Transcript 11/20/09 Jehan Shamsid-Deen (ToT #1)

[BBTranscriptTeam]

Jehan calls today “Nerd Vindication” and crowns Meredith Honorary Queen of Nerd-vana.

Jehan hopes she can inspire people going through difficulties to persevere and succeed, so the country can become a better place.

Meredith introduces Jehan’s mom, Dee, who expresses pride in her daughter.

Meredith then asks Sam Murray what’s been going on in his mind. Sam said he’s been rooting for everyone- that if he loses, he’s still got $50,000. He says Jehan is a lovely person, and he’s rooting for her right now too.

Meredith then holds up Sam’s check (which she took back) and Jehan’s, and reminds everyone that one of them will walk away with their check today.

With a final explanation of the ToT rules, here comes the question. Jehan has banked 3:51 of time, and so has 4:36 to try and answer the question.

$1,000,000- A rare example of a word that rhymes with “orange”, the Blorenge is a what?

A- River in Ireland B- Forest in Scotland
C- Mountain in Wales D- Desert in Australia

Jehan never heard of the word, but eliminates

Spoiler

a desert in Australia

.

Jehan recalls that the

Spoiler

druids built Stonehenge, and that they lived in Wales.

Jehan mentions she used to live in the UK, and wishes she studied more English geography. She

Spoiler

repeats Wales several times, and states that’s what she’s leaning towards.

At 1:45, Jehan reminds everyone she said she would sing The Gambler. However, she speaks, not sings, the refrain of that song.

Meredith reminds her she will go down $225K, or up $750K, or can stay put. Jehan recalls that almost everyone else has known their answer, but walked. Asks if she can use Meredith as a PAF. Thirty seconds to go.

Jehan repeats that she thinks it’s

Spoiler

a mountain in Wales

. 19 seconds. Sam on the split screen is unreadable. 15 seconds.

At 10 seconds, Jehan says $250K is a lot of money, and she likes Sam. She didn’t want him to get the money, but she’s going to walk away. Sam starts hugging his son Tim, but has to stay put for about a minute while the answer is revealed and Meredith speaks a bit, making the first confetti dump since Nancy Christy’s (hermillion) six years ago somewhat anticlimactic. As the applause starts, Sam can be heard to say

Spoiler

”It’s Wales”.

Spoiler

C- Mountain in Wales

Now we finally get the confetti dump, and Sam does a victory lap.

Commercial Break

Sneak peek at a question for Monday

$1,000- An extremely frightened person is said to be “scared” what?

A- Brittle B- Taut
C- Stiff D- Wooden

Meredith chats with Sam. Sam knew that question, and really thought Jehan was going to get it.

Sam, a waiter/bartender from Philly, is going to use the money to go back to nursing school, help his son, and for a “fun thing”, maybe he’ll go skydiving with Jehan. Or else take a trip with his son, who traveled 14 hours to be with Sam today.

Meredith congratulates Sam again, saying “today is for you”.

Meredith finishes by calling on TPTB to “do this again.

[drew scheeler]

Meredith finishes by calling on TPTB to “do this again.[/i]

Spoiler Alert:

Spoiler

They don't.

[wintergreen48]

Jehan calls today “Nerd Vindication” and crowns Meredith Honorary Queen of Nerd-vana.

Jehan hopes she can inspire people going through difficulties to persevere and succeed, so the country can become a better place.

Meredith introduces Jehan’s mom, Dee, who expresses pride in her daughter.

Meredith then asks Sam Murray what’s been going on in his mind. Sam said he’s been rooting for everyone- that if he loses, he’s still got $50,000. He says Jehan is a lovely person, and he’s rooting for her right now too.

Meredith then holds up Sam’s check (which she took back) and Jehan’s, and reminds everyone that one of them will walk away with their check today.

With a final explanation of the ToT rules, here comes the question. Jehan has banked 3:51 of time, and so has 4:36 to try and answer the question.


$1,000,000- A rare example of a word that rhymes with “orange”, the Blorenge is a what?

A- River in Ireland B- Forest in Scotland
C- Mountain in Wales D- Desert in Australia

Jehan never heard of the word, but eliminates

Spoiler

a desert in Australia

.

Jehan recalls that the

Spoiler

druids built Stonehenge, and that they lived in Wales.

Jehan mentions she used to live in the UK, and wishes she studied more English geography. She

Spoiler

repeats Wales several times, and states that’s what she’s leaning towards.

