The University of Rochester Thelion Society
Quizbowl . . . like a fox!

Thelion Society Lexicon and Lore File

Bait and Switch Question | Burden of Knowledge | Comeback, The | Comeback II: Revenge of the Comeback | Dan's Mom | Defense | Driving through Pennsylvania | Eric Keihl Meltdown | Expwy | Farrell | Feynman, Dr. Richard | Flynn Effect | Free Willy Death Buzzers | Hitball | Hose | Indian Food | Jessica | Judge, The | Kentucky Method* | "Let's Kick This Pig" | Lame | Malebilge | Neg | Osborne Line* | Power Trip | St. Gaudens, Augustus | Sorvino, Mira | Spiral Question | Supreme Court of the United States | "That's All They Wanted?" | "That's Our Micha" | Thelion | Thelion Dating Service | "Welcome to Mississauga" | Wheelhouse | "Which of You Is Sleeping with the Moderator?" | "Your Momma's Cock" | Zhan Packet

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Bait and Switch Question A particular type of hose (q.v.) in which the correct answer is a more obscure form of the obvious one, and the obvious one cannot be accepted or is worth only a prompt. Coined by Eric Keihl to describe a toss-up about the painting commonly, indeed ubiquitously, known as "Dogs Playing Poker", but for which the only acceptable response was the original title, "A Friend in Need". This question was a true hose in that the familiar title was given as the last clue of the question, but not accepted before that point.

Burden of Knowledge The lamentable state of knowing, through depth of academic experience, more than one possible answer for a toss-up, causing one player to sit while another, unburdened with the former's knowledge, buzzes in with the correct, and most obvious, answer, because it's the only one he or she had heard of. See also "That's All They Wanted?".

Comeback, The A stunning event at CBI Regionals 2003. Down over 150 points at halftime to Cornell on the round-robin day of competition, Fred Bush lobbied convincingly to get a protest upheld in favor of the opponent (the answer given was "caramelization", on a question about "caramel" but containing only clues on the process of making said treat). In the second half, Fred personally went on fire to lead the team all the way out of the hole to victory; exact stats are not available, but Bush did finish the game with over 100 points, almost all in the last period.

Comeback II: Revenge of the Comeback A somewhat less stunning (but still impressive) event at the campus CB tournament in 2006. Down 120 points with about 4 minutes to go after a disastrous (and meltdown-riddled) first half, Eric Keihl led the Winning Winners that Win (From Winnipeg) (Keihl, Waddington, Arnold) to a comeback victory over the young but well-balanced Nerd Herd (Grotke, Merenstein, Dinan, Aleksy) Keihl finished the match with 80 points, 60 in the 2nd half.

Dan's Mom Tina Blake, incomparable host and great cook, devoted mother, generous to a fault, and a Scrabble player not to be messed with lightly. For unknown reasons, butt of a zillion and three highly inappropriate jokes at the hands of Furniss, Adelman, and, let's face it, most of us. See also "Your Momma's Cock".

Defense The act of zeroing a bonus which was known or expected to be in the opponents' wheelhouse (q.v.). Particularly relevant in trash competition, where a team can actively play defense by choosing not to lame (q.v.) a bonus for which the other team seems hungry.

Driving through Pennsylvania It just shouldn't even be tried.

