tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401280171563686515.post1828184633811384416..comments2024-03-12T12:54:32.926-07:00Comments on Life After Mastermind: Pranks and spoofs and figures of speechLondiniushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07871325359167581176noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401280171563686515.post-70927503813438838692009-12-05T05:42:11.494-08:002009-12-05T05:42:11.494-08:00Hi, and welcome to LAM. Thanks for your thoughtful...Hi, and welcome to LAM. Thanks for your thoughtful post. Yes, I agree about fingers on buzzers. <br /><br />Oh, I wish I'd thought to include that reference from Fawlty Towers when I wrote the post ! It brings to mind one of my teachers when I was a lad - no names, no pack drill - who had a marked fondness for ridiculing wrong answers with something like - Thank you Professor Clark , specialist subject - coming up with stupid answers to easy questions - . Charming fellow.Londiniushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07871325359167581176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401280171563686515.post-2360726490785272982009-12-05T05:25:59.305-08:002009-12-05T05:25:59.305-08:00I thoroughly agree with you about the Morecambe an...I thoroughly agree with you about the Morecambe and Wise sketch: the premise was strong, but the whole thing just looks cheap and feels predictable. Excellent post, anyway.<br /><br />As for phrases that have entered the collective idiom from quiz shows, I share your understanding about "pass". I believe that, in addition to "starter for ten", <i>University Challenge</i> also gave us "fingers on the buzzers"; if you go to the National Media Museum in Bradford, you can watch a very early episode of the show - the third of the first series, I think - in which you see that Bamber did indeed need to remind contestants to use these newfangled noise-making devices.<br /><br />Otherwise, I would also attribute the use of "specialist subject" (particularly the specialist subject The Bleeding Obvious) to <i>Mastermind</i>, and perhaps even the popularisation of the construction "X down, Y to go" (where X+Y=15 in the original context) to a certain Mr William G Stewart.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com