Thanks for all the kudos and congrats on yesterday’s six pack. With today’s questions, alas, I have reverted back to form — my 2/6 could have been a solid 4/6 if I hadn’t tossed aside not one but TWO correct answers.
1. What is the past participle of the intransitive verb lie, when used as a synonym for ‘rest’ or ‘recline’?
I used to think I was pretty good at grammar. That was before I started writing books. My first manuscript came back from the copyeditor with red ink on every single page. At first I was ashamed — did I once think I knew how to write? But then I realized that the author and the copyeditor are doing two different jobs. The author gets the words down with a certain degree of clarity. The copyeditor is a highly trained specialist who takes those fairly clear words and makes them even clearer.
It’s like looking through a window that you believe is clean, but then some amazing person comes along who really knows how to clean a window, and after she is done, it’s like, holy cow, I had no idea that window was so filthy.
The best part of this: The existence of the copyeditor means that I, the author, don’t need to know what a past participle is. This is a wonderful thing. Except when a question comes up about it on Learned League.
I wrote “laid,” looked at it and thought, nah. Switched it to “lain.” But that… that didn’t even look like a word. Lain? No. I switched it back to “laid” and called it good. Correct answer: Lain. For my next trick, I will take this grammar handbook and smack myself over the head with it.
2. This photograph appeared on the cover of a 1993 alternative rock album by what band?
Hopeless. Maybe if I had thought of that Simpsons episode that takes place at the alt-rock-fest Lollapallooza, I would have come up with the Smashing Pumpkins.
I only know one song by this group, and only that because of its video, which remains glorious:
3. The U.S. government-sponsored financial services corporation officially named the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation is also known by its initials, but is best known by what term?
Hell if I know. The Fmmhllmc? Oh, wait — when I said that out loud that just now, the final syllable sounded like mac. Ha! This is Freddie Mac!
That was a satisfying way to get the answer.
4. A result of buoyancy and surface tension, the clumping phenomenon in fluid mechanics where small floating objects have a tendency to attract one another is known as the ________ Effect, after a popular breakfast brand (fill in the blank).
I don’t even know how I knew this. I think it’s one part “heard it somewhere at some point” to two parts “Cheerios is what I think of as America’s Default Breakfast Cereal.”
5. The Yalu River (as it is called on the north side) or Amrok (as it is called on the south side) forms much of the border between what two nations?
Well, I won’t be answering two geography questions in a row. I didn’t really consider the clue hidden in the fact that the two countries call the river two different things. Even if I had considered it, though, I’m not sure I would have arrived at the border of China and North Korea.
6. Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, the official Maitresse-en-titre of French King Louis XV, lent her name — or more precisely, her title — to what hairstyle?
Phooey: As with “lain,” above, I thought of the correct answer here but simply didn’t go with it: I dismissed pompadour, despite the fact that the word screams “I am clearly of French origin!” I couldn’t tie the word to either this woman’s name nor her title, and furthermore a pompadour is more closely associated, these days, with men. I tossed the word aside and went with the truly lame “French braid.”
1. Went between “lain” and “laid” for a little while- my grammar is quite rusty. Guessed right in the end.
2. Immediately put down Everclear. Went back later, looked again, decided it was wrong, and put down Smashing Pumpkins. I even remembered the title somehow.
3. I got the MC = Mac thing you did, Eric.
4. Guessed Shredded Wheat. I guess that isn’t really a brand name anyway.
5. I knew China, then had to think of the other country. Despite thinking it was on the east of China, I ended up with India, since Amrok seemed to be believable Indian.
6. Guessed bouffant. I’ve heard of Madame de Pompadour, which I remembered once I saw the answer.
Won 4(3)-3(2).
I am just to easy to defend against. That, and I am either a poor defender, or my opponents are getting odd combinations of questions correct, or both. My second almost-Buckner in as many days. Two questions up, but managed only a tie.
