net | of carelessness." -- Washington Roebling
Peter Smyth
news:LqGdnTcMtZFRkkLQ...@vex.net...
>| 3. Give a single word in English, used in the grammar of English
>| to designate a part of speech.
>
> 6 Conjunction
> 3 Adverb
> 3 Preposition
> 2 Determiner [= Determiners]
> 2 Verb
> 1 Exclamation
> 1 Interjection
> 1 Pronoun
> WRONG:
> 1 Infinitive
> 1 Predicate
>
>Almost 1/3 of the field picked "conjunction", and nobody picked "noun"
>or "adjective". *Hmmm!*
>
>"Exclamation" and "interjection" are, I believe, alternative terms
>with the same meaning; since the question was "give a word", not
>"name a part of speech", they count separately.
>
>"Infinitive" is a verb form; the corresponding part of speech is
>"verb". And a "predicate" is a part of a sentence and not a part
>of speech.
http://www.writing.engr.psu.edu/exercises/diagnostic2.html
http://www.helium.com/items/174150-essential-grammar-understanding-parts-of-speech
http://www.upwritepress.com/_blog/Write_for_Business_-_Blog/post/Understanding_Grammar_Parts_of_Speech_Infinitives/
all say that an infinitive is a part of speech so I think this should be
ruled correct.
Peter Smyth
Andrew B.
> | 2. Name a chemical element whose name in English starts with C.
>
> 5 Cobalt
> 4 Cerium
> 3 Chromium
> 3 Copper [= Kupfer]
> 2 Carbon
> 1 Cadmium
> 1 Caesium
> 1 Calcium
> 1 Chlorine
>
> There are 11 correct answers and 9 of them were given. The two
> that weren't are the two radioactive elements that start with C:
> californium and curium.
You have something against copernicium?
Mark Brader
>>| 2. Name a chemical element whose name in English starts with C.
>> There are 11 correct answers and 9 of them were given. The two
>> that weren't are the two radioactive elements that start with C:
>> californium and curium.
Andrew Bull:
> You have something against copernicium?
Naah, I just missed hearing about it. Okay, 12 correct answers of
which 9 were given.
--
Mark Brader | "[In a country with] the dream that... anyone can grow up
Toronto | to be President... there's also a nightmare where
m...@vex.net | *anyone* can grow up to be President." --Mark Steese
Mark Brader
>>| 3. Give a single word in English, used in the grammar of English
>>| to designate a part of speech.
>> "Infinitive" is a verb form; the corresponding part of speech is
>> "verb".
Peter Smyth:
> http://www.writing.engr.psu.edu/exercises/diagnostic2.html
> http://www.helium.com/items/174150-essential-grammar-understanding-parts-of-speech
> http://www.upwritepress.com/_blog/Write_for_Business_-_Blog/post/Understanding_Grammar_Parts_of_Speech_Infinitives/
>
> all say that an infinitive is a part of speech so I think this should be
> ruled correct.
Okay, I'll buy it. This correction puts Peter into a tie for third place.
Details to follow after I see if any more changes are required.
--
Mark Brader "Things are getting too standard around here.
Toronto Time to innovate!"
m...@vex.net -- Ian Darwin and David Keldsen
ellen
> | whose entire mutual border is (or formerly was) an *inland
> | water border* (i.e. consisting of lakes and/or rivers), or an
> | inland water border plus one or more offshore continuations
> | of the border into seawater.
It is not only river and water borders. A part of the border is on the
small island Märket in the Baltic Sea. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M
%C3%A4rket]
Rich Grise
> Mark Brader:
>>>| 2. Name a chemical element whose name in English starts with C.
>
>>> There are 11 correct answers and 9 of them were given. The two
>>> that weren't are the two radioactive elements that start with C:
>>> californium and curium.
>
> Andrew Bull:
>> You have something against copernicium?
>
> Naah, I just missed hearing about it. Okay, 12 correct answers of
> which 9 were given.
I guess Tom Lehrer's "The Elements" needs an update. Does anybody know
if Mr. Lehrer is still alive?
http://www.privatehand.com/flash/elements.html
Cheers!
Rich
Erland Sommarskog
> For Israel and Jordan it was not necessary to
> trace the border to know that it was wrong; the two countries share
> shoreline on both the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, and since the
> former is below sea level, the two cannot be connected by water.