  1. Returning from Penn Bowl XIII, January 24th-25th, 2004: The tournament ran late; the B team skipped the playoffs and took Guido's car back to Dan Blake's house only half as far as Rochester. After eating their Indian food (q.v.), the A team finally hit the road from Philadelphia at 11 pm, and had to make it all the way back to Rochester. Which they did, in Dan's car, by 6 in the morning. Sole driver Gordon Arsenoff kept himself awake in what he remembers as light snow with Altoids and Pepsi-Cola. At the time, this was considered to be quite a feat of driving.
  2. Returning from ACF Nationals 2004 at Maryland: The A team in Dan's car took a wrong turn coming out of Williamsport, and ended up going west on US 220 (we think) past a place called, for unknown reasons, Jersey Shore. The team did not realize they were not on 15 North until they reached a literal dead-end and had to turn around.
  3. Returning from Penn Bowl XIV, 2005: Despite adverse weather reports, two teams made the trip down without any trouble, in a minivan rented to Elsner. Saturday, it began snowing. Hard. After losing in the final to Florida, the Thelions left Penn at a much more reasonable 7 pm, but due to road conditions that caused no less than three losses of control of the vehicle, arrived back in Rochester at 6 the next morning. Micha, being the only one authorized to drive the minivan, had to stay behind the wheel the whole damn time.
  4. Heading to NAQT SCT 2006 at Maryland: Brent's Ford Expedition took a wrong turn out of Williamsport, and ended on a stretch of I-80 westbound with absolutely nowhere to exit. The dificulties were compounded twofold in that Arsenoff, who was supposed to host the team at his house, was in the lost car, and this car was rapidly running out of fuel. After pulling over and calling AAA, a rural gas station was located, only to find that it was closed to non-members; there was literally no way to pay for petrol. Somehow (details are hazy), the car got refueled and back on the road, only to be lost again on back roads in rural central Pennsylvania. The car finally reached Gordon's house by 10:30 or so at night.
  5. Melinda says: Erie was particularly eventful on the 2003 MLK/ABD trip. On the way down, we got stuck in traffic while authorities cleared away the burned-out wreck of a flaming car. On the way back, we stopped at a motel there to wait out the raging blizzard. With 6 of us in one room (me, Kaeti, Mike, Dan, Fred, Sid), Kaeti and I volunteered to sleep on the floor on the condition that we get pillows and blankets. No go - the boys left us to a mostly sleepless night with only our coats and a small car blanket for warmth. Side note - Kaeti and I were the only ones who, when checking the weather beforehand, thought it prudent to pack extra underwear.
  6. Returning from NAQT SCT 2005 at Maryland: Weather reports again called for massive snow. Brent, Margot, and Eric left before the end of the tournament; the A team, of course, stuck it out. Snow was coming down in buckets as Dan's car got on the road around 7 pm. After seeing what can only be described green lightning across the sky, the team called home to ask about staying an extra night, but pressed on when the weather report for the next day appeared worse. Roads became virtually impassable across the Pennsylvania border; Blake, driving by himself, was forced off the road to a Pizza Hut in York for over an hour, and stopped in Harrisburg, Selinsgrove, Williamsport, and just across the New York border as well. The car reached Rochester at, you guessed it, 6 in the morning.

Eric Keihl Meltdown Term describing Keihl's occasional catastrophic (and melodramatic) response to a stupid neg. Often includes ripping out of hair or bashing of head against table. Keihl has expressed no interest in therapy, saying "the pain helps me concentrate."

Expwy Short for Expressway, not, as Keihl figured, a really stupid, inexplicable, presumably Welsh name for a small Pennsylvania town.

Farrell A neg (q.v.) separated from the correct answer by exactly two degrees. Named for Bush's answer of "Colin Farrell" for "George W. Bush", meaning to give "Will Ferrell", who portrayed W on Saturday Night Live.

Feynman, Dr. Richard Among the greatest half-dozen or fewer physicists of the 20th century. Nobel prize winner, creator of quantum electrodynamics, unequalled lecturer, etc. Due to his undeniable brilliance and eccentric, fantastic life, Feynman has been an object of open religious devotion by Sid Parameswaran since at least 2003. Prayers to Feynman can be expected at least once per trip when Sid is present; indeed, Feynmanism is the only one of the many religious perspectives in the Thelion Society which other members have been actively proselytized to join.

