luckycanuck

I went to trivia tonight. We won, despite not being able to come up with a word that has six vowels, all of them "i". (Indivisibility)

Then it came to the jackpot. Three questions, and if you get them all right, there is a cash prize that rolls over weekly until it is won.

1) Which television program denied guest spots to Al Gore and David Beckham because they weren't famous enough. (The Simpsons)
2) Which English King never learned to read or speak English. (William the Conqueror)
3) In what country was Rembrandt born. (The Netherlands)

Those are the questions, and the answers we came up with. I was told we got two out of three.

I thought maybe the Simpsons answer was wrong, but when they read out the answers, they cited George I as the king who never learned English.

I know George I was from Germany and spoke German (amongst other languages. In fact he and his Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, spoke to each other in Latin, the only tongue they had in common.) But in the 13 years he was on the throne, he apparently did managed to learn enough English to communicate at some level.

Now William, on the other hand, aside from being a bastard (literally), was French. When he conquered England in 1066, he brought his language over and it became the language of the Anglo-Norman court. Here and there he may have picked up the odd word, but he never learned to speak the language of the Anglo-Saxons, and he never learned to read anything as he was illiterate. (The question of whether or not English even existed as a language at this time is another one.) Countless French words made their way into English once the Normans came over.

At any rate, I can accept that George I may be an acceptable answer, though I'm not sure of that. But William the Conqueror is certainly a King of England who never learned to read or speak English.

But according to their rules, you must give all three answers exactly as they are on their answer sheet, and we were denied.

Ohhhhhhh I got a good seethe on. It's not the money. I got the right answer and it was rejected. Pettiness ensues. Grrrrrrrrr.

I'll bring it up with the usual trivia girl next week.