Which of course is very unlikely in that desert landscape, and a check
on my Times atlas indicates that there are several stretches of border
over land.
I was actually looking at a local map to see if this could be the case
for the border between Argentina and Brasil, but the map was not good
enough to prove that idea right so I had to give it up.
--
Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, esq...@sommarskog.se
swp
> Once again, I wrote:
>
> There were only 21 entrants this time. The winner is DAN TILQUE.
> Lukewarm congratulations! In second place was Erland Sommarskog,
> and in third place, the entrant whose email address is
congratulations, each.
> Here is the complete table of scores.
>
> RANK SCORE ENTRANT Q0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9
>
> 1. 72 Dan Tilque 9 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 2
> 2. 96 Erland Sommarskog 3 2 4 2 2 1 1 1 1 1
> 3. 120 rthea...@hotmail.com 5 1 4 1 2 1 1 3 1 1
> 4. 720 Stephen Perry 9 WR 2 2 1 2 2 1 1 1
hey, my best showing ever. and I still managed to get a wrong
answer. ironically, I would still be in 4th with 144 if my answer had
counted. ah well. next time!
> 5. 1152 John Gerson 9 2 1 1 1 4 2 2 1 4
> 6. 1296 Dan Unger 3 2 3 3 2 2 1 2 3 1
> 7. 1440 Peter Smyth 5 2 3 WR 1 4 1 1 1 1
> 8. 1920 Nick Selwyn 4 1 5 3 1 1 1 2 4 4
> 9. 2160 Ted Schuerzinger 4 1 5 3 WR 1 1 3 1 2
> 10. 2700 Alan Curry 5 1 5 6 3 1 2 3 1 1
> 11. 3456 Kevin Stone 9 2 1 6 1 1 2 2 WR 1
> =11. 3456 Duke Lefty 3 1 4 6 1 WR 2 3 1 1
> 13. 4800 Bruce Bowler 5 WR 3 1 1 WR 2 1 4 1
> 14. 5832 Haran Pilpel 9 2 1 6 3 1 2 3 3 1
> 15. 7776 Joshua Kreitzer 9 2 3 3 2 4 3 2 1 1
> Grip 9 1 2 3 1 WR 1 2 3 4
> Pete Gayde 4 2 5 3 1 2 3 2 4 2
> Rob Parker 5 2 4 WR 1 2 2 2 1 4
> Dave Filpus 4 1 5 6 3 1 3 2 WR 2
> 334...@gmail.com 9 WR 3 2 2 4 2 3 4 1
> Lejonel Norling 9 2 3 6 2 1 2 WR WR 1
>
> Scores of 10,000 or worse are not shown.
and lest I forget, Thank You Mark!
swp
Mark Brader
>> For Israel and Jordan it was not necessary to
>> trace the border to know that it was wrong; the two countries share
>> shoreline on both the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, and since the
>> former is below sea level, the two cannot be connected by water.
> ...unless there is a bifurcation!
You mean a river that divides with one branch flowing down to the ocean
and the other down to the Dead Sea? Yeah, right. But as an existence
proof, you have a point.
--
Mark Brader | "One of the lessons of history is that nothing
Toronto | is often a good thing to do and always a clever
m...@vex.net | thing to say." -- Will Durant
Mark Brader
(I hate it when that happens) and all of them affect leading finishers.
Previously I wrote:
> There were only 21 entrants this time. The winner is DAN TILQUE.
> Lukewarm congratulations! In second place was Erland Sommarskog,
> and in third place, the entrant whose email address is
> rthe...@hotmail.com.
Erland showed fine sportsmanship by emailing me to disqualify his
own answer of Sid Roland Rommerud for question 6, based on his own
further research. Apparently some works that he first told me were
collaborations between Rommerud and another writer were really by
the other author alone, and this reduces Rommerud's contribution to
the series below the critical 50 works.
Erland drops from 2nd to 3rd place.
The entrant whose email address is rthe...@hotmail.com drops from
3rd place to 5th. His answer on question 5 was Finland and Sweden.
It turns out that while the two countries have only an inland water
border on the mainland from about latitude 66 to 69 N, their seawater
border around latitude 60 N comes briefly onto land to cross the tiny
island of Märket. So they become a wrong answer.
(Curiously, the island cannot be found in Google Maps, either in the
maps themselves or satellite imagery, and I wondered at first if it
was an Internet hoax, particularly in view of the unusual shape of
the land border on it and the April 1 date of some newspaper articles
cited by Wikipedia. Erland kindly helped check it out, and we found
enough confirmatory sources to decide that it must be genuine.)
