English Language Quiz #3

[Qaqaq]

Welcome to the third English Language Quiz! This one is based on the just-released 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary -- a departure from previous quizzes, which used the 4th edition of the American Heritage Dictionary.

Your goal is to answer the 10 questions and match as few other contestants as possible. You will receive 1 point for a correct response plus 1 point for every other contestant who gives the same response. An incorrect response will receive 10 points; if there are correct answers that receive 10 points or more, incorrect answers will then receive 5 points more than the highest correct answer received. The lowest total score will win.

Specific rules, which hold for all questions unless they specifically say otherwise:

1. If you are asked for a “word”, your answer must be a single word; it cannot contain a space or any punctuation, and cannot be listed solely as an abbreviation or symbol (which are marked in the dictionary with “abbr” and "symbol" tags). Capitalized words are allowed.

2. If you are asked for an “entry”, you may supply a word or multi-word phrase, and it may contain punctuation, but it may not be listed solely as an “abbreviation”, "symbol", “prefix”, “suffix”, or “combining form”. Again, capitalized entries are allowed.

3. All answers must appear in boldface in the main body of the dictionary (see rule 5 for what that contains). Obvious plurals (such as TURTLES) and obvious verb forms (TALKED, TALKING) that do not appear in boldface are also allowed; otherwise, any inflected form (such as -LY adverbs or RE- verbs) must appear in boldface in the dictionary.

4. Two contestants’ answers will be considered identical if one is an undefined inflection (adverb, comparative form, etc.) of the other. If one is an inflection of the other but both are listed as separately defined boldface entries in the dictionary, they will be considered distinct for the purposes of this quiz.

5. In this dictionary, there are separate sections for “Foreign Words & Phrases”, “Biographical Names”, and “Geographical Names”. This quiz is based on the main body of the dictionary, and words solely found in those sections will not be allowed. Be aware, though, that there are some originally foreign phrases (such as “summa cum laude”) that are common enough to have made the main body.

Obviously, this quiz is closed-book. NO HELP OF ANY SORT IS ALLOWED.

Do not post answers in this thread. Send your answers to trippayne@bellsouth.net by 11:59 PM (GL time) on August 10, 2003. Please include your GL name.

If there is any confusion about the rules, please ask.

Previous winners: ELQ #1: Philana; ELQ #2: T McAy.


ENGLISH LANGUAGE QUIZ #3

1. Name a 3-letter word that begins with the letter W.

2. Name a 1-syllable word that rhymes with the word ZAP.

3. Name a prefix that includes the letter B. (Punctuation rule is waived.)

4. Name a 5-letter entry that consists of these 5 letters in any order: AEPRS.

5. Name an entry that contains exactly six letters and at least one apostrophe.

6. Name a 5-letter word that contains 2 K’s.

7. One page of the dictionary runs from MUCK to MUJAHIDEEN. Name any entry on that page that is unrelated to both of those words.

8. Name any entry whose etymology includes the word “Swedish”.

9. There are over 30 entries beginning with the letter H that include an illustration with the entry. Name any one of them.

10. Name any entry that has a definition that includes the word SEPTEMBER.

Tiebreaker: The main body of this dictionary runs from page 1 to page 1459. On what page would you find the word TIEBREAKER?

Good luck!



[This message has been edited by Qaqaq (edited 07-28-2003 04:38 PM).]

[One Skunk Todd]

sent

[jadesmar]

sent

[Quailman]

sent.

[Qaqaq]

By the way: contestants are welcome to change their entries as much as they like in subsequent e-mails, as long as they don't check any references in the meantime.

[dethwing]

Wow, that's hard. /sent

[Lepton]

I found most questions ridiculously easy. I've sent to ensure that no-one wins with the obvious answers.

[T McAy]

Sent.

[Qball]

/sent.

[Qaqaq]

Wow, it's only been up for 8 hours and there are already 11 entries, received from:

Duke Gnome, Jadesmar, Lepton, Mercury, One Skunk Todd, Philana, Qball, Quailman, Saxifrage, Tahnan, and T McAy.