Flynn Effect

  1. The statistically demonstrable fact that mean IQ test performance has risen by the equivalent of 12 points since the administration of the first tests in the 1920s.
  2. (after Blake's middle name) The statistically demonstrable fact that, when five players are rotating on a four-person team, in the jth round when the jth player is sitting out, there will be at least one question of the form "What is the jth player's middle name?", or any such similar toss-up that the inactive player could easily claim, but which is inaccessible to the other four. This will be the only time in the tournament such a wheelhouse (q.v.) question is asked.

Free Willy Death Buzzers The team's current buzzer set from SVBZ; so named by Sid P., who decided that the noise they make "sounds like Free Willy's death rattle." Despite slightly buggy performance, and the occasionally annoying tone, these buzzers are posessed of three crucial advantages over most other types of sets:

  1. They are extremely small and portable. They fit in a box smaller than a footlong sub.
  2. They are battery-powered and can be set up anywhere, and have long, long cords that accomodate all room configurations.
  3. They cost about a fourth of what a system with the same number of players from any more prominent manufacturer does.
See also "The Judge".

Hitball Invented by Blake in the late '90s, hitball is a sport for two or four people on a small field, the object of which is to put a size 4 soccer ball into a goal at either end. At least 110 people have played since the game's inception, mostly in Candor, NY or Rochester. Hitball is the other game which most of the Thelion Society have in common. Unfortunately, no one can be told exactly what hitball is. You have to experience it for yourself.

Hose A question, especially a toss-up, whose clues point to one obvious answer only to change direction and trap players a neg (q.v.). Not every question that "takes a hard left turn" is a hose; the true hose must be not only deceptive but factually misleading. A good example from NAQT SCT 2006 was a toss-up on a physical quantity paired with time by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle; this most obviously points to energy, but by E = hv, could also be true of frequency, the answer being sought. (The rest of the clues did indeed refer to frequency.) With good attention to detail, the writing of hoses can and should be avoided altogether, although CBI seems to think of them as clever, tricky toss-ups. See also "Bait and Switch Question" and "The Comeback".

Indian Food Traditional fuel of Thelion A teams, believed to possess performance-enhancing properties. Not unlike Italian cuisine, Indian food can be clearly divided into northern and southern regional styles, of which the latter is generally preferred. First identified by the CBI Nationals team in 2003; good locations for it have been identified in Washington, St. Louis, Ann Arbor, and multiple spots in Philadelphia and Rochester.

Jessica

  1. The decision to pull an all-nighter rather than squeeze in a couple hours of sleep between a late night and an early departure for a quizbowl tournament. Used with forms of the verb "to pull". Originated after Schulman did exactly that before the New Tournament at Cornell in 2003, and spent most of the tournament, which itself ran late, predictably exhausted.
  2. Apparently, an ex of Bush's, run into at TRASHionals Syxx, to whom Adelman claimed convincingly that Fred had told us all about her. None of the Thelions had ever heard of this Jessica previously.

Judge, The Extremely-heavy-duty buzzer system built in the form of a briefcase with red and green lights on the outside, with signaling devices made from sewing machine pedals. Noted for all the disadvantages not posessed by the Free Willy Death Buzzers (q.v.), such as short cords, size, expense, and looking a lot like a bomb from the outside. Nevertheless, its ruggedness alone makes it a very popular choice among the nation's quizbowl teams; only one or two Judges have ever been seen even partly broken at tournaments. A game between Rochester and UMBC at NAQT SCT 2006 at Maryland was actually played standing up, with contestants operating The Judge's buzzers in their original intended capacity — with their feet.

Kentucky Method* The practice of getting 25 points on a 5-10-15 bonus, by missing the easy clue while getting the two others.

"Let's Kick This Pig" Traditionally said to begin a tournament or a game expected to be tough but fun, by Andrew Boardman unless someone else remembers it first. Originally a catchphrase of Lt. Cdr. Tom Dodge, played by Kelsey Grammer in the critically underrated Down Periscope.