On the other hand, Peter Smyth's answer of "infinitive" on question 3
is correct according to some sources. So Peter moves up from 7th
place to 2nd. John Gerson and Dan Unger keep the same scores but
move down one place.
Here are the three leaders' answer slates (some abbreviated) as
corrected:
DAN TILQUE PETER SMYTH ERLAND SOMMARSKOG
[0] Conservative Liberal Quebecois
[1] Daily Star Morning Star Independent
[2] Cadmium Chromium Cerium
[3] Determiner Infinitive Verb
[4] Pu-239 ...120 Days of Sodom 491
[5] Germany/Luxembourg Argentina/Uruguay Argentina/Paraguay
[6] Stan Lee Tom Batiuk (wrong answer)
[7] Washington Harrison Jackson
[8] Bermuda Rhodesia Ex-USSR countries
[9] Mythological Phantasmic Hypothetical
Here is the revised scoring table:
RANK SCORE ENTRANT Q0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9
1. 72 Dan Tilque 9 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 2
2. 120 Peter Smyth 5 2 3 1 1 4 1 1 1 1
3. 576 Erland Sommarskog 3 2 4 2 2 1 WR 1 1 1
4. 720 Stephen Perry 9 WR 2 2 1 2 2 1 1 1
5. 960 rthe...@hotmail.com 5 1 4 1 2 WR 1 3 1 1
6. 1152 John Gerson 9 2 1 1 1 4 2 2 1 4
7. 1296 Dan Unger 3 2 3 3 2 2 1 2 3 1
8. 1920 Nick Selwyn 4 1 5 3 1 1 1 2 4 4
9. 2160 Ted Schuerzinger 4 1 5 3 WR 1 1 3 1 2
10. 2700 Alan Curry 5 1 5 6 3 1 2 3 1 1
11. 3456 Kevin Stone 9 2 1 6 1 1 2 2 WR 1
=11. 3456 Duke Lefty 3 1 4 6 1 WR 2 3 1 1
13. 4800 Bruce Bowler 5 WR 3 1 1 WR 2 1 4 1
14. 5832 Haran Pilpel 9 2 1 6 3 1 2 3 3 1
15. 7776 Joshua Kreitzer 9 2 3 3 2 4 3 2 1 1
Grip 9 1 2 3 1 WR 1 2 3 4
Pete Gayde 4 2 5 3 1 2 3 2 4 2
Rob Parker 5 2 4 WR 1 2 2 2 1 4
Dave Filpus 4 1 5 6 3 1 3 2 WR 2
334...@gmail.com 9 WR 3 2 2 4 2 3 4 1
Lejonel Norling 9 2 3 6 2 1 2 WR WR 1
Scores of 10,000 or worse are still not shown.
And here are the revised answer lists for the three questions where
they changed:
| 3. Give a single word in English, used in the grammar of English
| to designate a part of speech.
6 Conjunction
3 Adverb
3 Preposition
2 Determiner [= Determiners]
2 Verb
1 Exclamation
1 Infinitive
1 Interjection
1 Pronoun
WRONG:
1 Predicate
| 5. Name two adjacent countries (see rule 4.1.1) now existing,
| whose entire mutual border is (or formerly was) an *inland
| water border* (i.e. consisting of lakes and/or rivers), or an
| inland water border plus one or more offshore continuations
| of the border into seawater.
4 Argentina, Uruguay (Uruguay, de la Plata)
2 DR Congo, Tanzania (L. Tanganyika)
2 Moldova, Romania (Prut, Danube)
1 Argentina, Paraguay (Pilcomayo, Brazo Sur, Paraguay, Paraná)
1 Armenia, Iran (Aras)
1 Azerbaijan, Turkey (Aras)
1 Benin, Niger (Mékrou, Niger)
1 Botswana, Zambia (Zambezi)
1 Central African Republic, DR Congo (Bomu, Ubangi)
1 Germany, Luxembourg (Our, Sauer)
1 Guyana, Suriname (Corentyne)
1 North Korea, Russia (Tumen)
WRONG:
1 Croatia, Hungary
1 Finland, Sweden
1 Israel, Jordan
1 Malawi, Tanzania
| 6. Name an author who wrote 50 or more works of fiction featuring
| the same major character. You must name the character, but
| this does not form part of your answer.
