Search found 862 matches

by Sir Thopas
Sun Feb 27, 2011 7:54 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: A Quizbowl Style Guide
Replies: 23
Views: 4739

Re: A Quizbowl Style Guide

I like the word "identify," and I don't like the word "name." I feel the latter is unnecessarily succinct and don't use it. These sorts of things are difference of flavor rather than substance. Well, yes and no. If you think the stylistic advantage gained by using "identify...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Feb 27, 2011 3:11 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: A Quizbowl Style Guide
Replies: 23
Views: 4739

A Quizbowl Style Guide

A lot of tournaments I’ve seen lately commit manifold offenses against what, to me, at least, represents good question-writing style. The primary purpose of a quizbowl question is to be immediately understood as heard, and I feel like there are constructions that can be avoided—and often aren’t—that...
by Sir Thopas
Wed Feb 23, 2011 3:26 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals at Brown, 2/26/11
Replies: 10
Views: 4097

ACF Regionals at Brown, 2/26/11

Brown University in Providence, RI, will be hosting ACF Regionals THIS SATURDAY, February 26. Ian can respond with where this tournament will be held; for now, assume that it's in Wilson Hall and that we'll start registration around 8:15, with the first round beginning at 9. It may end up being in B...
by Sir Thopas
Tue Feb 22, 2011 7:04 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals 2011 Global Announcement (February 26, 2011)
Replies: 62
Views: 142599

Re: ACF Regionals 2011 Global Announcement (February 26, 2011)

Now waiting to hear back from Penn and NYU. Brown has volunteered their services as an emergency site. Both of those sites seem like they would be rather inconvenient for the New England set. Are there mid-Atlantic teams that might come to this that aren't already going to W&M but that would go...
by Sir Thopas
Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:21 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: GUERRILLA III - Friday, 4/8/11 - ICT Hotel, Chicago
Replies: 107
Views: 20378

Re: GUERRILLA III - Friday, 4/8/11 - ICT Hotel, Chicago

The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote:
Sir Thopas wrote:Assuming we don't have any travel catastrophes this year
That phenomenon was associated with my presence.
Sleeping in Logan sucks, man. IT CONTINUES
by Sir Thopas
Fri Feb 18, 2011 1:34 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: GUERRILLA III - Friday, 4/8/11 - ICT Hotel, Chicago
Replies: 107
Views: 20378

Re: GUERRILLA III - Friday, 4/8/11 - ICT Hotel, Chicago

Assuming we don't have any travel catastrophes this year, I'd like to get in on this.
by Sir Thopas
Sun Feb 13, 2011 5:07 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Prompts and Protests
Replies: 11
Views: 2738

Re: Prompts and Protests

Well, unless the answer was something like John Quincy Adams, where a player has to make it extremely clear (I think there's even a thing about this in the NAQT and/or ACF rules) that they don't mean the other President John Adams (whose wiki page you get if you just type in "John Adams")...
by Sir Thopas
Mon Jan 31, 2011 4:06 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Region 1 SCT at Harvard (2/5/11)
Replies: 17
Views: 3930

Re: Region 1 SCT at Harvard (2/5/11)

We'll almost certainly have 2 teams.
by Sir Thopas
Mon Jan 10, 2011 3:23 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: The Sack of Antwerp (Chicago 2/19/2011)
Replies: 144
Views: 81037

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: The Sack of Antwerp (Chicago 2/19/2011)

Tees-Exe Line wrote:That's a good question. I emailed a couple of people and invited proposals for mirror sites, but I haven't had much interest. So I'll put it out there again: I would like the tournament to be mirrored if anyone is interested in hosting.
Brown would be interested.
by Sir Thopas
Wed Dec 15, 2010 5:34 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words
Replies: 49
Views: 64110

Re: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words

And it surely varies with dialect too, like everything. I guess it would be more like that in the north? I don't know much about dialectal variation in Welsh, so no idea about north/south, but you're probably right about it varying, in any case. I'm pretty sure the north has a bunch more tight roun...
by Sir Thopas
Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:33 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words
Replies: 49
Views: 64110

Re: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words

And it surely varies with dialect too, like everything. I guess it would be more like that in the north? I don't know much about dialectal variation in Welsh, so no idea about north/south, but you're probably right about it varying, in any case. I'm pretty sure the north has a bunch more tight roun...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Dec 12, 2010 3:29 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words
Replies: 49
Views: 64110

Re: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words

I don't have my IPA handbook here, haha awesome but I think the Swedish r is /r/. If any of them is the odd one out in that regard, it's Danish, which has the same r as German. Finnish does have single and double r, though (like single and double everything), so a double r as in ymmärrän will be pr...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Dec 12, 2010 12:00 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words
Replies: 49
Views: 64110

