So delighted that it's UC time again!! Love the personalities and teamwork of Downing-Cambridge and I'm really impressed with Yin. It'll be fun to watch how he does going forward!
A quibble about an example used in one of the questions: "Disgruntled" is not a "negative" term. Rather it involves an unusual usage of "dis" as an intensifier. (I.e. "gruntle" is formed by adding frequentive suffix "le" to "grunt" and so means "to grunt repeatedly ", and by extension, to grumble or complain. Consequently "disgruntle" means "to complain a lot". "Disgruntled" is then the "adjectival" form.)
I get the feeling that applies to all the words in that round to some extent. I'm no English major or anything, so I have no factual basis for my statement. Because all those words have no negative, I think they were created in a roundabout fashion as well. Or not...
Just to be clear, there are two separate issues here. There original question had to do with words like "unkempt" meaning "not kempt", where the original "unmodified" word (in this case "kempt") is no longer in common usage. The point of the comment is the mistaken assumption that while "dis" is often used as a "negative-izer" (as in words like "disjoint" or "disaffected") in the word "disgruntled" the prefix "dis" doesn't work to mean the opposite of the base word "gruntled", rather in this case it functions as an intensifier (i.e. it actually means something like "especially gruntled").
But the questions don't even have to do with Iron Maiden. 1. Let him who have understanding count... 2. ... Thy kingdom come. It's not like this quiz show is filmed on Saudi Arabia. These first two are common knowledge even without the Iron Maiden connection. The third question is maybe the hardest, but it is about a famous and successful TV show. Although an old one, it was quite a landmark apparently, considering they did a remake in 2009. Finally, we are not talking about some obscure heavy metal album here. The Number of the Beast was No. 1 in the UK charts, and Hallowed be Thy Name is easily included in any top 10 best heavy metal songs of all time.
Is easy for you that are familiar with this matter. If I ask you something about... I don´t know... Blur, James, will you know the answer right away? I would.
He said it with the French J sound, which sounds more pretentious to me than it would if he used the plain old English J sound. The "jing" in Beijing is like the "jing" in "jingle."
Gary Rector Well interesting, in China we r told to speak in a more western way to make u understand it better but never knowing u would think it's wrong😂 Forget about it because it's impossible to pronounce it 'right' for foreigners(my mom is a Chinese teacher and she has spent 15 years correcting me but failed)😂 btw I speak Mandarin since I was born, and watch this episode because my tour guide is here*^_^*
Here's how this show could be made more accessible to more than just middle-class toffs and the elderly: 1. Include questions about pop culture, and the use of pop songs in the music round 2. Have university students who are in their twenties and look like they're having fun, maybe loose shirts, shorts, tattoos, etc. Most of them look like they'll die old virgins and they might as well been born 2000 years ago. Scratch that, TWENTY-thousand years ago 3. Make the questions shorter and easier. 4. Replace Jeremy Paxman with a host who has some semblance of personality.
They do sometimes have pop/modern music in the music rounds. As for your other points, they would destroy the point of the show, which is to be an intellectual battle between some extremely clever people.
Tom Daly In this day and age you can't afford to mess around in your 20s like previous generations were able to. Costs of living are rising, jobs are much harder to come by, and Brexit will make the economy even more lopsided than it is at present. All of this is a direct consequence of the right-wing or centre-right governments that have been in power since the 1980s, and so now it makes sense to work as hard as you can at university in order to maximise what minimal chance you have of climbing up the social ladder.
You're suggesting removing everything that makes UC stand out to begin with. UC is not intended to be accessible to everyone. It caters to a very specific audience, that's why it's so respected. If you want to watch a more accessible quiz show, go watch The Chase. That's not a diss on The Chase, I really like it.
Tom Daly And here's a way too make the show funnier: Whenever Paxman begins to read the questions quicker, either have him read them at a million miles an hour or begin reading them like this, again at a million miles an hour: "Da! Vid! War! Ner!, Li! am! Nee!son! and! Ken! Wa! Ta! Na! Be! Are! Ac! Tors! For! Whi! Ch! Bat! Man! Vi! Ll! Ain! In! Tro! Du! Ced! In! 19! 71's! Da! Ug! Ht! Er! Of! The! De! Mon!" (Answer: Ra's al Ghul).