Lame

  1. Tupelo, MS, regardless of whether Elvis came out of it.
  2. Fred Bush for suggesting otherwise.
  3. A rule invented by Bush during his undergraduate years at Swarthmore, allowing each team, once per game, to refuse the bonus being read to them and hear the next one in the packet instead. The opponents may choose to claim the bonus being lamed, and answer it after their next toss-up, or reject it as well. Like the Black Lady in Hearts, this rule has spread across the continent to become a universal part of trash play since its origin in the mid- or late 1990s.
  4. Most of this lexicon, actually.

Malebilge A toss-up beginning with academic or academic-sounding clues that turns out to have a trash answer. Not necessarily a hose (q.v.), but almost always annnoying rather than cute. The infamous dilithium question from the 2004 Flower City Invitational, which even game officials thought was about a real chemical element until the last line or so, is the best known instance.

Neg An incorrect answer, given before the end of a toss-up, resulting in a five-point penalty. Occasionally, this is an answer that seems right at the time of buzzing (or just before), but in fact is so wrong as to be humorous after the fact. The Thelion Society's list of favorite negs includes:

Osborne Line* The point beyond which an individual's contributions in gameplay are no longer sufficient to outweigh (his) glaring personality shortcomings, forcing the rest of the team to part ways with (him) for their own sake.

Power Trip

  1. An unexpected haul of +15s for a player, in a tournament or a game, such as those by Arsenoff at Ann B. Davis 2003.
  2. Actually, just about anything Arsenoff has done in quizbowl, especially as business manager, Webmaster, or lexicographer.

St. Gaudens, Augustus Nearly cause of a heart attack for Bush at ACF Nationals 2004, when Parameswaran buzzed with this correct answer on an art toss-up, a discipline Fred would have expected to have monopolized, and in which he couldn't imagine Sid having the right answer before him. What Fred didin't know is that the rest of the team had just visited a special St. Gaudens exhibit at Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery within the previous month. Indeed, the trip was a residence hall program organized by Parameswaran.

Sorvino, Mira See "Suvari, Mena".

Spiral Question Or "Death Spiral Question", a 10-10-10 bonus whose first answer is something nobody on the team has heard of, and the other two are information about the first, as, for example, a question about Robert Rauschenberg and two of his paintings. Upon hearing the second answer, at which point the team realizes it will bagel the bonus, at least one player should groan "Spiral!" or imitate the sound and motion of points being flushed down a toilet. Coined by Eric Keihl

Supreme Court of the United States Institution whose members were speculated to have better odds of dating than male quizbowl players, before the full realization of the Thelion Dating Service (q.v.). In Spring 2003, several Thelions were eating at the Pit; Furniss floated this notion and proceeded to list all the single men sitting with them. George piped up that he was not one, to which Blake replied, "Holy $#!7, you have a girlfriend?", and Brian followed with, "And she lets you hang out with these people?" The table continued to have fun at Flevares' expense, until he put a stop to it by turning and planting a kiss on Stoss — twice, because Furniss missed the first one.

"That's All They Wanted?" Customary response to a question that appears to be looking for an obscure or unclear solution, possibly inducing players to sit on it, but which turns out to have a more simple or obvious answer. Should be delivered with a measured tone of surprise and condescension.

"That's Our Micha" Elsner has a gift for coming up with quotes that no one else would ever say. This understatement became the traditional response to such quotes. First uttered by Furniss at Flevares' parents' house prior to NAQT SCT 2003 at Case; the topic of conversation had been the musical piece for voice and flatulence by Jean-Baptiste Lully. Tribute was paid in the Zappa Packet written for ABD 2006, with a bonus part asking for the Street Fighter: Alpha character R. Mika.

Thelion [from contraction of "The Lion", nickname of founder J. Benjamin Hindes, which appears without a space on his Vermont vanity plates]

  1. A quizbowl player at the University of Rochester.
  2. Thelion Society. The Students' Association club of such people.
  3. That's all it means.
  4. Honest.