3 Erle Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason)
2 G.K. Chesterton (Father Brown)
2 Georges Simenon (Jules Maigret)
2 Prentiss Ingraham (Buffalo Bill)
2 Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe)
2 W.E. Johns (Biggles)
1 Evan Hunter (Steve Carella)
1 Gus Edson (Dondi) (comic strips)
1 John Swartzwelder (Bart Simpson) (TV episodes)
1 Luis Senarens (Jack Wright)
1 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes)
1 Stan Lee (Spider-Man) (comic books)
1 Tom Batiuk (John Darling) (comic strips)
WRONG:
1 Sid Roland Rommerud
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "As for Canada's lack of mystique,
m...@vex.net it is not unique." -- Mark Leeper
Erland Sommarskog
> Erland showed fine sportsmanship by emailing me to disqualify his
> own answer of Sid Roland Rommerud for question 6, based on his own
> further research. Apparently some works that he first told me were
> collaborations between Rommerud and another writer were really by
> the other author alone, and this reduces Rommerud's contribution to
> the series below the critical 50 works.
In total there are 54 books about the "twin detectives" Klas and Göran
Bergendahl and their cousin Hubert Norlén (who is the bright guy that
mainly solves the mysteries) published by Sivar Ahlrud.
Sivar Ahlrud is a psuedonym used by Sid Roland Rommerud and Ivar Ahlstedt.
They collaborated on the first books, but they also wrote some of the
books alone. Ahlstedt passed away in 1967, so after 1967 Rommerud wrote
all books alone. Rommerud died in 1974, but some other people wrote and
published four books in the name of Ahlrud in the 1980s.
Of the 50 books published by the real Sivar Ahlrud, four were re-worked
version of the oldest books.
Since Mark asked for an author, it was apparent that Ahlrud was an incorrect
answer, why I had to go with one of the two. The Wikipedia article I
first checked, did not mention that they wrote some of their books on
their own, but it would be more surprising if this was not the case.
I believe that I owned some 30+ of the books when I was a kid.
gerson
"Mark Brader" wrote
>
>>> "Infinitive" is a verb form; the corresponding part of speech is
>>> "verb".
>
> Peter Smyth:
>> http://www.writing.engr.psu.edu/exercises/diagnostic2.html
>> http://www.helium.com/items/174150-essential-grammar-understanding-parts-of-speech
>> http://www.upwritepress.com/_blog/Write_for_Business_-_Blog/post/Understanding_Grammar_Parts_of_Speech_Infinitives/
>>
>> all say that an infinitive is a part of speech so I think this should be
>> ruled correct.
>
> Okay, I'll buy it. This correction puts Peter into a tie for third place.
> Details to follow after I see if any more changes are required.
> --
> Mark Brader "Things are getting too standard around here.
> Toronto Time to innovate!"
> m...@vex.net -- Ian Darwin and David Keldsen
Just cos a few web sites say stuff doesn't mean it's all ok
what they say, um, they could be wrong; and although from time to time it must be that the competition
must need need need to rely upon what's online here and there, it shouldn't be so in the extreme. So,
I say, irrespective of what the three websites say, the infinitve is not a part of speech see below, (and below)
Identifying Verbals - Recognizing Participles Gerunds and ...
grammar.about.com/od/.../a/verbalswhat.htm
According to this, infinitives (along with gerunds and participles) are "verbals", and they *function* as parts of speech, implying
they're not parts of speech
like if a beak is part of a bird and and a bird is part of a flock, then don't say a beak is part of a flock
Garmt de Vries
> Once again, I wrote:
>
> | 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...
And once again, I decided to join. But as I rushed off my message to
Mark before leaving the country for a while, I forgot to include my
answers. Mark's reply asking for the actual entries only reached me
after I returned home and the contest was over :( Shame, as it was
another nice set of questions, and as there were so few entrants this
time...
FWIW, these were my answers:
> | 0. Pick one: "Conservative", "Liberal", "New Democratic", or
> | "Quebecois".
0. New Democratic
> | 1. Name a newspaper which at some time in the 20th century
> | was published daily (at least 5 days per week) in London,
> | in English, for national distribution for sale in Great
> | Britain. (Papers that were given away rather than sold do
> | not qualify.)
1. Daily News and Leader
> | 2. Name a chemical element whose name in English starts with C.
