posted
Did any of you watch the geographic bee yesterday? I greatly enjoyed Alex Trebek and the show as a whole. I think geography bees are infinitly more interesting then spelling bees.
The contestants were all exremely bright and I was astonished by some of the knowledge they had of geography.
Also a girl winning for the 2nd time in the history of the bee was really enjoyable. 9 boys and a girl was certainly intimidating. She never missed a single question either, flawless victory!
It was certainly rough seeing some of the loser contestants reactions, but Caitlin bursting into tears at finally winning was so rewarding! She was also from my wife's hometown of Redmond Washington so of course Tiffany was cheering for her the whole time, you'd be surprised how much you start caring about a subject when one of your neighbors is a finalist in a national contest. Interestingly enough, 5 of the 19 total champions have been from Washington.
I'm probably going to watch it every year from now on. It was brilliant trying to answer some of the questions they had.
Do any of you know what the original (imperial) name of Ho Chi Min City was?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Knowing how Vietnamese seems to sound, let's go with a short, three-letter word. Start with H. Then a vowel sound. Probably not O. Maybe E? Let's pick U. Then one more letter. Consonant or vowel? *Flips coin* Vowel. A? Nah. O? Sounds too Chinese. I? Again, too Chinese. E? Yeah, that gives the word a "false friend" spelling that's bound to slip up Westerners.
quote:I think geography bees are infinitly more interesting then spelling bees.
While I think that they are both good educational projects, and I'd personally perform much better in geography bees than spelling bees, there is something about tracing a word through to its origins, a practice common in spelling bees, that strikes me as more important than the geographic history that would attend studying for a geography bee.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by advice for robots: Knowing how Vietnamese seems to sound, let's go with a short, three-letter word. Start with H. Then a vowel sound. Probably not O. Maybe E? Let's pick U. Then one more letter. Consonant or vowel? *Flips coin* Vowel. A? Nah. O? Sounds too Chinese. I? Again, too Chinese. E? Yeah, that gives the word a "false friend" spelling that's bound to slip up Westerners.
posted
Ho Chi Min City and Hue are two completely different cities. The question they asked in the geography bee was what was the imperial capital of Vietnam, not what was the imperial name for Ho Chi Min City.
Posts: 1658 | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Rappin' Ronnie Reagan: Ho Chi Min City and Hue are two completely different cities. The question they asked in the geography bee was what was the imperial capital of Vietnam, not what was the imperial name for Ho Chi Min City.
Sorry I did not type my thoughts out correctly. You are right that that was the question, the finalist who answered incorrectly said Ho Chi Min City. I'm kinda annoyed that I could type out such an obvious mistake, South East Asian history is a topic I hold near and dear to my heart.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
