Pyramid Judging

[Casey]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'181912\' date=\'Mar 19 2008, 11:03 AM\']
"Red light" is something that stops and "traffic" is something that stops, so I would err on the side of yellow light and allow the list.
[/quote]
But to be accurate, a "red light" doesn't stop, it causes something to stop.  Going further, would "red lighted traffic" be allowed?  It makes more sense than "red light traffic".

[Unrealtor]

[quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'181899\' date=\'Mar 19 2008, 10:25 AM\']
Frankly, isn't "a braking car" a perfectly legal, and arguably better, clue?
[/quote]

Not IMO. "Braking" is pretty synonymous with "stopping," in the context of a car.

[TimK2003]

[quote name=\'adamkendall\' post=\'181872\' date=\'Mar 19 2008, 01:12 AM\']
There is also no such thing as red-light traffic, or is there?
[/quote]


Depends on which prostitute you ask!

[TLEberle]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'181888\' date=\'Mar 19 2008, 05:39 AM\']'Red Light Traffic' is clearly a way of trying to get around 'Traffic at a red light', which of course is not allowed.[/quote]which is an interesting point. From what I can see from the rules, this is illegal because it's illegal. It doesn't give anything away from the clue that I can tell. I've never understood why the rules are so, only noticing what you do, that liberties with the language and sentence construction have been taken to work around the rules.

[pyrfan]

[quote name=\'Unrealtor\' post=\'181967\' date=\'Mar 19 2008, 08:16 PM\']
[quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'181899\' date=\'Mar 19 2008, 10:25 AM\']
Frankly, isn't "a braking car" a perfectly legal, and arguably better, clue?
[/quote]

Not IMO. "Braking" is pretty synonymous with "stopping," in the context of a car.
[/quote]
Not necessarily. You could be tapping the brakes to just slow the car down, not to stop it entirely.


Brendan

[Jay Temple]

If the category were PEOPLE WHO DIE BEFORE THE NEXT COMMERCIAL, I would see no problem with "red shirt ensigns." Neither do I see a problem with "red light traffic."

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Jay Temple\' post=\'181986\' date=\'Mar 19 2008, 08:26 PM\']
If the category were PEOPLE WHO DIE BEFORE THE NEXT COMMERCIAL, I would see no problem with "red shirt ensigns."[/quote]
I discovered yesterday that there is an Achievement in the Xbox 360 version of Star Trek: Legacy if you get the guy in the red shirt killed during a mission.

I lol'd.

[Robert Hutchinson]

I think that you have to have a line past which you won't allow contrived phrasings . . . but that line can't really be defined to satisfy everyone. Given the need to make a decision in the span of 2 seconds, I'd let it through.

I do, however, think that "the Hall of Fame books" and "Walt Disney dog" are safer, since they can both be read to be "hiding" the preposition "of", which is one that occasionally got by (in the '80s) even when it was said outright. "Red light traffic" is hiding an "at" (or a "near" or an "around"), which is more descriptive.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' post=\'181989\' date=\'Mar 20 2008, 12:17 AM\']
I do, however, think that "the Hall of Fame books" and "Walt Disney dog" are safer, since they can both be read to be "hiding" the preposition "of", which is one that occasionally got by (in the '80s) even when it was said outright. "Red light traffic" is hiding an "at" (or a "near" or an "around"), which is more descriptive.
[/quote]
My issue is more a matter of grammatical correctness, really. Which I suppose "the Hall of Fame books" is (although, really, "books?" "Members," maybe), but if you're going to ding "Red-light traffic" for not being "Red-lit traffic" (which I think we all agree would be fine), then you have to ding the Disney clue for not being possessive, too.

/I guess if you're thinking about the Publisher's Hall of Fame, then, sure, books

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'181980\' date=\'Mar 19 2008, 10:50 PM\']From what I can see from the rules, this is illegal because it's illegal. It doesn't give anything away from the clue that I can tell. I've never understood why the rules are so, only noticing what you do, that liberties with the language and sentence construction have been taken to work around the rules.[/quote]
It's one of those things that became codified as the show ran on.  Somebody realized that 'a prepositional phrase' was something that could be easily defined, and recognized in a split second, so by making them illegal it made the judging more consistant.  It's a lot like Jeopardy's Final Jeopardy rule that it's OK to misspell a word unless the misspelling changes the pronunciation.  That wasn't a real rule originally, but they were taking certain misspelled words and not taking other ones, so they ultimately felt they had to have a standard.

[Neumms]

[quote name=\'Unrealtor\' post=\'181967\' date=\'Mar 19 2008, 07:16 PM\']
[quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'181899\' date=\'Mar 19 2008, 10:25 AM\']
Frankly, isn't "a braking car" a perfectly legal, and arguably better, clue?
[/quote]

Not IMO. "Braking" is pretty synonymous with "stopping," in the context of a car.
[/quote]


If synonyms were against the rules, I think "red-light car" should be buzzed because red-light means nothing in this case other than stopped. Same with braking or braked car. With red-shirted ensigns, there are other meanings that could be drawn (he's in engineering, for example) besides dead-before-the-commercial.

Did anyone notice a change over the years, especially during Donnymid, from the contestant figuring out the link between the giver's list of things to the one killer clue that answered it by itself.

And what was Hall-of-Fame books a clue to?

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'182011\' date=\'Mar 20 2008, 12:12 PM\']If synonyms were against the rules, I think "red-light car" should be buzzed because red-light means nothing in this case other than stopped. Same with braking or braked car. [/quote]
This is the problem of judging. 'Braking' is a synonym for 'stopping', while though everybody knows what you're supposed to to at a red light, 'a red light' and 'stopping' are not synonyms.

Also, remember we've been discussing this for days.  The judge has to decide in that instant.  Maybe he went home that night and thought to himself that he shouldn't have accepted that clue.  It's definitely a subjective call.

[Neumms]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'182012\' date=\'Mar 20 2008, 11:20 AM\']
The judge has to decide in that instant.  Maybe he went home that night and thought to himself that he shouldn't have accepted that clue.  It's definitely a subjective call.
[/quote]

True, true. Does anyone know if Pyramid had run-throughs to uncover possible thorny issues ahead of time? Not that this would be infallible, of course. Rayburn referred to Match Game having meetings at which potential answers were discussed and Mandel was invited to some on the 90s version, I recall.

[dale_grass]

[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'182011\' date=\'Mar 20 2008, 11:12 AM\']
If synonyms were against the rules, I think "red-light car" should be buzzed because red-light means nothing in this case other than stopped.
[/quote]

Well, it coulda been in reference to a car full of hookers.

\Think "Ford Focus" with a vowel replaced.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'182011\' date=\'Mar 20 2008, 09:12 AM\']
And what was Hall-of-Fame books a clue to?[/quote]
"Things That Are Enshrined." It's the clue that won Keif Ferrendini $100,000.