I knew three answers on Jeopardy! tonight that none of the contestants knew:
Who is the Queen of Sheba?
What is U-2?
What is outfox?
On the first one, all buzzers remained silent. The clue was a quote a queen made about King Solomon. Easy-peasy. Obviously Old Testament. Who else could it have been?
On the second one, all three contestants buzzed in but all guessed wrong. Guessing is never a good strategy on Jeopardy! because a wrong guess costs money. Either you know the answer or you don't. The clue included the words Francis Gary Powers, Russia, and a photograph of an airplane. The first contestant said B-52. The second contestant said B-2. The third contestant said B-10.
I don't remember the wording of the third clue, but the category was something about Words With Animals. The answer seemed obvious to me.
In their defense (British, defence), all three contestants were young.
I, on the other hand, felt old.
And with good reason, I might add. Today is my 85-1/2 birthday. (Note to the general public: Very young people and very old people keep track of their ages the same way, in half-years. The people in-between never do. It's one way to tell if you are old. The very young and the very old do it for one reason and one reason only: Both groups want to be older.)
I know I do.
I cannot watch quiz programmes for the reason that young people do not have the range of general knowledge that we older people have. I feel a mixture of embarrassment and anger. I like to think I had good general knowledge even when I was a young person but maybe I am deluded and seeing my younger self through rose-tinted spectacles.
ReplyDeleteIt isn’t that older people are smarter, it’s that they’re farther down life’s trail. This has never kept the young from looking down on the old, of course. Etter a has been than a n er-was. Thank you, Rachel.
DeleteCongrats on your half birthday! and the Jeopardy answers!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ellen!
ReplyDeleteIn the words of Owl in One Hundred Acre Woods, 'Hipy Papy Bthuthdth Thutthda Bthuthdy' - a greeting that takes a good deal of pencil to say, and is perhaps best reserved for half-birthdays when the celebrations don't go quite so fast. x
ReplyDeleteI don't know when I have had such a memorable and well-obsrved half-birthday. Of course, entering one's second childhood helps a lot. Thank you, Elizabeth!
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