A Walk in the WoRds : August 2011

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Reversing Idioms

Love this t-shirt that my son brought home from camp this summer. It is a wonderful example of having fun with words, idioms and graphics. Unfortunately, the graphics illustrate the opposite of the idiom.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

From Noun to Verb and Back Again

From David Soames Advertising

napkin
n. a small piece of table linen that is used to wipe the mouth and to cover the lap in order to protect clothing.
v. to wipe the mouth with a small piece of table linen.
napkining n. (gerund)

Additional linguistic observations
Ad 2 (lower left): Playing with ambiguity - triangle as shape or musical instrument.
Ad 3 (lower right): Potential portmanteau - equal + equilateral.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Jeopardy Glossary

I just discovered that my favorite Jeopardy Archive site has a glossary in its Help section that includes almost 50 words. Here are some of my favorites -

Coryat score

n. a player's score if all wagering is disregarded. In the Coryat score, there is no penalty for forced incorrect responses on Daily Doubles, but correct responses on Daily Doubles earn only the natural values of the clues, and any gain or loss from the Final Jeopardy! Round is ignored.

pronunciation KOR-ee-at SCORE

etymology Named for Season 12 2-game champion Karl Coryat, who conceived of a scorekeeping method that would allow Jeopardy! hopefuls playing along at home to gauge their scores against the contestants playing on the show.F

Falk's Law

n. a pessimistic adage (in a similar vein to Murphy's Law) stating that the likelihood of supplying the correct response to a Daily Double or to the Final Jeopardy! clue is inversely proportional to the percentage of money wagered on such a clue.

etymology Originated by Season 22 4-game champion and 2006 Tournament of Champions winner Michael Falk.

Forrest Bounce

1. n. a clue-selection strategy, employed during the Jeopardy! Round or the Double Jeopardy! Round, in which the next clue is selected from a randomly-chosen category different from the category of the last clue, potentially giving an advantage to the player with control of the board by confusing his or her opponents.

2. v. to switch categories by such a strategy.

etymology Named for 1986 Tournament of Champions winner and Million Dollar Masters semifinalist Chuck Forrest, who employed the technique to win $72,800 (in pre-doubled clue value dollars) over five games in Season 2. According to Michael Dupée's book How To Get on Jeopardy! and Win!, Forrest called the strategy the "Rubin bounce" for his classmate at the University of Michigan Law School, who suggested it.

ZergCam

n. during the reveal of the Final Jeopardy! Round responses and wagers, a camera shot trained on a player with a trailing score going into the round to capture that player's reaction to a surprise win.

etymology Coined by Jordan Honan after its use to show Robert Slaven's reaction to his come-from-behind win in his Ultimate Tournament of Champions Round 2 game against Eugene Finerman and Michael Dupée, after Nancy Zerg, whose reaction to her come-from-behind win against Ken Jennings #4657, aired (2004-11-30) was the first to be captured by a camera shot trained on her immediately following the reveal of Ken's wager in his losing game. In an epilogue to a rerun of this game aired on 2009-09-10, Alex Trebek acknowledged the fan use of the term.

I especially love the etymologies. Be sure to check out the other Jeopardy terms at the Jeopardy Archive site.