2. Cerium
> | 3. Give a single word in English, used in the grammar of English
> | to designate a part of speech.
3. ambiposition
> | 4. Name a movie title containing at least three different
> | (unequal) digits, *excluding* digits that form part of a
> | date or time. The title must be the primary title of the
> | movie in the Internet Movie Database <http://www.imdb.com>.
> | The movie must be a feature film telling a fictional story,
> | not a short or documentary. See also rules 4.2 (for "movie")
> | and 4.3.3 (for "digit"). Of course rule 4.3.4 does *not* apply
> | (since this is about characters, not words or numerals).
4. Room 213
> | 5. Name two adjacent countries (see rule 4.1.1) now existing,
> | whose entire mutual border is (or formerly was) an *inland
> | water border* (i.e. consisting of lakes and/or rivers), or an
> | inland water border plus one or more offshore continuations
> | of the border into seawater.
5. Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo
> | 6. Name an author who wrote 50 or more works of fiction featuring
> | the same major character. You must name the character, but
> | this does not form part of your answer.
6. Marten Toonder (Tom Poes)
> | 7. Give a surname that is shared by (1) someone who has been
> | president of the US and (2) someone who has been nominated
> | for an Oscar in one of the four acting categories.
7. Hayes
> | 8. Usually each athlete in the Olympic games is said to compete
> | as part of a "team" representing one independent country.
> | Name such a team at any past Olympics that did *not*
> | represent one then-independent country (again, see rule
> | 4.1.1). (You must mention which year you have in mind,
> | but this does not form part of your answer.)
8. Finland (1912)
> | 9. Give an adjective, in English, which can be applied to an
> | object or person being described or discussed, in order to
> | express the fact, claim, or possibility that this object or
> | person never actually existed.
9. make-believe
Thanks, Mark, for yet another contest (despite my carelessness in
sending my answers!)
Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd.
Mark Brader
> FWIW, these were my answers...
If these answers are all correct, then if Garmt had given them he
would have placed third with a score of 225. However, there are
several whose correctness I don't know off the top of my head and
am not going to check.
--
Mark Brader "I can see the time when every city will have one."
Toronto -- An American mayor's reaction to the
m...@vex.net news of the invention of the telephone
Duncan Booth
> The entrant whose email address is rthe...@hotmail.com drops from
> 3rd place to 5th. His answer on question 5 was Finland and Sweden.
> It turns out that while the two countries have only an inland water
> border on the mainland from about latitude 66 to 69 N, their seawater
> border around latitude 60 N comes briefly onto land to cross the tiny
> island of M„rket. So they become a wrong answer.
>
> (Curiously, the island cannot be found in Google Maps, either in the
> maps themselves or satellite imagery, and I wondered at first if it
> was an Internet hoax, particularly in view of the unusual shape of
> the land border on it and the April 1 date of some newspaper articles
> cited by Wikipedia. Erland kindly helped check it out, and we found
> enough confirmatory sources to decide that it must be genuine.)
>
You can however find it on the aerial imagery on bing.com, or at least
there is some sort of land blur there.
More convincing is http://www.hs.fi/english/article//1135221286410 which
has a map of the island showing how the border twists about as it crosses
the island. It looks like the island is about 100m across but the border is
several times that.
--
Duncan Booth http://kupuguy.blogspot.com
Mark Brader
> > (Curiously, the island cannot be found in Google Maps, either in the
> > maps themselves or satellite imagery, and I wondered at first if it
> > was an Internet hoax, particularly in view of the unusual shape of
> > the land border on it and the April 1 date of some newspaper articles
> > cited by Wikipedia. Erland kindly helped check it out, and we found
> > enough confirmatory sources to decide that it must be genuine.)
Duncan Booth:
> You can however find it on the aerial imagery on bing.com, or at least
> there is some sort of land blur there.
Thanks.
> More convincing is http://www.hs.fi/english/article//1135221286410 which
> has a map of the island showing how the border twists about as it crosses
> the island. It looks like the island is about 100m across but the border is
> several times that.
I disagree with "more convincing"; this is exactly what I was referring to
as evidence that it might be a hoax.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Winning isn't everything, but not trying to win
m...@vex.net | is less than nothing." --Anton van Uitert
Paul Hunter
> 3rd place to 5th. His answer on question 5 was Finland and Sweden.