1 — What’s that now? Sure, I could fill in the blank and get the right version of “lie,” but you want me not only to know the past participle form, but also know that it’s called the past participle? First instinct was LAIN (hooray) … went through various other possibilities, but stuck with it both because it was my first instinct and because I thought the question wouldn’t make much sense if it was asking for anything else. Well, not quite true — might have been interesting had they asked for the simple past tense (LAY), especially had they called it the “preterite.” It took some will power not to go making the questions harder than it needd to be, but putting some weird spin on what the “past participle” meant, but I stuck to my guns, and to LAIN, and all was well. (I confess I did consider how I was going to spin things if I had got … er, had gotten … this wrong, and decided I would quote 1776′s: “I cannot write with any style or proper etiquette / I don’t know a participle from a predicate” — but since I managed a correct answer, there’s no need for the quote, so … oops, too late.)
2 — Ergh. Dunno. Thought about Blind Melon, since they had the Bee Girl, but neither of these girls were bees. Went through a short list, which included Smashing Pumpkins but never seriously enough, and finally landed on Cake. (Was dating a woman in 1993 who really liked the then-new band Cake, so why not?)
3 — Freddie Mac. Next. (My opp lives in Toronto, so I thought it was worth giving this a 2 instead of a 1. Yeah, that was a mistake.)
4 — I’d heard of the Cheerios Effect, so this was simple enough. Why’d they have to be so completely clueful about it, though? (“Breakfast brand”?? Just give it away, why don’t you. So I gave this the 0, and of course my opp got it wrong.)
5 — Said China and Mongolia. I thought the border was a bit long for that, but in my mind it looked so following-a-river-y. Half-right on a two-part geography question was about as good as it was going to get. (My opp and I both gave this a 3, and we both missed it.)
6 — In the back (way back) of my mind, I knew that “pompadour” came from Madame de Pompadour (whoever *that* is), so when the clue indicated she lent her *title* to the hairstyle, that seemed like a reasonable guess. Though really, lots of fluff in the question — “Hairstyle named after French” would probably have been enough.
Perfect D by my opp (completely easy against me on this round), and too-tricky-for-me defense against my opp, so a 4(4)-4(2) tie, and 9th place despite second-best TCA in the Rundle.
1: Once I remembered what a past participle was (“I have ___ on the bed many times in the past”), “lain” felt right, and was right.
2: This was going to be a wild guess. Said Goo Goo Dolls.
3: I was a bit worried about “Home Loan” getting short shrift, but still went with Freddie Mac.
4: I’ve never heard of this, but shakily decided to guess Cheerios. When I was reviewing my answers, spotting “buoyancy” in the question made me much more confident.
5: Put me down for Russia and Mongolia.
6: A gimme for me–although when I first saw “Antoinette”, I felt a moment of fear at it possibly being a theater question.
5(4)-2(3) win. I’m officially ready to call promotion a long shot, especially since there’s a solid scramble going on to get out of/stay out of the relegation zone, and I’m hardly even out of that.
1. You don’t teach English as a Second Language without getting a little of this on you. Gimme.
2. Didn’t recognize the cover (though I would have recognized Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, whence came “Tonight Tonight”). Don’t remember now what I guessed, but I wasn’t even close.
3. I was pleased at least to have thought of Freddie’s cousin Fannie Mae.
4. I visualized a cereal that was small and floaty and which had bits that tended to get attracted to each other in the milk. The Commissioner was kind enough to accept the “Cheerio” effect without the “s”.
5. My first thought was North and South Korea. “Amrok” just looked to me like it followed the rules of Korean syllables that makes their Hangul alphabet fascinating to me. (It’s sort of a cross between a literal alphabet like ours and a Japanese Kanji syllabary.) On the other hand I also didn’t think that North and South Korea were separated by language so much that a river would get a different name in each. Maybe it’s like Derry/Londonderry where each side merely thinks the name should be different? Still, I didn’t like that answer and thrashed around for a long while trying to find two countries on my mental map with borders facing the right way and the right language patterns to produce these names. I was about to go back to my original answer when I realized I could tweak it and get everything to make sense. The Koreas don’t just border each other, dummy.