Re: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words

Nicklausse/Muse wrote:I already said that.
Blodeuwedd - another one with the "eu" that sounds like "oi," but possibly more importantly, a double d. The "dd" is a voiced "th," like in "there."
Oops, missed that somehow. Carry on.
by Sir Thopas
Sun Dec 12, 2010 11:30 am
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words
Replies: 49
Views: 64110

Re: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words

Nicklausse/Muse wrote:Did I miss any really confusing names or important rules?
"dd" is pronounced like the soft "th" in "the". So Cardiff is Caerdydd, and is pronounced something like "kare-dith", where the "dith" is the first syllable in "dither".
by Sir Thopas
Sat Dec 11, 2010 2:13 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words
Replies: 49
Views: 64110

Re: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words

This is a very useful post, much more useful than arguing about orthography. One point that may be of interest regarding Russian: Russian has a weird letter called ы which I guess is pronounced something like "ee" but with the tongue curled somewhat towards the back of the throat. This is...
by Sir Thopas
Sat Dec 11, 2010 11:32 am
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words
Replies: 49
Views: 64110

Re: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words

Awesome. Since you so kindly didn't fill in Czech, I'll do so. As Charles mentioned numerous times but never explicitly stated (unless I missed it), all Slavic languages have retrograde consonant assimilation and final devoicing. This first bit of jargon means that, for example, the word teďka is pr...
by Sir Thopas
Mon Dec 06, 2010 5:16 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: THUNDER Discussion
Replies: 101
Views: 17784

Re: THUNDER Discussion

I don't know how the whole tossup looked, but Edvard Benes and Klement Gottwald aren't particularly Czech names. I buzzed because I knew the clues, not because I frauded it. Also, boo on that question for mentioning Bohumil Hrabal's tenth most famous work instead of his fifth most famous work. Perh...
by Sir Thopas
Mon Dec 06, 2010 3:49 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: THUNDER Discussion
Replies: 101
Views: 17784

Re: THUNDER Discussion

The only tossup outside my categories that I remember being bothered by was the tossup on Defenestrations of Prague, which was a giant game of chicken, since it started dropping Czech names by the second line, making it abundantly clear that it was looking for some kind of event that happened multi...
by Sir Thopas
Thu Dec 02, 2010 3:13 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: THUNDER II at Yale (12/04/2010)
Replies: 25
Views: 7168

Re: THUNDER II at Yale (12/04/2010)

gyre and gimble wrote:Is there any chance Mike Bentley's visual arts thing could be run at this tournament? I've been wanting to play it but I feel like this might be the last opportunity to do so, as it's been played/will be played this weekend in most other regions.
I would love to play this at lunch.
by Sir Thopas
Sat Nov 20, 2010 12:32 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: THUNDER II at Yale (12/04/2010)
Replies: 25
Views: 7168

Re: THUNDER II at Yale (12/04/2010)

We'll probably bring 2 teams.
by Sir Thopas
Sun Nov 07, 2010 4:03 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Fall Discussion
Replies: 156
Views: 33008

Re: ACF Fall Discussion

and saying Miguel Tejada was part of the Orioles was probably wrong when the question was written). My biggest issue with the tournament was the form of many of the lit bonuses. All too often it seemed that the order of a given lit bonus seemed to be: Wrote it in June, actually. Didn't bother to th...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Nov 07, 2010 4:00 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Fall Discussion
Replies: 156
Views: 33008

Re: ACF Fall Discussion

Just off the top of my head, Sartre and Gibbs Free Energy were repeated, both in the same round. Was Sartre really a repeat? At the point the question was gotten in my room, it was all about his philosophy stuff, and the earlier bonus was about his literature. Personality was definitely a repeat in...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Nov 07, 2010 1:24 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Fall Discussion
Replies: 156
Views: 33008

Re: ACF Fall Discussion

This is a minor point, but since it no doubt impacted matches, it's worth bringing up. The sports seemed really skewed towards minor/international sports. Besides the Orioles tossup, no other sports question read at our mirror had to do with football, basketball, or baseball. There was a common-lin...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Nov 07, 2010 12:14 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Fall Discussion
Replies: 156
Views: 33008

Re: ACF Fall Discussion

Cheynem wrote:*The Orioles did not win the 1973 World Series.
Awful mistake on my part, conflated it with 1969. My apologies.
by Sir Thopas
Mon Oct 25, 2010 1:31 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Accent marks on foreign words
Replies: 36
Views: 10314