At 1:45, Jehan reminds everyone she said she would sing The Gambler. However, she speaks, not sings, the refrain of that song.

Meredith reminds her she will go down $225K, or up $750K, or can stay put. Jehan recalls that almost everyone else has known their answer, but walked. Asks if she can use Meredith as a PAF. Thirty seconds to go.

Jehan repeats that she thinks it’s

Spoiler

a mountain in Wales

. 19 seconds. Sam on the split screen is unreadable. 15 seconds.

At 10 seconds, Jehan says $250K is a lot of money, and she likes Sam. She didn’t want him to get the money, but she’s going to walk away. Sam starts hugging his son Tim, but has to stay put for about a minute while the answer is revealed and Meredith speaks a bit, making the first confetti dump since Nancy Christy’s (hermillion) six years ago somewhat anticlimactic. As the applause starts, Sam can be heard to say

Spoiler

”It’s Wales”.

Spoiler

C- Mountain in Wales

Now we finally get the confetti dump, and Sam does a victory lap.

Commercial Break

Sneak peek at a question for Monday

$1,000- An extremely frightened person is said to be “scared” what?

A- Brittle B- Taut
C- Stiff D- Wooden

Meredith chats with Sam. Sam knew that question, and really thought Jehan was going to get it.

Sam, a waiter/bartender from Philly, is going to use the money to go back to nursing school, help his son, and for a “fun thing”, maybe he’ll go skydiving with Jehan. Or else take a trip with his son, who traveled 14 hours to be with Sam today.

Meredith congratulates Sam again, saying “today is for you”.

Meredith finishes by calling on TPTB to “do this again.

Well, that was interesting.

It was clearly Wales, because of the language business (and that sort of makes the question wrong-- 'Blorenge' is not an English word, it is Welsh, or Cymru, and to say that it rhymes with orange is sort of specious-- there are no doubt dozens of words in other languages that sound like 'orange,' but they don't count: the point is that there are not a heckuva lot of ENGLISH words that rhyme with 'orange,' and even if 'Blorenge' does rhyme with 'orange,' it is not an English word). And it is interesting to me that her thought process took her in the right direction... even though she was absolutely, 100% wrong in what she was thinking. The Druids had absolutely nothing to do with Stonehenge (in fact, Stonehenge had been abandoned as a 'working' site hundreds of years before the first Druid-- or the first Celt, for that matter-- set foot in Britain). And although there may have been a Druid or two in Wales at some time in history, the Druids were not 'from' Wales, anymore than Prince Charles (the current 'Prince of Wales') is from Wales. But it was a fun thing.

[Ritterskoop]

And it is interesting to me that her thought process took her in the right direction... even though she was absolutely, 100% wrong in what she was thinking. The Druids had absolutely nothing to do with Stonehenge (in fact, Stonehenge had been abandoned as a 'working' site hundreds of years before the first Druid-- or the first Celt, for that matter-- set foot in Britain). And although there may have been a Druid or two in Wales at some time in history, the Druids were not 'from' Wales, anymore than Prince Charles (the current 'Prince of Wales') is from Wales. But it was a fun thing.

I adore reaching the right answer for the wrong reason. I think it's fun (even though I respect the reasoning process, and often use it for good).

[TheConfessor]

It was clearly Wales, because of the language business (and that sort of makes the question wrong-- 'Blorenge' is not an English word, it is Welsh, or Cymru, and to say that it rhymes with orange is sort of specious-- there are no doubt dozens of words in other languages that sound like 'orange,' but they don't count: the point is that there are not a heckuva lot of ENGLISH words that rhyme with 'orange,' and even if 'Blorenge' does rhyme with 'orange,' it is not an English word). And it is interesting to me that her thought process took her in the right direction... even though she was absolutely, 100% wrong in what she was thinking. The Druids had absolutely nothing to do with Stonehenge (in fact, Stonehenge had been abandoned as a 'working' site hundreds of years before the first Druid-- or the first Celt, for that matter-- set foot in Britain). And although there may have been a Druid or two in Wales at some time in history, the Druids were not 'from' Wales, anymore than Prince Charles (the current 'Prince of Wales') is from Wales. But it was a fun thing.

Interesting point, although the question never stated that Blorenge is an English word. If that were a requirement for rhyming, Lennon and McCartney couldn't have written "Michelle" because it doesn't rhyme with "ma belle."

