Historature 2018: Specific Question Discussion

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Historature 2018: Specific Question Discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Discuss specific questions here. There are a few tossups that had misplaced clues (swans, buffalo, shields) and a few that were transparent (manuscript, stone) that I have already noted and will make changes to.
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Re: Specific Question Discussion

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Re: Specific Question Discussion

Post by RexSueciae »

I think I remember the question on Powhatan refer to them as a "tribe." To be fair, I don't know of many non-transparent ways to refer to them (a similar problem exists with questions on the Iroquois / Haudenosaunee) and it didn't affect my enjoyment of the question (it was good to see that answerline!), but I spent about a second waffling over whether I should take a stab at "Pamunkey" or "Mattaponi" since both of them are extant Powhatan tribes.

Actually, I only noted three questions with "???" notation. That one, the tossup on Dingane (I think I made a stupid language-fraud neg), and yams (don't even remember, pretty sure I was just wondering if all of the clues were West African yams or if a sweet potato or two snuck its way in).

There were so many specific questions that I was thrilled to hear, particularly the ones that clued Auden and the canon-busting topics that were also certifiably interesting. (A tossup on the Hurrian language? Man.)
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Re: Specific Question Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

Hmm, yeah, I had the same reaction when buzzing on the Powhatan tossup, as I was buzzing I suddenly thought "oh damn, is that the actual tribe of Powhatan?" I don't remember the pronoun used--maybe "this group" would be better.

I talked to Will about this privately--the urban renewal tossup has very good clues, is a cool idea, and has generous prompts, but some of the clues are very tricky to specifically pin down to the concept of "urban renewal." Note the tossup prompts on "public housing," which is obviously related but isn't urban renewal at all. I don't have the knowledge to determine, though, if all of the clues do specifically point to urban renewal, which nevertheless was great to see come up.
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Re: Specific Question Discussion

Post by ErikC »

Cheynem wrote:I talked to Will about this privately--the urban renewal tossup has very good clues, is a cool idea, and has generous prompts, but some of the clues are very tricky to specifically pin down to the concept of "urban renewal." Note the tossup prompts on "public housing," which is obviously related but isn't urban renewal at all. I don't have the knowledge to determine, though, if all of the clues do specifically point to urban renewal, which nevertheless was great to see come up.
Quite a few urban renewal programs created public housing as the end game of slum clearance, so you can view it as a sort of optional part of the process. I think the fact it was only converted by 50% of teams supports your point though.
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Re: Specific Question Discussion

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The footnotes/endnotes tossup mentioned Ibid: A Life in the first line. Regardless of the difficulty of the work, it's probably not advisable to drop the name of a very common footnote mark in the lead-in.
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Re: Specific Question Discussion

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Geriatric trauma wrote:The footnotes/endnotes tossup mentioned Ibid: A Life in the first line. Regardless of the difficulty of the work, it's probably not advisable to drop the name of a very common footnote mark in the lead-in.
LOL how did we miss this...definitely will remove that title
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Re: Specific Question Discussion

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Can I see the tossup on "ports?" I misinterpreted it the way I heard it as referring to Kingston and got really confused, and am not sure if that should be on me, the moderator, or the packet.
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Re: Specific Question Discussion

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Guile Island wrote:Can I see the tossup on "ports?" I misinterpreted it the way I heard it as referring to Kingston and got really confused, and am not sure if that should be on me, the moderator, or the packet.
Packet 1 Question 3:
In a city named for one of these places, an attempt by police to crack down on Carnival celebrations led to the Canboulay riots. The “franchises, liberties, customs, and usages” of several of these places were maintained by a Lord Warden created by Simon de Montfort. In a city named for one of these places, students staged a 1970 protest march to begin the Black Power Revolution, and the Red House was captured during a 1990 coup attempt by Jamaat al Muslimeen. Hastings, Hythe, Sandwich, New Romney, and a (*) fifth city formed a confederation named for the Norman term for five of these places. The Treaty of Nanking established five “treaty” examples of these places, including Canton. Felixstowe is the busiest example of these places in the U.K. though Bristol, Dover, and Liverpool still see some traffic. For 10 points, identify this type of location which names the capital of Jamaica.
ANSWER: ports [or seaports; accept Port of Spain or Cinque Ports]
<WA, British/Other History>
Ok im not entirely sure here, but Will may have meant to write Trinidad and Tobago instead of Jamaica in the last line and just mixed them up. Will, correct me if I'm wrong.
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Re: Specific Question Discussion

Post by vengefulsweatermensch »

