Tuesday, September 29, 2020 Game Recap and Discussion (SPOILERS)

[Robert K S]

I think Alex was downright wrong to say that he was nowhere near. The source for most people of that name is the song Hiawatha.

Yeah. The relevant passage of Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha is:

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.

When I was in sophomore English lit we read an excerpt that included this passage, but I had no idea until today that the excerpt was only an excerpt or what a long work the poem actually is. The whole thing can be read here: https://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=62

Even though I'd heard of Gitche Gumee and could tell you it was synonymous with "Big-Sea-Water", I'm not sure I ever made the association with Lake Superior until this FJ! clue. So there was little hope of me puzzling through the wording to figure out first, that Superior was the only Great Lake not called by a Native American name and, second, that the Big-Sea-Water of the poem referred to this same lake.

The fact that only one Great Lake is not named for a Native American word is an interesting piece of trivia that has somehow eluded this Great-Lake-shore dweller for 40 years.

[ParrotRob]

The contents of eggs benedict were unfamiliar to me. Yet more hyper-fancy food I don't see why I should know.

English muffin? Why can't they enjoy regular muffins like the rest of us?

I'm not sure I'd call something you can get at almost any roadside diner in America (and almost in sandwich form at McDonald's) "hyper-fancy".

[ParrotRob]

This Native American name for the 1 Great Lake not known to us today by a Native American word or a tribe’s name appears in an 1855 poem

It's not a miracle of clarity, but it does have the advantage of stating up front what they're after.

Why not just name Lake Superior? Yes, it would have made the response easier, but no more so than, say, the American Authors clue from last week. Would have kept people from being tripped up by verbiage, and focused on what it was testing - knowledge of that poem (or Gordon Lightfoot...)
And who is this us that they were addressing? Just leave that out.

Maybe they were specifically going FOR your ability to "decipher the verbiage", making it essentially a two part question:
1) What Great Lake is NOT commonly known today by a Native American name, and
2) What *is* the the Native American name FOR that lake?

"This Native American name for Lake Superior..." would have been way too easy for a FJ?

[ParrotRob]

but hash isn't a synonym for food in general. Is there some other meaning I'm not getting?

Sure it is - especially cheap, diner-quality food. Haven't you ever heard of short-order cooking referred to as "slinging hash"?

[LucarioSnooperVixey]

59 R
DD: 3/3
FJ:
LT: Pavlova, Alternative, (Pearl), Bob Dylan, *Fainting*, Lucrezia Borgia

[davey]

This Native American name for the 1 Great Lake not known to us today by a Native American word or a tribe’s name appears in an 1855 poem

It's not a miracle of clarity, but it does have the advantage of stating up front what they're after.

Why not just name Lake Superior? Yes, it would have made the response easier, but no more so than, say, the American Authors clue from last week. Would have kept people from being tripped up by verbiage, and focused on what it was testing - knowledge of that poem (or Gordon Lightfoot...)
And who is this us that they were addressing? Just leave that out.

Maybe they were specifically going FOR your ability to "decipher the verbiage", making it essentially a two part question:
1) What Great Lake is NOT commonly known today by a Native American name, and
2) What *is* the the Native American name FOR that lake?

"This Native American name for Lake Superior..." would have been way too easy for a FJ?

Yes, it's clear that was the thinking because Alex said. "...there are 5 Great Lakes, we thought that would make it easy for you..." as the responses were being revealed. The deciphering didn't work for the players onstage, we'll see this weekend how it worked for our group.

[talkingaway]

Thinking it over, this is one case where the J! answer-and-question format actually hampers a good clue/question. A normal long-form trivia question could easily phrase it like this:

Of the common English names of the five Great Lakes, one of them does not have a name derived from Native American word or tribe name. However, a 1855 poem does use a Native American word to refer to this lake. What is that Native American word for this Great Lake?

Admittedly, it's a bit verbose - way too big to fit on a monitor. But in FJ!, clue length shouldn't be an issue - Alex can spend an extra 5-10 seconds reading the clue, and it doesn't eat into the timing like it would for J! or DJ! where there's "less than a minute to go", so clues have to be snappy.

You could make it even more clear by mentioning Superior in the clue - I hope every J! contestant could name all 5 Great Lakes from memory (did anyone not learn HOMES?), and "Superior" screams Latin. Even if you weren't sure of Latin, I can't imagine not putting it into the Latin-or-Greek-and-definitely-not-NA bucket. If you mention Superior in the clue, I don't think you really give away anything about the clue, and you eliminate a wrong answer that's wrong simply because of misinterpretation.

As it often does, the FJ! can be distilled to "Give the name of a Native American lake in a famous 1855 poem - oh, and the poem may have the name of a Native American in it, too." I'm deficient in Longfellow and Emerson - two of my big literary blind spots, despite living in their backyard.

[da Doctah]

Am I the only one who watches for clues where the correct response actually *is* a question, just to see if the contestant will omit the formulaic "what is" prefix? Another missed opportunity in round one with "Who's the Boss?"

[floridagator]

A Houston Area Police Chase took out everything From the Start of Double forward for me.