[ghostjmf]

Like I said in that other thread "I had no clue". I liked Jehan's reasoning that the "enge" part was really "henge". I believe, without looking it up, that the "henge" in Stonehenge means "fence".

Which pretty well rules out "river" anywhere, including Ireland. Also, of the 3 places cited, Ireland is the least likely to have something named in old English, but its not immune to them. Australia, of course, has lots of places named for English stuff, but a "henge", if used for "fence", would not be a desert. On the other hand, "blorhenge" could well be an Aboriginal word meaning whatever it would mean, have nothing to do "henge", & so be the name of a desert.

This really leaves me with 3 choices out of the 4. "Mountain in Wales" seems more likely to use "henge" meaning "fence" than "forest in Scotland", but not 100% more likely. And while "henge" as fence wouldn't be used for a desert in Australia, if it turns out "blorhenge" is a Aboriginal word for whatever, all bets about henges are off.

If I had to bet money, I'd have gone home too.

[ghostjmf]

And oh yeah, Welsh, Irish, Scots are all Celtic languages with word & sounds in common. As are Breton & Manx whatever they call the language spoken in the Spanish Galicia (as opposed to the Polish Galicia, where my very non-Celtic ancestors lived for many moons). Galician, probably.

There are Celtoid dudes (that's dudes, not drudes) who refer to "The 7 Nations" as in "the ancient Celtic-language regions", & I always forget what the 7th nation is supposed to be. Maybe the Isle of Orkney, or whatever. Except that's historicallly more Norweigan than anything else. Maybe another of the Channel Islands, like Scilly. Yeah, that has a now-just-about-extinct language. It'll come to me (or else I google it). (There's a band named something like "The 7 Nations", too.)

Ancient Prythian, also spelled Prydian, with diacritical markings I can't get this computer to make, which I've heard referred to as the source of the name "Britain", was not, I don't think, a Celtic language.

[ghostjmf]

From the band "Seven Nations" web site:

Seven Nations Trivia Question: Where does the band's name come from?

The name refers to the seven nations of the Celtic world, now known as Scotland , Ireland , Wales , Brittany , Cornwall , the Isle of Man , and parts of Spain .)

Ach, I forgot Cornwall. And I've even been there. ("On the shores of Tintagel"). (Penzance too. No pirates though.) That's what happens late at night. You forget Cornwall. Pretty good I usually don't have late night computer access.

[ghostjmf]

And I'm now beginning to remember that Prydian is what you called Britain when the Welsh owned the whole thing. So it would be ancestral Welsh for Britain. Is so Celtic! And goodnight.

[ghostjmf]

Been trying to find out what "blorenge" actually means in Welsh; so far no luck. Lots of sites tell you it over looks the village of Abergavenny, which I've probably misspelled, which means "mouth of the river Gavennny"; "gavenny", it turns out, means "blacksmiths", so mount Blorenge overlooks the "mouth of the river of blacksmiths". OK. Still don't know what "blorenge" means, or, more specifically, if "henge" is really a part of the name.

Found lots of supposedly linguistic sites trying to attack my sister's computer, though.

What is pretty fascinating is that a lot what the British & Welsh call
"paragliders" take off from Blorenge. And Jehan wanted to go hangliding? She may have actually come across this mountain while researching hangliding sites. And had it in the back of her head somewhere. On the other hand, I was there, pretty much ("at the start of the Brecon Beacons" (which are mountains)) & it didn't stick in my head.

Maybe 'cause I had a hard enough time with my little rented stick-shift (you can rent those in Britain) driving through the Pennines (these are mountains that run down/up the spine of the British Isles) while people on bicycles actually almost passed me. British Isles win for crazy, very hardy (they were laden with big backpacks, too, did I mention) bicyclers.

It also comes up, pretty obviously, on "hard to rhyme" sites. Along with "silver" & "purple". We all might want to memorize the meanings of some of the "rhymes" with "silver" ("chilvers") or "purple" ("hurple"; actually a word, having to do with a lame horse).

[ghostjmf]

occurs to me I was doing the eytomology the wrong way around; I can at least find out the roots of "orange"

from Merriam Webster online:

Main Entry: 1or·ange
Pronunciation: \ˈär-inj, ˈär(-ə)nj; chiefly Northern & Midland ˈȯr-inj, ˈȯr(-ə)nj\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French orrange, araunge, from Old Occitan auranja, from Arabic nāranj, from Persian nārang, from Sanskrit nāraṅga orange tree

OK; so there ought to be some sound-alike words in Arabic, Persian & Sanskrit.