Did the "gullah" tossup refer to Daughters of the Dust as a documentary? That'd be wrong - it's definitely a fictional film. I may have misheard the moderator, though...
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Re: Specific Question Discussion

Post by Off To See The Lizard »

vengefulsweatermensch wrote:Did the "gullah" tossup refer to Daughters of the Dust as a documentary? That'd be wrong - it's definitely a fictional film. I may have misheard the moderator, though...
Packet 2 Question 20:
Joseph Opala noted similarities between rice dishes prepared by people of this ethnicity and inhabitants of Bence Island an ocean away. A translation of the Bilali Diary was made during Lorenzo Turner’s extensive studies of this ethnic group, which involved visits to Hog Hammock. They are the subject of the documentary Daughters of the Dust. Robert Winslow Gordon recorded these people as the originators of the folk song “Kum Bah Yah.” A popular (*) Nickelodeon show in the 1980s followed a family of this ethnicity. This U.S. ethnic group’s language is almost identical to dialects spoken in the Bahamas and Sierra Leone. Michelle Obama and Clarence Thomas are among notable Americans to descent from, for 10 points, what group of African descent with a distinctive creole language that inhabit the Sea Islands near Georgia and South Carolina?
ANSWER: Gullah people [or Geechee people; accept Sea Island people or equivalents before “Sea Islands”; accept Gullah Gullah Island; prompt on black people or African-Americans]
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Looks like it did say documentary.
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Re: Specific Question Discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

It seems my comment in the other thread about decreasing quality of work is being reflected in the sloppy errors people pointed out. I'll make those corrections immediately.
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Re: Specific Question Discussion

Post by i never see pigeons in wheeling »

RexSueciae wrote:I think I remember the question on Powhatan refer to them as a "tribe." To be fair, I don't know of many non-transparent ways to refer to them (a similar problem exists with questions on the Iroquois / Haudenosaunee) and it didn't affect my enjoyment of the question (it was good to see that answerline!), but I spent about a second waffling over whether I should take a stab at "Pamunkey" or "Mattaponi" since both of them are extant Powhatan tribes.
Cheynem wrote:Hmm, yeah, I had the same reaction when buzzing on the Powhatan tossup, as I was buzzing I suddenly thought "oh damn, is that the actual tribe of Powhatan?" I don't remember the pronoun used--maybe "this group" would be better.
I did think about using "this group," but I ultimately decided on "people" for the first pronoun and "tribe" for the pronouns thereafter, primarily because there was precedent for using "tribe" to refer to the Iroquois Confederacy from last year's EMT, and also because I thought "group" might be a transparent indicator for a collection of tribes.
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Re: Specific Question Discussion

Post by RexSueciae »

i never see pigeons in wheeling wrote: there was precedent for using "tribe" to refer to the Iroquois Confederacy from last year's EMT
Heh. Oops.

Something I just remembered -- may I see the tossup on "Caliban"? I was very happy to hear it (and asking about Caliban from adaptations of The Tempest was a brilliant idea), but I think I remember it describing him as the last character to speak in The Sea and the Mirror by W. H. Auden. If so, that is not quite correct -- following his lengthy monologue is a Postscript ("Weep no more but pity me") which is described in the stage directions as "ARIEL to Caliban. Echo by the PROMPTER." So the last character to speak in that text would be Ariel, I guess.
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Re: Specific Question Discussion

Post by Off To See The Lizard »

RexSueciae wrote: Something I just remembered -- may I see the tossup on "Caliban"? I was very happy to hear it (and asking about Caliban from adaptations of The Tempest was a brilliant idea), but I think I remember it describing him as the last character to speak in The Sea and the Mirror by W. H. Auden. If so, that is not quite correct -- following his lengthy monologue is a Postscript ("Weep no more but pity me") which is described in the stage directions as "ARIEL to Caliban. Echo by the PROMPTER." So the last character to speak in that text would be Ariel, I guess.
Packet 1 Question 9:
In a poem, this character’s monologue anticipates an audience’s possible criticism of him before describing the “conjurer’s profession” of writing. This character compares God to a freshwater fish attempting to escape to salt water; he also argues there is no afterlife because God “doth His worst in this our life.” An essay about this character, who speaks last in Auden’s “The Sea and the Mirror,” compares “lettered” and “unlettered” cultures; that essay by Stephen Greenblatt is (*) “Learning to Curse.” This character, who eats food that he calls “scamels,” demands to be called X in a post-colonialist play by Aime Cesaire. In the play he first appears in, this character enters the service of Stephano and Trinculo, and is the son of a sorceress who worships Setebos. For 10 points, name this son of Sycorax and slave of Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
ANSWER: Caliban
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