Quick Question

[Ondes Martenot]

So let's there's a tossup on George III, which ends "name this British ruler, the third king of his name". The team buzzes in and says King George. Is this promptable, correct or incorrect since the question already mentioned third king of his name?

[Nine-Tenths Ideas]

I'd prompt, because, unless the team is composed of idiots, they should know how to tack on a "III" upon be prompted.

[Captain Sinico]

In this particular case, you should prompt because it's true only by happenstance that "George III" is "the third king of England named George." It's not necessarily true that the "nth king named A" reigned as "A the nth;" even in the relatively tame English succession, one could argue, for example, that the titular Henry III was the fourth Henry of England. So the clue doesn't necessarily unambiguously reveal that part of the answer.
In the slightly more restricted case in which part of the answer is made entirely, unambiguously obvious, probably by a clue just unambiguously saying part of the answer (so just change the question to say he "reigned as the third of his name" or whatever,) I'm honestly not sure what to do. The standard practice is to prompt, but I find that unsatisfying. My cop-out answer is that people shouldn't write clues that do that for a variety of reasons. Since that's probably not going to happen, I think you're justified in either accepting the answer or prompting.

M

[Duncan Idaho]

Personally, I would accept "George." It's already been clarified that the king is "blank the Third," so "George" is presumed to be "George III." On the other hand, I think that kind of giveaway shouldn't be used; it might raise conversion, but it's not really rewarding knowledge, and it makes a wild guess more likely to be the correct answer.

[Joe Romersa]

Something like this happened at HSNCT to a team we were playing. Are we allowed to post specific answers?

[Important Bird Area]

Sure, although probably best to keep them in the HSNCT discussion thread (for those playing the UTC mirror).

[Joe Romersa]

This belongs more in this thread, so *spoiler alert* for people playing in the UTC mirror




There was a tossup on the "triangle inequality" that said something along the lines of "FTP name this inequality that states that...", the other team buzzed and said "triangle" and got prompted, and eventually got incorrect. The moderator said that "triangle inequality" was all underlined, even thought the word "inequality" was in the FTP, and the mod had already read that word. Was "inequality" really necessary in this case?

[Important Bird Area]

No.

If an underlined section includes a generic word (e.g., "war" in Korean War) and that generic word appears in the question itself, then a player need not repeat that word if he or she is answering after it has been read. For instance, if the above question ended, "For 10 points--name this 1950-1953 war," a player would need to say Korean War prior to the final word, but could just say Korean after the question was completed.

I hope that didn't change the outcome of the game; in any case, it should certainly have been protestable.

(There's something to add to the agenda for the 2011 staff meeting.)