Re: CHAT: Vexillology and games (was: Re: Flag of England)

-----Original Message-----
From: Christophe Grandsire <Christophe.Grandsire@...>
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU <CONLANG@...>
Date: Monday, June 19, 2000 12:46 PM
Subject: CHAT: Vexillology and games (was: Re: Flag of England)


>At 17:32 17/06/00 CDT, you wrote:
>>
>>Oh yeah, and the other day, on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, one of the
>>questions was about the techinical term of the study of flags, which is
>>'vexillology'.  The contestant missed that question.
        At least, it was a hard question (provided by the insurance co.?,
who've been complaining about the amount of money given away).  As I recall,
this contestant was quite close to the million, and probably could have
answered one of their normal run of questions.
>
>
>Funny, we had the same question on another game in France one week ago. I
>was able to answer by elimination (because I already knew what the other
>two propositions meant), but the three candidates missed it.>
        Our version gives 4 alternatives; in this case two were easily
eliminated, the fourth was "post-card collecting", and there is a recently
coined latinate/greek word for that.

>And by the way, we in France are finally gonna get "Who Wants to Be a
>Millionaire".>
        You are so lucky.

 It's gonna be called "Qui Veut Gagner des Millions" (pretty
>stupid name I find) and the channel who got it makes a huge commercial
>campaign about it (with images of the program in its different national
>versions). I first want to see how it looks like and if it's not too
>difficult maybe I'll try to attend it .....The only
>difficulty is the first question to choose the candidate. I've never been
>any good at speed questions.>
        It would be interesting to see a European version, since the level
of general education is supposed to be a bit higher there.  It is dismaying
and depressing to witness the abysmal performance of some of the contestants
in the US. (One woman didn't know the $100 question about "Simple Simon met
a pie-man.....".
Sort of like not knowing where the bridge is in, "Sur le pont, sur le
pont....")
 Never mind the most elementary facts about world history, geography, art
etc. They _do_ know 1) TV shows of the last 30 years 2) pop music of the
same period 3) (men only) sports.  I confess, those categories would do me
in quickly.

Also, AGEIST and SEXIST.  Can't think of anyone clearly over, say, 55; and
where they find those women is beyond me.

Oh well, end of screed.  Have to go watch.........R.