6. I also made the mistake of associating “pompadour” with men and rejecting it. “Bouffant” is a nice idea, but it still ain’t right.
In spite of handing my opponent his 3 with the album cover, I won because he handed me both 2′s on the cereal and Korea questions: 5(3)-4(2). Still in 6th, comfortable among the C’s, but I face the person in 4th today.
Got four answers today but still lost 5(4) – 4(4) dropping me from 2nd to 5th in this very tightly contested Coastal D rundle.
1) Lain seemed right to me so I put it down, even not being entirely sure what Past Participle represented.
2) I was 20 in 1993. Yes, I owned this album, Siamese Dream by the Smashing Pumpkis, so that’s a gimme.
3) Figured either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, Freddie Mac fit the name way better.
4) Eaten enough Cheerios to know they take the right of assembly seriously when floating in milk.
5) I put down India and Pakistan. I know they’re separated by Kashmir but the name Amrok threw me since Indian place names (Amritsar, most notably), can start with Amr.
6) Bouffant sounded right to me and I never looked back.
Four correct to my opponent’s three + perfectly rational defense = … wait for it … another loss. Oy.
1) Thought briefly about “laid”, but “lain” seemed more correct.
2) No clue. Green Day? My opponent, the honorable Scott Weiss, got this one; we have equally miserable pop music scores, so I handed him a 3 and the victory with that question.
3) Thought of Fannie Mae first, but Freddie Mac seemed to fit the letters better.
4) Hadn’t heard of this, but what else could it be, Pop Tarts?
5) China/Mongolia. Darn it, since I was pretty sure Yalu was the Chinese half, should have guessed something to the south of it, not north.
6) knew it
1. I hate this past participle crap. Wanted this to be some completely different word. Nowhere near Lain, Laid, Lied or Lay. The synonym for rest and recline clue threw me off even further. I ended up putting laze which I knew was a different verb with a different meaning. I can’t explain why I sometimes put down completely idiotic wrong answers.
2. Recognized this cover. Would have marked this higher but alternative 1993 band definitely narrows the list down.
3. Mortgage Corporation definitely sounds like Mac. Made this the 0.
4. Cheerios seemed like the best guess. Part of me wanted to put Apple Jacks or Quisp but I knew it had to be a well known brand. My opponent also guessed Cheerios but he assigned me a 3 while I only assigned it a 1.
5. Guessed wildly. Maybe with more thought I might have figured it out. I scored this a 3.
6. I immediately thought of Pompadour as a French sounding hairstyle and then remembered that there was a Madame de Pompadour as well.
Thanks to my opponent putting the 3 on Cheerios I was able to eke out another Wednesday tie (all four of my ties this season have come on Wednesdays) despite getting one answer less than my opponent 6(4)-6(5).
1. Despite having worked as a copy editor (on the same job where I met Eric–did you work as a copy editor after I left, Eric?), and having a pretty good handle on grammatical issues, I hadn’t thought about this particular term in a long time. So, “laid.” Oh, well.
2. Gimme, although I briefly considered the Afghan Whigs’ Gentlemen, also out in 1993, also featuring a photo of children on the cover.
3. Thought Fannie Mae before realizing it fit Freddie Mac better.
4. Considered Cheerios, but somehow Rice Krispies seemed more clumpy.
5. I briefly considered China-North Korea, but decided that “Amrok” sounded Turkish. So I went with Russia as the northern neighbor, blithely ignorant that they don’t share a land border (after the breakup of the USSR, Georgia and Armenia ended up as the Turkish neighbors–I don’t know if there’s a defined border between Russian and Turkey in the Black Sea).
6. Ooh, great question. I puzzled out the French, but was still stumped. I finally went with “Contessa,” because I had to put something down.
