SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

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Volante
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by Volante »

AcadamiaNut wrote:"10. Occupation most likely to produce a bing or a himbasha, and given the category, an unsurprising second use of this correct response."

Anyone else get confused by the wording? I thought the "use" was referring to a second usage or purpose for whatever the correct answer to question 10 was, not the re-use of an answer from a previous question. Didn't help that I'm not familiar with Dr. Who, but the wording here was difficult to parse (at least for me).
A little, but it makes sense in retrospect. With limited exception, responses in Jeopardy are a one-use-per-game.

Would you have gotten the response right without the second half of the clue?
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A month by any other name

Post by OldSchoolChamp »

Rex Kramer wrote:[W]hat do I know from Jewish calendars?
OK, gang, here’s your RDA of cultural enrichment about the vagaries and peculiarities of the Jewish calendar.
gnash wrote:I know the names of all Hebrew months (although I don't know them all in order).
The names of the months are, in order:
  • Nisan (??????)
    Iyar (??????)
    Sivan (??????)
    Tammuz (????????)
    Av (???)
    Elul (??????)
    Tishri (????????)
    Cheshvan (????????)
    Kislev (????????)
    Tevet (?????)
    Sh’vat (??????)
    Adar (?????)
(These are, of course, transliterated from another alphabet, so Your Spelling May Vary. Note, in particular, that the ch in Cheshvan is pronounced as a guttural, as in German ach, not an affricate as in English church.) As I write, the current Jewish date is 3 Elul 5771.

As everyone knows, the calendar is a lunar one, each month beginning and ending at the new moon. As the length of the synodic month (the cycle of the moon’s visible phases) is approximately 29.5 days, the months alternate between 30 days (the odd months Nisan, Sivan, etc.) and 29 days (even months Iyar, Tammuz, etc.). (The strict alternating pattern is occasionally further tweaked to prevent certain holidays from falling on the day immediately before or after the Sabbath, which would require two consecutive days of abstention from labor, but these minutiae need not concern us here.) Many of the major festivals (Passover, Sukkot, Purim) fall on the 14th day of their respective months (Nisan, Tishri, and Adar, respectively), which is, of course, the night of the full moon.

Notice, however, that twelve lunations of 29.5 days (or six months of 30 days and six of 29) comes to only 354 days, or about 11 days short of a solar year. Without further adjustment, the calendar would drift 11 days earlier each year relative to the solar seasons (as indeed does the Islamic calendar, which includes no lunisolar adjustment). So whenever the accumulated solar deficit amounts to more than a full month, causing the new moon at the end of Adar to precede the vernal equinox, an extra, thirteenth month is added, called Adar Sheni or “Second Adar,” to catch up and keep the holidays properly synchronized with the solar seasons. In ancient times this would have been determined by direct observation of the heavens, but nowadays it is governed by a regular cycle of seven such “leap years” in every 19-year interval (in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 19th years of the cycle). This is why the Jewish holidays jump around, sometimes falling earlier and sometimes later by the Gregorian civil calendar. (The current year, 5771, happens to be such a leap year, with the High Holy Days falling relatively late: Rosh Hashanah on September 29 and 30 and Yom Kippur on October 8.)

In the Hebrew bible, the months are generally not referred to by name but simply by ordinal number: “the first month,” “the second month,” and so on. The date of Passover, for instance, is specified in Leviticus 23:5 simply as “the fourteenth day of the first month.” A few times, however (Exodus 13:4, 23:15, 34:18; Deuteronomy 16:1), it is referred to as “the month of Aviv.” While this was indeed used in former times as the actual name of the month, it’s not clear whether it is intended as such in the biblical text. According to my Langenscheidt’s Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew, the straightforward, root meaning of the word aviv is “ears of barley”; the term “month of Aviv” may simply have meant “the month of barley ears,” or the month in which the ears of grain appear on the barley plant.

You may be wondering at this point why, if Nisan, which falls in the spring around the vernal equinox, is considered the first month, Jews celebrate the New Year and change the year number in the seventh month, Tishri, which comes in the fall. You are not alone; I don’t know of any really good explanation for this. One theory I have seen is that the two Biblical kingdoms, Israel and Judah, used different calendars and the current system attempts to honor both. I don’t know if this is true; it’s just another of those quaint traditional mysteries that we accept on faith.

