One of the banes of the QM's life, the subject Know All

If you’ve ever compiled a quiz on a regular or even a semi-regular basis then I bet you’ll have had to deal with the subject know-all before. And yes, I have to put my hand up and say that I’ve been one myself on far too many occasions. But at least I try to restrain myself nowadays. Not very successfully, I admit, but I try. In case you’re in any doubt what this might mean, a subject know-all is the kind of person who has their specialist area of knowledge  - let’s say Science – and feels that they have some sort of proprietary ownership of the subject. They feel that they know a lot more about it than the QM and look for any opportunity to flaunt that knowledge by pointing out QM’s mistakes.

Jess was question master on Thursday and she had to deal with a subject know-all. No, it wasn’t me this time. Jess asked which letter does not appear in the name of any element in the periodic table. Now, you may have read over the last couple of years posts I have made about a member of one of the teams who is very, very into his Science. He tends to be QM for one quiz a year and the vast majority of questions in both of his quizzes to date have been on Science. The problem with which is that he is the only person in any of the teams who has this consuming interest in it. With the result that neither of his quizzes was exactly well received in the club. I have to be honest, especially in his second quiz I found that the message that came across from the questions he set and the things he said about them was – I know so much more that you do, you’re all ignorant and I don’t care that you’re not interested in nuclear physics, I am, so tough! Well, it was this, for want of a better word, this cock, who made the point that q does not currently appear in the name of any element either.

It’s not so much that he made the point, it’s the way and time he did it. He waited until Jess was giving the answers, then shouted it out so as to try to cause her maximum embarrassment. He could quite easily have gone up to Jess before the answers and clarified matters then. So you can only imagine my pride when she, in the politest way, gave him both barrels, explaining how q has been used in placeholder names and will be used again for any new elements. Me? I’d have added ‘I’m surprised you didn’t know that!’ especially considering that I’m sure he did know it. Jess was able to do this because she’d put in the hard work into preparing her quiz – some thing which this bumptious arse and several others of our setters in the quiz would do well to take on board when making their own quizzes. I’d say that she’s a chip off the old block, but then I don’t do polite anything like as well as Jess does.