As I'm writing this I also have the TV on where there is a celebrity quiz show (Mastermind) on. The question just was "In a limerick which of these lines rhyme" a)1 and 3 b)2 and 3 c)3 and 4 or d) 4 and 5.

The two contestants didn't even know how many lines were in a limerick and when the asked the audience only just over 30% knew the answer. I was astonished.

In a quiz show that I saw a few years ago the Quizmaster asked the teenage contestant, "Shakespeare wrote a play named 'The Tempest.' What is a tempest?"

She replied, "ummmm a Tempist is ... ummmm like ... like a Buddhist monk?"

quote:

In a limerick which of these lines rhyme" a)1 and 3 b)2 and 3 c)3 and 4 or d) 4 and 5.

Don't leave us in suspense -- what's the answer?

One of those ghastly clips shows that plague the airwaves at this time of year showed a clip from another quiz show, thankfully one I'd never seen, where the host (also Chris Tarrant, host of Who Wants to be a Millionaire) made a slip of the tongue and instead of asking "Which of these composers wrote the famous Bolero which was used in ice dancing by Torville and Dean" asked "Which of these composers wrote Ravel's Bolero?"

The four options were Tchaikovsky, Ravel, Beethoven or Mozart.

It took the contestants four guesses to get the right answer.

And if you answer that one correctly, I've got one for you about a tomb in northern Manhattan...

I am going to stick up for the "not very bright" people.

I do think it depends on your interests. I know some very bright people who wouldn't know how many lines are in a limerick nor which lines rhyme. I bet if I put the question out on my professional listserv, with master's or PhD educated people, a significant number wouldn't get it right. Does that mean they aren't very bright? I don't think so. It just means they aren't interested in limericks. Heck, OEDILF got started from this site; of course all of us know more about limericks than 2% of the population. So what? Does that make us bright? I don't even think it makes someone ignorant if he or she doesn't know about limericks. It's all a matter of interest.

Bob, what happens when a basketball player is picked off? See my point?

[BTW, I don't think I knew how many lines in a limerick nor which lines rhymed before I met Shu because, to be honest, I didn't much care for them. I just didn't pay any attention. However, Shu got me into them.]

My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled around the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
'You appear to be astonished,' he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. 'Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.'
'To forget it!'
......
'But the Solar System!' I protested.
'What the deuce is it to me?' he interrupted impatiently: 'you say that we go round the sun. If we went around the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.'

- Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

quote:

I do think it depends on your interests. I know some very bright people who wouldn't know how many lines are in a limerick nor which lines rhyme.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "bright". Do you consider bright people to be intelligent or knowledgeable? Or both?

It is possible to be hugely intelligent but unknowing about many things, and vice versa.

It is my own observation that intelligent people also tend to be knowledgeable, since one of the characteristics of the intelligent brain is its restlessness, its desire to be active and to seek knowledge.

From the examples that Bob gave, I suspect that the contestants who were unable to identify the composer of Ravel's Bolero were not terribly intelligent, since an intelligent brain is also a quick brain.

First off, I was only referring to the limerick comment. As you can see, I did not mention, nor intend to mention, the Ravel's Bolero comment.

quote:

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "bright". Do you consider bright people to be intelligent or knowledgeable? Or both?

If you will note, "not that bright" was Bob's subject line of this thread, so I suppose you will have to ask him. I consider being bright to include both being intelligent and knowledgeable. I am not sure what others think.

I suspect most people here are bright, and yet I know that they aren't knowledgeable about everything under the sun; thus my comment about basketball knowledge. That's my point; knowledge, particularly, depends on one's interest. And surely knowing the numbers of lines of a limerick is knowledge related as it has nothing to do with IQ or innate intelligence.