The pronunciation of 'Arkansas' was made official by state legislature in 1881

The team name: Cochon Damned

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor

The ones that got away
1) Logophobia is an irrational fear of what?
2) What are the three main ingredients of a Tequilla Sunrise, as specified by the International Bartenders Association?
3) What are the first names of the two Aprile brothers in The Sopranos?
4) Which actor plays a blind man in the 1989 comedy See No Evil, Hear No Evil?
5) What is the surname of Judge Judy?
6) In which New York borough is Yankee Stadium?
7) What type of fruit is an Arkansas Black?
8) According to the UN World Population Prospects 2010 report, which country has the greatest life expectancy at birth?

The answers

1) Words (although see excuses below)
2) Tequilla, orange juice and Grenadine
3) Jackie and Richie
4) Richard Pryor
5) Sheindlin
6) The Bronx
7) Apple
8) Japan

Poll results: 34 votes with the average voter scoring exactly 2.5/8!

The excuses

1) (I'll resist a rant about the quizzing cancer that is '-phobia' questions, although this incredibly was the third such question of the night.) We immediately put 'words' (obviously) and then thought "well a fear of words doesn't make sense, what about speaking?". For a while our answer was then 'words/speaking' but we were worried we'd not get away with such hedging so eventually opted for the latter. A quick google suggests speaking is a pretty legitimate answer anyway, as if further evidence were needed that definition questions should never, ever, be on a quiz.
2) This question should really be 'can you name the ingredient that isn't tequilla or orange juice?'. We couldn't, instead opting for Grand Marnier.
3) The one thing I know about The Sopranos is that there's a guy called Tony Soprano in it, which was of admittedly limited use here.
4) Unusually for a film question, the doctor was completely lost and it fell on me to drag up a distant memory of a terrible film about a blind guy and a deaf guy. I could only get as far as remembering that the blind guy was black and the deaf guy was white, and so based on the year we went the wrong way on a toss-up between the correct answer and Eddie Murphy.
5) We knew we knew this, but just couldn't find it.
6) Obviously we know our New York boroughs so knew we had a one in five shot, but having ruled out Manhattan and Staten Island we still missed with Queens. Had we known one of the Yankees' nicknames is 'The Bronx Bombers' we might have fared better.
7) Much like phobias, the 'what type of fruit' questions are also always awful. Usually the answer (and so the percentage play) is apple, but 'black' made us think pear.
8) My instinct was Japan, but the doctor reckoned "they all have strokes because of stress". I didn't particularly buy this, but since Japan had already been an answer to another question of the quiz we went with that old 'country of the world' staple of Sweden. Meanwhile, the latest World Health Organisation estimates put Monaco top.

The alternative questions
1) An open letter in the Daily Telegraph last week sparked ridicule after (incorrectly) claiming that which word does not 'exist' because its first half has a Latin root while the second half has a Greek one?
2) Which English rock band's biggest hit came in 1999 with a song about tequilla? Its lyrics include "Tequilla, it makes me happy, con tequilla, it feels fine".
3) In music, the initialism SATB is used to refer to four major voice types. The S stands for 'soprano', what are the other three?
4) In which 1998 Disney film did Eddie Murphy voice a Chinese dragon named Mushu?
5) Name either of the two comedians who wrote and starred in the late 90s BBC2 comedy This Morning With Richard Not Judy.
6) Named after the title applied to Major League Baseball's chief executive, what trophy is awarded to the annual winners of the sport's World Series?
7) Which appropriately-chosen scientist lends his name to the first personal digital assistant developed by electronics giant Apple?
8) Give the three four letter words, all anagrams of each other, which can mean (i) the Japanese parliament; (ii) to make an alteration; and (iii) the rise and fall of sea level.

The answers

1) Homophobic/homophobia
2) Terrorvision
3) Alto, Tenor, Bass
4) Mulan
5) Stewart Lee and Richard Herring
6) Commissioner's Trophy
7) Newton
8) Diet, edit, tide

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