Just to clear up another possible point of confusion, the reason you may sometimes see the name spelled as Abib instead of Aviv is that some letters of the Hebrew alphabet (bet, kaf, and pei in modern Hebrew; formerly also gimel, dalet, and tav) vary their pronunciation according to the phonetic context. These letters are pronounced hard (“b,” “k,” “p”) when standing at the beginning of a word or phrase or when preceded by a consonant sound, but soft (“v,” guttural “kh,” “f”) when preceded by a vowel. The difference is marked in written Hebrew by a diacritical mark called a dagesh, a dot in the middle of the letter to indicate the hard pronunciation; you can see a few examples in the Hebrew spellings of the months shown above, for instance in the initial letter tav in Tammuz and Tishri and the initial kaf in Kislev. (Remember, of course, that the words read from right to left, so the initial letter is the one in the rightmost position.) Thus the word Aviv is spelled aleph-bet-yod-bet and sometimes transliterated as such (Abib), but actually spoken with the soft pronunciation, Aviv. The Ashkenazic (Eastern European) dialect of Hebrew used by the ancestors of most American Jews still preserved the hard/soft distinction for the letter tav, pronouncing it with an “s” instead of a “t” sound when preceded by a vowel, which is why many of us grew up pronouncing the holidays Shabbes, Sukkos, and Shavuos rather than Shabbat, Sukkot, and Shavuot as in modern Israeli Hebrew. In ancient times the letter tav was pronounced in soft form as “th,” accounting for the spelling of the word Sabbath (and sometimes also Sukkoth and Shavuoth).

Finally, as to this:
Paucle wrote:Growing up Christian, I recognized Easter as being a holiday that could fall during one of two months; hoping Passover had the same possibility, I went with the month that I knew fit the city part of the question.
This is because the date of Easter is tied to that of Passover, as is clear from passages such as Matthew 26:2, Mark 14:1, Luke 22:1, and John 13:1. Easter is fixed as the Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox, which falls on the 14th of Nisan, the first night of Passover. It therefore varies from year to year in the same way the Jewish holidays do, falling sometimes in March and sometimes in April. But by the Jewish calendar, Passover always falls in Nisan (or Aviv, if you prefer); it’s only by the Gregorian calendar that it sometimes changes months.

I trust all this has confused you all even further.


—OldShulChamp
 
Last edited by OldSchoolChamp on Wed Sep 07, 2011 2:25 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by bengland »

AcadamiaNut wrote:"10. Occupation most likely to produce a bing or a himbasha, and given the category, an unsurprising second use of this correct response."

Anyone else get confused by the wording? I thought the "use" was referring to a second usage or purpose for whatever the correct answer to question 10 was, not the re-use of an answer from a previous question. Didn't help that I'm not familiar with Dr. Who, but the wording here was difficult to parse (at least for me).
I didn't understand the second part of the clue. If I had, I might have come up with Baker for a perfecto. Rats.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by Paucle »

Thanks OSC for that detailed explanation, most adequately filling in where xword clues left me lacking! Gonna save that and read it a few times!

I understood why Easter can vary so much in the Gregorian calander. Even though Catholic, we still celebrated a seder every Holy Thursday. I know why that night is different from all other nights.

Based upon your information, do I infer correctly that the Christian holiday of Easter will always fall in Nisan (the Sunday after Passover)?
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Re: A month by any other name

Post by Asphodel »

OldSchoolChamp wrote: OK, gang, here’s your RDA of cultural enrichment about the vagaries and peculiarities of the Jewish calendar.
 
Learning is fun!!! Seriously, thanks for this. Especially the parts about pronunciation.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by Woof »

Excellent discussion, OSC. One quibble: the Jewish calendar is properly a lunisolar calendar as it attempts to reconcile the periodicity of a lunar calendar with the length of the solar year. To add a bit more trivia to this discussion, the Julian calendar of the Romans evolved from an earlier solar calendar used by the Romans that had 10 months of alternating 30 and 31 days (for a total of 304 days) with a 61-day winter period (The Golden Bough contains interesting speculation about what significance that period may have had in the ancient world). As it was known even then (i.e. 7-8th C BCE) that the solar year was 365.25 days, successive refinements of that original calendar get us to the present-day Gregorian calendar.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by DadofTwins »

This is why I write trivia games for people who are smarter than me.

12-point RQ in "Hebrew Words & Phrases" coming with R5D4 post later this afternoon.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by Woof »

DadofTwins wrote:This is why I write trivia games for people who are smarter than me.