Re: Accent marks on foreign words

Ronnie the Bear wrote:In this video, Jerry is Antoine Walker and the rest of this thread is Marcus Camby. This post is Zydrunas Ilgauskas.
TO SE MŮŽE STOJÍ HORŠÍM!!
by Sir Thopas
Mon Oct 25, 2010 8:52 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Accent marks on foreign words
Replies: 36
Views: 10314

Re: Accent marks on foreign words

Point 2: Any moderator that is confused by something like the pronunciation of Capek will be told that this is how it's pronounced. Assuming as I do that moderators are reasonable human beings, they will most likely accept the explanation. Anyway, even if you had an accent mark on there, why would ...
by Sir Thopas
Fri Oct 22, 2010 11:08 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Wording in Questions
Replies: 49
Views: 7298

Re: Wording in Questions

In that vein, I like the suggestion someone made in an earlier thread, which is to put hyphens between the syllables of names of really long chemical compounds, since trying to parse their syllables on the fly can easily trip up even experienced moderators. Since hyphens can sometimes have actual o...
by Sir Thopas
Thu Oct 21, 2010 8:52 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Wording in Questions
Replies: 49
Views: 7298

Re: Wording in Questions

Speaking of that, we should all learn the difference between "that" and "which." 1. "The dog that sits in the corner" is correct. Despite all of the 1930s judicial opinions you may be reading that say otherwise, "The dog which sits in the corner" is not. &quo...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Oct 17, 2010 9:40 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF policy question about HS teams
Replies: 26
Views: 4066

Re: ACF policy question about HS teams

So I'm kinda late to the party, but I'll add my two cents: Part of the draw for us is not just the harder than average questions or the ability to play the rather hermit-y State College A-team and the distant Dorman team, but it's the opportunity to play against and lose to some of the great colleg...
by Sir Thopas
Thu Oct 14, 2010 3:18 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Studying Pronunciation
Replies: 89
Views: 19972

Re: Studying Pronunciation

quizbowllee wrote:Huitzilopochtli = WEET - ZILL - OH - POKT - LEE
potch.
by Sir Thopas
Tue Oct 12, 2010 2:34 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Studying Pronunciation
Replies: 89
Views: 19972

Re: Studying Pronunciation

Given my agenda of liberalizing pronunciation rules and pronunciation procedures in quizbowl, I am unnerved by this thread. I guess the most forceful statement I'm willing to make is that it's in everyone's interest if moderators, on their own initiative, spent a not very significant amount of time...
by Sir Thopas
Tue Oct 12, 2010 2:07 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Studying Pronunciation
Replies: 89
Views: 19972

Re: Studying Pronunciation

With all due respect, no one really knows what the IPA moon runes mean, and I don't think that saying "go learn IPA!" is a good response. Look at all these lovely earth runes! My concern is that if you spend hours training your moderators to pronounce foreign words "correctly", ...
by Sir Thopas
Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:50 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Studying Pronunciation
Replies: 89
Views: 19972

Re: Studying Pronunciation

Ronnie the Bear wrote:Who do these people think they are, asking for correct pronunciations?!?!?!?!?!?/1/1/1/1//11/1.1,dsafljk
A bit on the lazy side, really. Wikipedia is fantastic with languages.
by Sir Thopas
Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:40 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Studying Pronunciation
Replies: 89
Views: 19972

Re: Studying Pronunciation

Why are we still discussing this? As I implied in the crosslinked thread, it's far more productive to spend half an hour learning how to pronounce French and German than memorizing the pronunciation of dozens of names individually.
by Sir Thopas
Sun Oct 10, 2010 10:05 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: On-going season rankings
Replies: 391
Views: 125013

Re: On-going season rankings

Edward Powers wrote:Dante (Bichette), you are too funny!
I would have made of it that your victory was even more impressive with Zihan than it would have been against the Hunter B regulars.
by Sir Thopas
Sat Oct 09, 2010 6:00 pm
Forum: New Collegiate Teams
Topic: Studying Pronunciation
Replies: 4
Views: 3095

Re: Studying Pronunciation

We were going to make a universal pronunciation guide a while ago, but that quickly petered out. I guess I'll just give a few basic tips that are more or less applicable everywhere. The thing that differentiates English orthography from most other Latin orthographies (especially transliterations, fo...
by Sir Thopas
Tue Oct 05, 2010 2:23 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Copy edit your questions
Replies: 27
Views: 4977

Re: Copy edit your questions

Grammatical errors also spawn the secondary problem of moderators delaying the tournament by saying some variant of "LOL THAT QUESTION DIDNT HAVE GRAMMAR!" after every tossup, which can lead to serious delays, especially if one of the teams in the room decides to also chime in with their ...
by Sir Thopas
Wed Sep 29, 2010 11:11 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Announcement: EFT 5 at Brown NEW DATE (10/2/10)
Replies: 35
Views: 18331