So just two right: a probable loss, except my opponent forfeited, keeping me out of the relegation zone. I currently have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.
Hah – somebody failed to read my comment a couple days ago about crossword-friendly proper nouns, and gave me 3 points for the YALU question. Apparently I am quite inscrutable (and also lucky), since I lead the rundle in 3-pointers by a good margin.
Re: the album cover — I remember reading about this non-story last year, but couldn’t dredge up the details. Sonic Youth was a good guess, though, right?
Did I ever make it as far as copy editor at PC Magazine? I don’t think I did. I think I was still a “fact checker” when I left there…
1. Yay to being an English major. Gimme. Would’ve had to give up my English license if I’d missed it.
2. Knew it immediately. Mellon Collie *is* more recognizable, but still, for someone who lived on north side of Chicago at the relevant time, it was very recognizable. Actually, one day while walking through the area, I heard someone blasting out a Smashing Pumpkins tune, only to realize that with stops and starts, it was actually them practicing.
3. the MC sealed it for me as well.
4. Never heard of the effect, but Cheerios was my first thought, and I tend to stick (like clumped Cheerios) to that.
5. Totally knew Yalu, so that worked.
6. I had bouffant for the longest time, but just didn’t like it. My brain finally hit on Pompadour and lights went off, bells flashed and various sirens blared.
The result? Another 9(6)-9(6) tie. I’m still in third. It seems that in the Champ Rundle, the goal is survival, plain and simple. At this point, it appears I will survive to next season, and that’s all I’m looking to do :)
Hey I did not lose! Very exciting. However I won because my opponent did not think I would get the Cheerios question so I don’t know whether to be excited or insulted. My opponent was (probably still is) Australian and this made me cocky about their OWN Cheerio knowledge but not for as many points. Anyhow….
1. I have a linguistics degree, you’d think I’d be doing better in language. I think I remembered this because of the dorky “Well the chicken had to get laid before the egg did” joke and knowing it wasn’t that.
2. I was living in Seattle and listening to grunge in 1993 and there is no way I could have possibly missed this! Except that I disliked the Pumpkins and had none of their albums. So all I knew was “I didn’t have this one” and I guessed the Pixies because of the little wings. Hmmph.
3. I said Fannie Mae because I am overconfident sometimes and stopped at F.
4. I could not think of another breakfast cereal that would do this. Special K? Raisin Bran? Grape Nuts? YAY TWO POINTS.
5. I got China because it’s sort of big. I guessed Mongolia which, hey, I thought was a decent, if wrong, guess.
6. Good guess with pompadour. I didn’t remember the lady and was going through my mental hairstyle flash cards and nothing else sounded close.
grammar lesson that probably nobody wants:
the past tense (or preterite) is the form you normally use to speak of a past action. regular english verbs take -ed for this. i answer; i answered. the past tense of lie (in this sense) is lay, as in “i lay down at 11 pm last night.”
the past participle is the form you stick after “have”. this also is formed in the same -ed way for regular verbs, but is different for irregular verbs. so for “to go”, the past tense is “went” but the past participle is “gone”. the past participle of lie (in this sense) is lain.
note that the homographic verb lie (tell a falsehood) is a regular verb; both its past tense and past participle are simply lied.
so what about laid? that is the past tense of a totally different verb: to lay (tr.), as in “lay down your weapons”. people often get tripped up because this verb happens to look like the past tense of a different verb. i can’t remember how many times i’ve had to take a crossword clue for LAY LOW or LIE LOW to task for this reason.
anyway, it was a good day to be a word nerd, what with lain, freddie mac (i could rule out fannie mae because i know that one’s FNMA—seen it often in crosswords), and, as dan alluded, yalu. also, dan, i’d seen that story about the new bassist but i would have known the album anyway; the mid-90s are the one and only time i listened to pop music. yay. yesterday i predicted here that i’d get 3 points for it, but no, my opponent forfeited.