Dethwing, I haven't received your submission. Did it bounce back?

[Hitchhiker]

Sent.

[Tahnan]

Sent. Also, checked a couple of my answers, and got killed on a word that turns out to appear in Webster's Unabridged but not, inexplicably, in the Collegiate. Damn it. So much for being clever.

[groza528]

does spelling count?
and /sent

[Qaqaq]

This is the fairest solution I can come up with, in terms of spelling:

If it's obvious what you meant, then I won't count a simple typo or misspelling against you (as long as the correctly spelled word still fits the question). If I can't tell what word was meant, or if your answer is a word in the dictionary but isn't what you intended to type, then I have to go with the answer as it's given.

[Dragon Phoenix]

sent

[RequiemEternam]

sent

[Jamezu]

SENT

[Skellum]

sent

[Duphrates]

Sent...

[Antrax]

Teehee, sent, and I'm not even a native speaker. I wonder how much I'll suck.
Antrax

------------------
Bah, I don't believe in anything

[Sami]

sent

[Qaqaq]

21 submissions now. Aside from the 11 posted earlier, I have received entries from:

Antrax, Chuck, Dragon Phoenix, Duphrates, Hitchhiker, Jamezu, RequiemEternam, Sami, Skellum, and Sweetwater.

Despite their "sent" messages, I have not received entries from Dethwing or Groza.

[Dragon Phoenix]

[One Skunk Todd]

Bah. If none of the rest of you lot had sent in an entry we all could have celebrated my glorious victory. Now you've gone and spoilt it.

[groza528]

It bounced the first time, but I sent it a second. Guess it didn't work right. I'll try again when I get on the other computer

[Taflinel]

€/100

Ta ta

[groza528]

sent again

[groza528]

Harumph. It bounced again. Is there any other way I could send this to you? Do you have AIM? I'll keep trying email too, maybe if I send it as an attachment...

[dethwing]

bah. It bounced again. DP is going to send for me.

[Qaqaq]

How strange. I have no idea why e-mails to this address would bounce.

Feel free to try qaqaq@puzzlers.org, which is an alias that forwards e-mails to the trippayne@bellsouth.net address.

[Dragon Phoenix]

Sent for Deth.

[Sparticus]

sniff sniff

Scent.

[UnheardVoice]

sent

[mikegoo]

sent

[MatthewV]

spent.

had to use a calculator for the tiebreaker....is that cheating?

[Beartalon]

s e n t

[Werebear]

I'm sure it's not on page 1122.
[edit]oh, and sent.[/edit]

[This message has been edited by Werebear (edited 07-30-2003 09:53 AM).]

[Qaqaq]

We're now up to 31 entries after only 2 days. Wonder what the record is?

Aside from those named in replies 9 and 21, I have submissions from:

Beartalon, Dethwing, Groza528, MatthewV, Mikegoo, Sparticus, Taflinel, UnheardVoice, Vinny, and Werebear.

[This message has been edited by Qaqaq (edited 07-30-2003 11:02 AM).]

[groza528]

Maybe you'd better move the deadline up.
I predict that the "5 points more" rule regarding wrong answers won't be quite as much of a penalty as it is intended to be.

[Qaqaq]

I'll stick with the two-weeks deadline for now. I have a lot coming up next week and won't be able to score them then anyway, so it's not like you'd be getting the results sooner if I moved the deadline forward.

As far as the scoring: well, we'll see. I haven't scoured the entries yet, but it's entirely possible there will be some correct answers that score more than 10, so at least I've made it so that wrong answers will be punished more than those. Of course, it's also possible that there will be questions where the highest correct score is 9, and a wrong answer would be worth 10 in that case -- hardly any punishment, comparatively. So it'll be interesting to see how it develops -- at any rate, in my opinion, it's better than a flat "10 points for incorrect answers". The moral: be correct and be unique.