Thelion Dating Service Many teams frown on so-called quizcest. We encourage it. The Thelion Society is responsible for at least one upcoming marriage, as well as another long-term relationship that could well end up as one. At our peak at the end of January 2004, no less than ten members of the club were dating each other. In fact, two esteemed alumni have completed the trifecta, having been in relationships with three Thelion members each, starting with each other, while dating no one else during college. See also "Supreme Court of the United States".

"Welcome to Mississauga" Here's the story: Flevares is driving Elsner and Arsenoff home from MLK/Ann B. Davis 2003, around the north side of Lake Erie, in near-blizzard conditions. They expect to be back by 11 PM. In the blizzard, however, the turn for the Border is missed. The car doesn't realize this until the road signs start saying "welcome to Mississauga" and they're almost in Toronto. Turning around onto the QEW for home, they reach Buffalo at 11:30, where the border guard, for unknown reasons, asks not what citizenship we all held, but where we were born. They had two Americas and a Jerusalem, and, needless to say, were stuck there for a while.

Moving along, the car got itself lost in or around Buffalo after midnight, in dire need of gas; an appeal for directions at a mini-mart got Arsenoff only a throat-slashing gesture from the janitor. Somehow (details are hazy), they made it back onto the road, in slow driving conditions, rolling over a bag of trash in the suburbs before getting on the Thruway. Halfway home, Elsner notices large sparks flying out from beneath the car; as the vehicle itself isn't falling apart, the occupants figure out that these are just parts of the trash bag which caught on the undercarriage.

The car arrives home at 3 am; the occupants agree not to tell anyone about the trip back. This lasts until the other car gets back from the trip in the afternoon. As might have been expected, the snow was worse on the south side of the lake, which they had traveled due to having an Indian citizen with them, and they got snowed in in Erie, PA. See also "Driving through Pennsylvania".

Wheelhouse The figurative location where questions, especially bonuses, which align perfectly with one player's particular area of expertise, are located. Used by Craig Barker to describe a bonus claimed "with extreme prejudice" off a Rochester lame (q.v.) at TRASH Regionals 2005.

"Which of You Is Sleeping with the Moderator?" Question asked by an opponent of Rochester C at NAQT SCT 2004 at UWO. According to Melinda: We were talking to one girl on the opposing team before the game, in fact before George was in the room. And were mentioning that we knew the moderator, that he was a good reader and a good guy. We may have made a crack about how he wouldn't favor us - I don't remember. What I do remember is her flippantly saying 'So which one of you is sleeping with the moderator?' probably in response to a favoratism quip. And all of us pointing at Kaeti, while she raised her hand - all without a beat. She went red and was definitely more embarressed then any of us were. And I don't even remember who won the game.

"Your Momma's Cock" Game-stopping response by Furniss to Blake's assertion that "Brian, you suck", following a missed bonus opportunity at TRASHionals Syxx in 2003. The team of opponents from Georgia was plainly shocked, and the moderator was unable to proceed until he finished laughing. See also "Dan's Mom".

Zhan Packet Worst. Packet. Ever. Encountered at Ottawa Hybrid 2005, this packet by the Toronto team led by Zhan was filled with hoses (q.v.), bizarre, obscure topics and otherwise terrible writing. A Thelion team ("What Would Brian Boitano Do for a Klondike Bar?") lost to Toronto's other squad on this very packet, scoring over a hundred points below their tournament average; the Toronto team also finished off their mark, but seemed to have the benefit of knowing the limited range of subjects spanned by their other side's writer. According to opposing captain Bobby, Zhan only ever wrote about a few things, so the questions kept getting harder from one packet to the next. Toronto beat WWBBDFAKB by a single game in the tournament standings.

* Terms marked with an asterisk were deemed worthy and salvaged from the now-unavailable University of Kentucky quizbowl lexicon, although they are not in circulation in the Thelion Society.

Last updated November 9th, 2006

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