Online Merriam Webster is playing coy with "henge", & making like it wants me to pay, but various other sources, including Wikischmuckia, say the eytomology of "henge" is that its a "backformation" from the name "Stonehenge", used to describe other, well, places that look like Stonehenge, the entire construction, with ditches, etc, not just the stones, which bumps out my thinking the word meant "fence" at all. At least until I can get into a real dictionary.

[ghostjmf]

from dictionary.com:

Origin:
1730–40; back formation from Stonehenge, ME Stanenges, Stanheng, equiv. to stan stone + -heng, prob. orig. “something hanging”; cf. hinge

[ghostjmf]

so, going backward, since "henge" turns out to mean "hanging" in relation to "stone" (I knew that when I was awake, back upon a time), what would "blor" mean, assuming blorenge is a "hanging blor".
They are geographically close these places, so really could be related.

No hits on "blor", but lots on "temblor", which M-W isn't being coy about tonight:

Main Entry: tem·blor
Pronunciation: \ˈtem-blər; ˈtem-ˌblȯr, tem-ˈ\
Function: noun
Etymology: Spanish, literally, trembling, from temblar to tremble, from Medieval Latin tremulare — more at tremble

Oh well. I knew that (already!), & it doesn't give an independent meaning for "blor" at all.

[Bob Juch]

occurs to me I was doing the eytomology the wrong way around; I can at least find out the roots of "orange"

from Merriam Webster online:

Main Entry: 1or·ange
Pronunciation: \ˈär-inj, ˈär(-ə)nj; chiefly Northern & Midland ˈȯr-inj, ˈȯr(-ə)nj\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French orrange, araunge, from Old Occitan auranja, from Arabic nāranj, from Persian nārang, from Sanskrit nāraṅga orange tree

OK; so there ought to be some sound-alike words in Arabic, Persian & Sanskrit.

Online Merriam Webster is playing coy with "henge", & making like it wants me to pay, but various other sources, including Wikischmuckia, say the etymology of "henge" is that its a "backformation" from the name "Stonehenge", used to describe other, well, places that look like Stonehenge, the entire construction, with ditches, etc, not just the stones, which bumps out my thinking the word meant "fence" at all. At least until I can get into a real dictionary.

Blorenge doesn't really rhyme with orange as it's pronounced /ˈblɒrɨndʒ/.

[Phil Ken Sebbin]

What is pretty fascinating is that a lot what the British & Welsh call
"paragliders" take off from Blorenge. And Jehan wanted to go hangliding? She may have actually come across this mountain while researching hangliding sites. And had it in the back of her head somewhere.

IIRC, Sam had mentioned that she wanted to go skydiving. I may be 100% wrong or maybe she had mentioned hang gliding, too, at some other point.

[themanwho]

Been trying to find out what "blorenge" actually means in Welsh; so far no luck.

Blorenge is apparently "Blorens" in Welsh. According to this page

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:C_C ... =firefox-a

which I can only get to work as a Google cache, it means "The Pimples". This page

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Blo ... fault.aspx

says something similar.

-M

[Jeemie]

Been trying to find out what "blorenge" actually means in Welsh; so far no luck.

Blorenge is apparently "Blorens" in Welsh. According to this page

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:C_C ... =firefox-a

which I can only get to work as a Google cache, it means "The Pimples". This page

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Blo ... fault.aspx

says something similar.

-M

Gotta love it when TPTB want to be clever and screw it up! (Although, IIRC, most Britishers do call it "BLOR-enge", even if the Welsh do not).

The "rhymes with orange" bit was not an essential part of the question anyway.

[ghostjmf]

themanwho's 2nd site is specific to the "blor" part of the word, saying that means "small mound", generally a pimple.

Which makes "blorenge" mean "hanging small mound" or maybe "small mound as hinge". Or maybe "enge" really isn't "henge", & we're off again.

Phil Ken Sebbin is right; Jehan said skydiving, not hangliding. I think.

Jeemie's right here too, in that "knowing it rhymes with orange", whether it does or not when spoken by native speakers, doesn't give you the geographical location. Knowing that "blor" means "mound" would lead you right to "mountain", though. And there was only once choice with "mountain".

[AlphaDummy]

[quote="BBTranscriptTeam]

Sneak peek at a question for Monday

$1,000- An extremely frightened person is said to be “scared” what?

