From: Donald J. HARLOW <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 10:57 AM
Subject: Help! Esperanto In Jeopardy!
> Well, perhaps it's not _that_ horrible. Alex Trebec certainly didn't
> seem to think so.
> Those who watched the U.S. quiz show Jeopardy last night got to
> see a group of three people struggling to answer five questions
> (more precisely: create five questions for five given answers) about
> Esperanto. Well, actually they didn't seem to be struggling very
> hard. Here are the five questions in the "Speaking Esperanto"
> category, along with the results for the participants:
>
> Robin won $100: ESPERANTO ADVERBS GENERALLY END IN
> "E"; THESE WORDS, LIKE BELA FOR "BEAUTIFUL", IN "A"
>
> Firat won $200: A FINE RESTORACIO MIGHT INSIST YOU WEAR
> A KRAVAT [sic!], WHICH IS THIS
>
> Robin won $300: DUDEK IS 20; DUCENT IS THIS MANY
>
> Robin won $400: ARBARO IS THIS TYPE OF PLACE, AS IN
> LONGFELLOW'S "JEN LA ARBARO PRATEMPA"
>
> Robin won $700: ORIGINALLY THE PSEUDONYM OF THE
> LANGUAGE'S CREATOR, ESPERANTO MEANS "ONE WHO"
> DOES THIS
>
> (The final question should have been for $500, but it was a daily
> double, and Robin chose to wager somewhat more on it.)
>
> In my memory, this is the second time Jeopardy has dedicated a full
> category to Esperanto (though it's had single questions about the
> language, usually under a rubric such as "languages," a number of
> times); there may have been others that I didn't catch (I wouldn't
> have caught this one, either -- I was out having a snack with some
> other Esperanto speakers -- but my wife caught it and taped it).
> Remarkably, in the two times I've seen this -- as well as for the
> individual questions -- no question about Esperanto has ever been
> missed by a contestant. I still haven't figured out how Robin knew
> that "arbaro" means "forest" (she used the term "woods", which was
> acceptable). _Comprehension a prime vista_?
>
>
> -- Don Harlow
> http://www.best.com/~donh/don/don.html
>