Were they celebrating the Astros victory over the Minnesota team?

[davey]

Am I the only one who watches for clues where the correct response actually *is* a question, just to see if the contestant will omit the formulaic "what is" prefix? Another missed opportunity in round one with "Who's the Boss?"

Something I always expect (and am usually disappointed).

[cthulhu]

Spent a few seconds making sure I had the clue parsed correctly, then got it from both Longfellow and Lightfoot simultaneously. I’m presumptuously assuming a spelling of Gitcheegoomie would be acceptable.

[twelvefootboy]

The fact that only one Great Lake is not named for a Native American word is an interesting piece of trivia that has somehow eluded this Great-Lake-shore dweller for 40 years.

+1, except for being 300 miles from the nearest Great Lake. This little nugget is pretty cool. I would have guessed Huron was a tribe, but probably not Erie. And Michigan and Ontario = states and provinces. Good job, writers.

I got the answer from the only line I know : From the shores of Gitchee Goomee to the blank blank blank. ((Then repeat blank, blank blank, blank.... forever).
I completely forgot about the Lightfoot song, but it probably helped me retain my vast poetry knowledge over the decades.

[morbeedo]

Strange FJ. Had to read it twice but then realized they wanted the name of the lake from The Song of Hiawatha. I was afraid I was misremembering- but settled on Gitchee Gumee. Then Alex made a comment about this one being easy because there are only 5 Great Lakes and I thought - what the? And then on the Hiawatha reveal, telling the guy he wasn’t even close. And the reveal: Gitchee Gumee! Alex a bit off his game today

[Linear Gnome]

I think Alex was downright wrong to say that he was nowhere near. The source for most people of that name is the song Hiawatha.

Yeah. The relevant passage of Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha is:

I agree that Alex's comment was way off base. I knew the response first from the Gordon Lightfoot song (born in 1961) but the opening lines from Hiawatha are vaguely familiar.

[davey]

I think Alex was downright wrong to say that he was nowhere near. The source for most people of that name is the song Hiawatha.

Yeah. The relevant passage of Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha is:

I agree that Alex's comment was way off base. I knew the response first from the Gordon Lightfoot song (born in 1961) but the opening lines from Hiawatha are vaguely familiar.

I imagine his thinking was that Hiawatha is a person, not a lake, in the poem. He was touting the ease of the clue moments before, after all. Hiawatha Lake, WI, is 173 miles from Lake Superior, btw. Close enough? Better than Lake Hiawatha, NJ!

[Lefty]

Strange FJ. Had to read it twice but then realized they wanted the name of the lake from The Song of Hiawatha. I was afraid I was misremembering- but settled on Gitchee Gumee. Then Alex made a comment about this one being easy because there are only 5 Great Lakes and I thought - what the? And then on the Hiawatha reveal, telling the guy he wasn’t even close. And the reveal: Gitchee Gumee! Alex a bit off his game today

I wonder what Alex would have considered close. Mickey Rooney? Billy Mumy?

[floridagator]

I imagine his thinking was that Hiawatha is a person, not a lake, in the poem. He was touting the ease of the clue moments before, after all. Hiawatha Lake, WI, is 173 miles from Lake Superior, btw. Close enough? Better than Lake Hiawatha, NJ!

There's also Lake Hiawatha in Minneapolis which is strung together with Lake Nokomis by Minnehaha Creek, which discharges over Minnehaha Falls and then into the Mississippi River. This Atlas is really swell.

[Peter the accountant]

"On the shores of Gitche Gumee,"
But no more words I knew,
Still, the old guy Peter
Managed to solve the clue.

[Peter the accountant]

PS - My precall for FJ was that whatever it was we were going to look for around the great lakes, it wasn't the Erie Canal. Not with the Panama canal on the DJ board - with it's negbait Suez canal lurking in the background for those who aren't attentive to dates. No canals.

[opusthepenguin]

Am I the only one who watches for clues where the correct response actually *is* a question, just to see if the contestant will omit the formulaic "what is" prefix? Another missed opportunity in round one with "Who's the Boss?"

Something I always expect (and am usually disappointed).

Yeah, it's fun when that happens. But in case I get on the show and the opportunity presents itself, I'll let you know now that you'll be disappointed. There's too much opportunity for error.

OPUS: I'll take POETESSES for $400

ALEX: The title to Maya Angelou's autobiography asserts that she knows this

OPUS: Why the caged bird sings?

(later)

OPUS: YOUNG ADULT LIT for $1600

ALEX: It's the most famous novel by Wilson Rawls

OPUS: Where the Red Fern Grows?

(later)

OPUS: Let's have MEL GIBSON FLICKS for $2000

ALEX: Mel's 2000 movie with Helen Hunt about a chauvinistic executive

OPUS: What Women Want? ... no?

(later)

OPUS: UN AGENCIES for $1200, please

ALEX: Headquartered in Geneva Switzerland, this agency maintains the International Classification of Diseases

OPUS: WHO? ... WHO, Alex? WHO?

ALEX: Would you please stop doing that? You've lost $5200 by not phrasing your responses correctly.

OPUS: I was trying to impress Davey.