A- Brittle B- Taut
C- Stiff D- Wooden

Spoiler

E - Shitless

[Rexer25]

[

AD, that would have been my first response.

[vettech]

[

I guess that would make it the

Spoiler

hot-steaming-pile seat

.

[ghostjmf]

This all also makes me wonder about Bloor Street in Toronto, which various sources say was named after "Joseph Bloor, or Bloore". What funny is that the spelling of that always lead me to believe the name was from the same branch of German/Dutch that gave rise to all those Afrikaner names with the double "o"s in them. Maybe not.

[NellyLunatic1980]

$1,000,000- A rare example of a word that rhymes with “orange”, the Blorenge is a what?

A- River in Ireland B- Forest in Scotland
C- Mountain in Wales D- Desert in Australia

I was in trouble from the word "go". The first thing I said was, "Blorenge doesn't sound Welsh". Blorenge sounded Irish to me, so I would've said A.

So my streak of correct $1M answers ends at 9.

[earendel]

Jehan calls today “Nerd Vindication” and crowns Meredith Honorary Queen of Nerd-vana.

Jehan hopes she can inspire people going through difficulties to persevere and succeed, so the country can become a better place.

Meredith introduces Jehan’s mom, Dee, who expresses pride in her daughter.

Meredith then asks Sam Murray what’s been going on in his mind. Sam said he’s been rooting for everyone- that if he loses, he’s still got $50,000. He says Jehan is a lovely person, and he’s rooting for her right now too.

Meredith then holds up Sam’s check (which she took back) and Jehan’s, and reminds everyone that one of them will walk away with their check today.

With a final explanation of the ToT rules, here comes the question. Jehan has banked 3:51 of time, and so has 4:36 to try and answer the question.

$1,000,000- A rare example of a word that rhymes with “orange”, the Blorenge is a what?

A- River in Ireland B- Forest in Scotland
C- Mountain in Wales D- Desert in Australia

Jehan never heard of the word, but eliminates

Spoiler

a desert in Australia

.

Jehan recalls that the

Spoiler

druids built Stonehenge, and that they lived in Wales.

Jehan mentions she used to live in the UK, and wishes she studied more English geography. She

Spoiler

repeats Wales several times, and states that’s what she’s leaning towards.

At 1:45, Jehan reminds everyone she said she would sing The Gambler. However, she speaks, not sings, the refrain of that song.

Meredith reminds her she will go down $225K, or up $750K, or can stay put. Jehan recalls that almost everyone else has known their answer, but walked. Asks if she can use Meredith as a PAF. Thirty seconds to go.

Jehan repeats that she thinks it’s

Spoiler

a mountain in Wales

. 19 seconds. Sam on the split screen is unreadable. 15 seconds.

At 10 seconds, Jehan says $250K is a lot of money, and she likes Sam. She didn’t want him to get the money, but she’s going to walk away. Sam starts hugging his son Tim, but has to stay put for about a minute while the answer is revealed and Meredith speaks a bit, making the first confetti dump since Nancy Christy’s (hermillion) six years ago somewhat anticlimactic. As the applause starts, Sam can be heard to say

Spoiler

”It’s Wales”.

Spoiler

C- Mountain in Wales

Now we finally get the confetti dump, and Sam does a victory lap.

Meredith chats with Sam. Sam knew that question, and really thought Jehan was going to get it.

Sam, a waiter/bartender from Philly, is going to use the money to go back to nursing school, help his son, and for a “fun thing”, maybe he’ll go skydiving with Jehan. Or else take a trip with his son, who traveled 14 hours to be with Sam today.

Meredith congratulates Sam again, saying “today is for you”.

Meredith finishes by calling on TPTB to “do this again.

Please, TPTB, do NOT do this again.

As for the question, I don't know why "henge" would lead to "renge"; I couldn't come up with anything so I would have walked away just as Jehan did. I wasn't surprised - I figured that unless it was an absolute slam-dunk, she wouldn't risk losing $225K. Indeed it should have been obvious that the most likely winner of the $1M (if there was one) would come from those who won the least at the beginning.

[ghostjmf]

earendel says:

As for the question, I don't know why "henge" would lead to "renge";

My thinking, & possibly others' here, is that "henge" lead to "enge" (various parts of Britain do drop "h"s). Turns out "blor", meaning "small mound" or "pimple" in Welsh (see searches above) is the important part of the word, anyway.