12-point RQ in "Hebrew Words & Phrases" coming with R5D4 post later this afternoon.
Don't be too hard on yourself, DoT. As someone who writes tests for a living, I can tell you that to produce one devoid of errors or ambiguity requires more effort and diligence than any sane individual is willing to devote to the task. Couple that with the far-ranging subject matter that you routinely delve into and I stand in awe of the low error rate in the SHC. As has been said often, well done!
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by AcadamiaNut »

Volante wrote:
AcadamiaNut wrote:"10. Occupation most likely to produce a bing or a himbasha, and given the category, an unsurprising second use of this correct response."

Anyone else get confused by the wording? I thought the "use" was referring to a second usage or purpose for whatever the correct answer to question 10 was, not the re-use of an answer from a previous question. Didn't help that I'm not familiar with Dr. Who, but the wording here was difficult to parse (at least for me).
A little, but it makes sense in retrospect. With limited exception, responses in Jeopardy are a one-use-per-game.

Would you have gotten the response right without the second half of the clue?
Can't say exactly, as I wasn't familiar with bing and himbasha, but if I had understood that Q10 was looking for a re-use of one of the earlier answers--and given that McCoy and Tenant aren't occupations--I definitely would have taken my chances on a 50-50 between Baker and Smith.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by Volante »

Those nicknames...ouch. Just...ouch.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by mennoknight »

Had I not been reading about presidential nicknames earlier this week I would've gotten slaughtered on the 2nd half, but today felt like a nice piece of pie.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by econgator »

Woof wrote:To me, Tom Baker will always be the Doctor, no matter how many actors follow him. Then again, I also consider Sean Connery to be the one true James Bond, so take my opinions for what they're worth.
Same here (on both counts), but Mssrs. Eccelston, Tennant, and Smith have all done phenomenal work in the new series.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by Vanya »

Anyone else think the nicknames were in reverse order of difficulty?

Oh, and OSC, you win the prize for ugliest avatar.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by Asphodel »

Volante wrote:Those nicknames...ouch. Just...ouch.
The good news: I learned the list of Presidents in order for my appearance on the show, about a year and a half ago, and I was still able to produce that list (with only a couple of mix-ups).
The bad news: It didn't help me at all.

The good news: I got (what I think is) a perfecto on the Youtube category.
The bad news: I got a perfecto on the Youtube category.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by MarkBarrett »

Yes, the Presidents went through the SHC Valuator. It's part of the fun each summer. I had never seen the Charlie video previously til not knowing it here. The view count is now 370,000,000 and change plus one.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by econgator »

Vanya wrote:Anyone else think the nicknames were in reverse order of difficulty?
Pretty much, yeah. Being a Civil War buff, Grant = Galena is a gimme and van Buren was also easy (Old Kinderhook is O.K.). Willie and Ohio made me pick between McKinley and Taft (still not sure if I picked wrong or not) and I've never heard of either of the 6-point nicknames. The 3-pointer was easy, as I remember Hayes being called Rutherfraud B. Hayes, so I assumed that was correct.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by Woof »

Yeah, the point values of the Presidential nicknames was puzzling. Kinderhook = Van Buren and Galena = Grant was easy. Old 8 to 7 gave me much pause, Young Hickory was fairly easy to lead to Polk, given his close association with Jackson and his association with Tennessee, but the 9 pointer was a total WAG: Harrison vs. McKinley vs. Taft. Oh, well, now to see how badly I guessed...
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by Turd Ferguson »

Wow, three straight shutouts in DJ for me. Ouch. The only Prez nickname I'd even heard was Kinderhook, but I couldn't place it. Oh well, at least the 10 point Island clue was easy for a Canadian.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by Vanya »

Also, American Caesar is more associated with Gen. MacArthur, I think.
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Re: SHC Round 5 Instant Replay Thread {SPOILERS}

Post by StevenH »

I am also puzzled by the ordering of the clue values in the Presidents' nicknames category.I only knew Van Buren. I guessed Taft for the 9-pointer because the wobbly thing made me think of the President who was most famous for being overweight. I considered William H. Harrison and never thought of McKinley, but I still would have gone with Taft. The Caesar thing made me think of Grant for the 15-pointer but I was not confident enough. I also considered Reagan for the 15-pointer. I should have known Hayes. No chance at Polk.

Wouldn't either the Missouri or the Mississippi be the second longest river in North America? I am wondering if DoT's source considered the Mississippi and Missouri one river.
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