Re: Ghetto Warz (and question-writing in general)

• From: mikewormdog <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com>
• Date: Sat, 01 May 2004 06:18:59 -0000
• Message-ID: <c6vfgj+b8a5_at_...>

We at Yale have been playing on some of the Ghetto Warz packets in 
practice this past week, and people are bitching way too much about 
Hroswitha.  She's important as the first German female poet and some 
of her work is perhaps influential on the Faust legend.  It's a 
difficult question for someone not versed in medieval literature, 
surely. However, would you fellas even be complaining about Hrosvitha 
if her name weren't strange to modern American ears (not to mention 
spelled in at least 6 different ways) and if she weren't from 
the "Dark Ages"?  I doubt it.  Also, one hard question that neither 
team answers correctly does little to spoil a packet.  It simply 
shortens the game.  Other obscurata comes up all the time and isn't 
villified nearly as much.  Leave the poor nun alone. 

Worse were the pseudo-medieval/feudal questions, especially 
the "right of first night" one (which didn't accept either the 
English or French translations of the Latin, or even "droit de 
seigneur") Such a thing ever existing is dubious at best, and remains 
a troublesome medieval myth (like spices being popular in Europe 
because they could cover the taste of bad/spoiled meat) that won't 
die in the popular imagination.

Overall, like Nathan said, the packet wasn't great, but it wasn't too 
awful, either. 

Mike Wehrman



--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, thefool75 <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> After reading through the aforesaid UCI packet there are of course 
> plenty of criticisms that could be made question by question 
> (although two or three tossups were fine) but it's not really any 
> worse than your average un-edited poorly written packet.  But a 
quick 
> note on the "Hrotswitha" tossup that Willie's proud of.  First, 
she's 
> already in the canon -- there have been at least two ACF bonus 
parts 
> on her.  Second, she's too obscure for a tossup (except for perhaps 
a 
> very hard-core Master's tourney)...the difference between 
Hrotswitha 
> and say Hildegard of Bingen in terms of obscurity should be 
obvious.  
> As has been said before, canon expansion is best done through bonus 
> parts (except that in this case it wouldn't be canon expansion 
> anyway).  Third, the question wasn't pyramidal anyway -- if you're 
> going to get the tossup, you're going to get it off of the mention 
of 
> her six Terentian comedies in the 2nd line of the tossup -- that's 
> the giveaway -- so the rest of the question is pointless anyway.
> 
> my 3 cents, Nathan