Re: Announcement: EFT 5 at Brown NEW DATE (10/2/10)

Just a notice that, as in years past, an afterparty will be held at some point after the tournament (probably after a dinner), and quizbowlers all are welcome to attend.
by Sir Thopas
Tue Sep 21, 2010 11:04 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Announcement regarding the chief administrator
Replies: 18
Views: 9139

Re: Announcement regarding the chief administrator

That some jackass social-climber would even think of talking to one of the few people who has actually accomplished something meaningful for PACE in that way is an infuriating example of the sort of upside-down world that Trygve's regime creates. How do you know about this? These are proceedings wh...
by Sir Thopas
Sat Sep 04, 2010 12:17 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Accent marks on foreign words
Replies: 36
Views: 10314

Re: Accent marks on foreign words

I assume this is a reference to the Hungarian name Kádár. The trouble is that "a" and "á" are pronounced differently in Hungarian. If you have a reader who actually knows how to read the Hungarian alphabet (and didn't someone here announce that they were going to write up a quiz...
by Sir Thopas
Tue Aug 31, 2010 9:42 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO Side Event: The Jean-Baptiste Lully Memorial
Replies: 275
Views: 116201

Re: CO Side Event: The Jean-Baptiste Lully Memorial

wd4gdz wrote:I was in #quizbowl waiting for this before Matt Weiner kicked me out. Anyone happen to see this and care to tell me what room, assuming not #quizbowl, this is in?
It's in #qb.
by Sir Thopas
Mon Aug 30, 2010 12:57 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Planned HS Top 25(+?) Rankings
Replies: 51
Views: 12732

Re: Planned HS Top 25(+?) Rankings

Ronnie the Bear wrote:Hunter* - Lily & York are definitely back. I think Zihan is too, but I don't know about Paul
Hunter returns everyone for two more years.
by Sir Thopas
Fri Aug 27, 2010 8:51 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO Side Event: The Jean-Baptiste Lully Memorial
Replies: 275
Views: 116201

Re: CO Side Event: The Jean-Baptiste Lully Memorial

I'd rather do it before Wednesday, if possible.
by Sir Thopas
Tue Aug 24, 2010 3:15 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Accent marks on foreign words
Replies: 36
Views: 10314

Re: Accent marks on foreign words

I tend to keep diacritics for mostly aesthetic purposes, but in general, you're right, of course. Also, if you want to put diacritics on some names, you probably have to go and look up every single name in a reliable, diacritic-retaining source, which is a pain.
by Sir Thopas
Sun Aug 22, 2010 10:35 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO Side Event: The Jean-Baptiste Lully Memorial
Replies: 275
Views: 116201

Re: CO Side Event: The Jean-Baptiste Lully Memorial

So I'll tentatively suggest the coming Wednesday, August 25th, at 8 PM as a good date for people who want to play the rest of the questions and the packets of death on IRC. If no one vocalizes their inconvenience either here or over email, I'll assume that date is fine with everyone. Which packets ...
by Sir Thopas
Thu Jul 29, 2010 4:48 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Chicago Open thanks and discussions
Replies: 126
Views: 36740

Re: Chicago Open thanks and discussions

Megalomaniacal Panda on Absinthe wrote:With regards to the "other" arts, I tried to hit on some otherwise neglected things: Krenek's Jonny Spielt Auf
Holy shit, awesome. Weimar Germany in general is probably a bit neglected in QB other than Brecht and Weill, so this is good to see.
by Sir Thopas
Thu Jun 17, 2010 8:52 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Hide Your Unauthorized Participation in Quizbowl Well!
Replies: 14
Views: 3632

Re: Hide Your Unauthorized Participation in Quizbowl Well!

Doug Yetman has some stories he can disgruntledly tell you.
by Sir Thopas
Sat Jun 12, 2010 11:00 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2010 HSAPQ NASAT Discussion!
Replies: 57
Views: 27130

Re: 2010 HSAPQ NASAT Discussion!

It seems like the years '10 and '12 are switched in numerous places.

EDIT: Oh wait, those are grade numbers with apostrophes next to them, not years of graduation. How confusing.
by Sir Thopas
Mon Jun 07, 2010 5:01 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: NAC schedule/discussion 2010
Replies: 68
Views: 13590

Re: NAC schedule/discussion 2010

ceejay wrote:Longfellow A won the Junior NAC at Marymount. One especially good question asked what the internet term that was the 12th letter of the alphabet followed by the number 8 followed by the 18th letter of the alphabet meant. I hope I can go to PACE next year as TJ D or something.
That's the spirit!