Best Wrong Answer Time

[fflo]

Time again for LearnedLeague Best Wrong Answer voting.  Seems like they're not as funny a collection this year.  Still, here are my also-ran faves:


Goldbach's conjecture states that every even integer greater
than two is the sum of two what?   GROWN-UP INTEGERS WHO LOVE EACH OTHER VERY MUCH


What phrase for a judiciary proceeding that ignores principles of justice likely
originated in Britain or the United States, despite sounding like it might come
from another country that the term strongly evokes?   I CAN'T BELIZE IT'S NOT JUSTICE


What term denotes atoms of the same element that have the same number
of protons but a different number of neutrons?   THE ATOMS FAMILY


In craps, what two-word term (or three-word term, if "Bet" is included) names
the game's most common and fundamental bet, which often has one of the
lowest house edges of any bet in a casino, and also refers to the labeled area
where the bet is placed on the table?   COLLEGE FUND


"He kindly stopped for me—" is the second line of a famous poem by Emily
Dickinson. What is the first line (and thus, because she did not provide a title,
the poem's generally-agreed-upon title)?   A BRO WAS JABBERING ABOUT CRYPTO


Scottish Fold, Ragdoll, Russian Blue, and Turkish Van are all different types
of what?   LIMITED EDITION MOUNTAIN DEW FLAVORS


In the 1990s, the Backstreet Boys requested that you quit playing games with it,
while *NSYNC complained about it being torn up. What was it?   PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENT


According to Amazon, a series that premiered on Prime Video in September 2022
became the most-watched of any original series on the service. The series was
based on The Lord of the Rings and had that in its title, with what subtitle?   A HARD HOBBIT TO BREAK



And my top 3:


What 1875 opera by Georges Bizet begins at the Royal Tobacco Factory in
Seville, Spain, and ends outside a plaza de toros?   MARLBORO MAN OF LA MANCHA


In photography, the overall brightness of an image is determined by the
"exposure triangle" of aperture, shutter speed, and a third factor which is
a measure of the sensitivity of the camera's sensor (or the film) to light.
This third factor is known as what?   REMEMBERING TO TAKE THE LENS CAP OFF

What four-word phrase, which was popularized by Horace Greeley in an
1865 editorial about opportunities on the American frontier and became
his slogan, was originally coined by J. B. L. Soule in 1851?   BEVERLY--- HILLS, THAT IS
 

Comments

Thank you from an Internet old who somehow had

[jesse_the_k]

never learned about LearnedLeague. This is clearly a source I need to drink like a firehose

/goes off to search, oh no! LLamas’ status is tightly guarded, and one needs to wait years to get a login. That's cool, and I hope it creates a fabulous community.

Here's some free-to-read examples:

The New Yorker on The Pleasures of LearnedLeague and the Spirit of Trivia

There are Learned League groups on Reddit and Facebook.

Some of the "Best Worst Answer" tallies follow the URL pattern

https://learnedleague.com/hist/awards/100.php

Where 100 references the season--I had some fun plugging in random numbers.

From season 97:

A Wind in the Door (1973), A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), and Many Waters (1986) continue the story first told by author Madeleine L'Engle in what 1962 novel?

• 3 REASONS TO HAVE HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE

More fun to be had from grazing the #BestWrongAnswers tag on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/bestwronganswers

Re: Thank you from an Internet old who somehow had

[fflo]

Wow, you're really getting into it!

It's true that LL is invite-only, and there's a waiting list now (though the last person I knew who joined didn't have to wait long), AND we really need to be confident that people will follow the 2 rules---not cheating and (especially) not forfeiting (particularly for most of a season, as that can penalize the referrer--- it messes up the scoring when people forfeit, which Is forgetting to or otherwise not completing the day's match. But there are seasons, and it's only weekdays when it's not a major holiday, AND there are reminders you can set up. I think mine's at 10:00pm, to ping me if I've not yet submitted.

SO, with that said, let me know if you'd like to be referred, and let's have a little back-and-forth in more private correspondence. Sure sounds like you'd enjoy being a LLama, and I've always had a good feeling about you, stranger-on-the-internets-wise. :D

Re: Thank you from an Internet old who somehow had

[fflo]

P.S. I owe you a closing paren --- )

Re: Thank you from an Internet old who somehow had

[fflo]

P.P.S. There's a podcast during the season, too, that one fellow player friend listens to, with 2 higher-level LLamas talking through how they went about answering. My buds and I are usually low-to-middle in how high/hard a rundle we settle into.

Re: Thank you from an Internet old who somehow had

[jesse_the_k]

Would that be Learned Lag? https://pod.link/1454334956

Re: Thank you from an Internet old who somehow had

[fflo]

That's the one!

Re: Thank you from an Internet old who somehow had

[jesse_the_k]

Thanks so much for the glimpse of possibility.

I wish I could participate, but I've got chronic health woes and definitely would end up forfeiting.

How long have you been involved? Is it as Jeopardy-adjacent as it seems?

The great news is I can turn my reply into a journal entry.

Re: Thank you from an Internet old who somehow had

[fflo]

I hear ya. I'll offer that the seasons aren't always going on, and a forfeit here and there is no biggie, and many people find the game takes maybee 5-10 minutes a day (or longer if you want to mull something over). So if you change your mind, gt in touch.

It's definitely Jeopardy-adjacent. Until he got the full-time host gig, Ken Jennings played, and a lot of LLama's have been Jeopardy! contestants.

Re: Thank you from an Internet old who somehow had

[fflo]

P.S. Forgot to say I've been LLing for 45 seasons, I find out when checking my history there. Started in 2014, jumped in by my bud/then-coworker who had been getting into the crossword puzzle constructor culture (and eventually became a full-time pro in that area) (and is now the editor of a very popular 5-letter word guessing game at the NYT) (I'm so stealthy). Seems that crossword puzzle creator people and Jeopardy people have a lot of overlap.

Re: Thank you from an Internet old who somehow had

[jesse_the_k]

SO COOL that you know a W$rdle-smith!

In an earlier life, I used to construct acrostics with semi-cryptic clues--my big bragging rights, though, was that I then typeset them. And yes, NYTimes magazine in ink.

Now, not so much.