> It turns out that while the two countries have only an inland water
> border on the mainland from about latitude 66 to 69 N, their seawater
> border around latitude 60 N comes briefly onto land to cross the tiny
> island of Märket. So they become a wrong answer.
>
> (Curiously, the island cannot be found in Google Maps, either in the
> maps themselves or satellite imagery, and I wondered at first if it
> was an Internet hoax, particularly in view of the unusual shape of
> the land border on it and the April 1 date of some newspaper articles
> cited by Wikipedia. Erland kindly helped check it out, and we found
> enough confirmatory sources to decide that it must be genuine.)
Hmmm if you want to be that picky you could argue that Isla Martín
García (Argentina) and Isla Timoteo Domínguez (Uruguay) share a land
border as they are a "geographic union" [and this is on Google Maps:
34°10.79′S 58°15′W]
Paul Hunter
>> has a map of the island showing how the border twists about as it crosses
>> the island. It looks like the island is about 100m across but the border is
>> several times that.
>
> I disagree with "more convincing"; this is exactly what I was referring to
> as evidence that it might be a hoax.
The BBC had a small bit about Märket here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12849630
(under "split time")
Not dated 1 April...
Mark Brader
> Hmmm if you want to be that picky you could argue that Isla Martín
> García (Argentina) and Isla Timoteo Domínguez (Uruguay) share a land
If you want to object to the scores, please do it in timely fashion.
Even if the two formerly separate islands are now connected, this doesn't
make the answer wrong. It's still correct if the border between the two
countries was *formerly* an inland water border. Not only where they
once separate islands, but it hasn't always been true that they belonged
to the two different countries.
Interesting case, though.
--
Mark Brader | "The good news is that the Internet is dynamic.
Toronto | The bad news is that the Internet is dynamic."
m...@vex.net | -- Peter Neumann
Duncan Booth
>> More convincing is http://www.hs.fi/english/article//1135221286410
>> which has a map of the island showing how the border twists about as
>> it crosses the island. It looks like the island is about 100m across
>> but the border is several times that.
>
> I disagree with "more convincing"; this is exactly what I was
> referring to as evidence that it might be a hoax.
"more convincing" for me as someone who was intrigued by the bizarre
border. Since you've already accepted the answer as correct I don't need to
consider it being a hoax.
BTW, I also found some photographs of the island:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/taivasalla/2690226104/in/set-72157605780190557/
Mark Brader
>>> More convincing is http://www.hs.fi/english/article//1135221286410
>>> which has a map of the island showing how the border twists about as
>>> it crosses the island. It looks like the island is about 100m across
>>> but the border is several times that.
Mark Brader:
>> I disagree with "more convincing"; this is exactly what I was
>> referring to as evidence that it might be a hoax.
Duncan Booth:
> "more convincing" for me as someone who was intrigued by the bizarre
> border. Since you've already accepted the answer as correct I don't
> need to consider it being a hoax.
The quality of being convincing is only relevant in connection with the
possibility of a hoax. Let me be clear: I accept that the island and
the quirky border shape are real. I'm just saying that that article
was *not* what convinced me, but rather, was one of the things that made
me dubious. What convinced me was *other* evidence and Erland found.
(And neither did the existence of a handful of photos on the web,
which could have been photos of someplace else.)
--
Mark Brader "Male got pregnant -- on the first try."
Toronto Newsweek article on high-tech conception
m...@vex.net November 30, 1987
Erland Sommarskog
> I'm just saying that that article was *not* what convinced me, but
> rather, was one of the things that made me dubious.
I would say that the article from Helsingin Sanomat is convincing enough.
Not that I can claim any experience of reading HS - if I read a Finnish
newspaper, I go for Hufvudstadbladet for obvious reasons - but as I
understand it's a serious newspaper. For me it is unlikely that they
would publish an untrue story about something as serious as the border
to Sweden.
But of course, there is no reason to expect Mark to have any knowledge
or experience of newspapers in this part of the world.
rthe...@hotmail.com
> The entrant whose email address is rthea...@hotmail.com drops from
> 3rd place to 5th. His answer on question 5 was Finland and Sweden.
> It turns out that while the two countries have only an inland water
> border on the mainland from about latitude 66 to 69 N, their seawater
> border around latitude 60 N comes briefly onto land to cross the tiny
> island of Märket. So they become a wrong answer.
Ow ow ow ow ow
Roy