Swing states in the US are also known as 'purple states'

Your targets this week:

1+ out of 8: Well done, you beat us!
2+ out of 8: We'd have won with you on our team!

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The secret German
4) The metallurgist
5) The rich-person otherkin

The ones that got away
1) The game Jenga takes its name from the Swahili word for what?
2) Which of these is not a real type of owl? Barking; Elf; Pole; Laughing; Powerful.
3) Which actress, who received her first Oscar nomination for her role in Rachel Getting Married, recently(ish) announced her pregnancy?
4) Which 2-word phrase, a metaphor for the early Internet, was designated the US Dialect Society's 'Word of the Year' in 1993?
5) What was the US Dialect Society's Word of the 20th Century? Hint: it contains 2 'z's.
6) The words 'cyber', 'e-', 'millennium bug', and 'web' were all US Dialect Society Words of the Year in the 1990s. Which was Word of the Year earliest?
7) ...and which was Word of the Year latest?
8) The words 'app', 'bailout', 'subprime', and 'tweet' were all US Dialect Society Words of the Year in the 2000s. Which was Word of the Year earliest?

The answers

1) Build (if you had something similar it's up to you if you think it's 'close enough')
2) Pole
3) Anne Hathaway
4) Information superhighway
5) Jazz
6) Cyber (in 1994)
7) e- (in 1998)
8) Subprime (in 2007)

My excuses

1) One of those questions where you wonder how you've never heard it before. Our discussions went nowhere near the correct answer, instead settling on 'wood'.
2) We misheard 'pole' as 'hole', but it wouldn't have made much difference. We went with 'barking' as it seemed very similar to 'laughing', but much less silly.
3) Haha. So far beyond our wheelhouse that we can't see the boat any more. (I had to actually google what a wheelhouse was, so that's something.) The other half of our team were at least familiar with the movie, but we couldn't get much further than "name an actress who is maybe sort of young but not that young???", which my notes tell me gave us someone called 'Rooney Mara'.
4) Pretty sad to miss this one, as I really enjoy phrases like this (the movie Hackers is easily in my top 5 of all time). We came up with 'dial up', which at least seemed pretty plausible.
5) Someone immediately said jazz, which struck me as an ok idea but hardly screamed 'word of the century'. Then someone said pizza, which the doctor thought was a great idea (I think because he likes pizza).
6-7) With so little separating the options (cyber, web, millennium bug, e- were from 1994, '95, '97 and '98, respectively) this was always going to be tough. We were one year out with both, picking web for earliest and millennium bug for the latest.
8) Subprime, bailout, tweet, app span the years 2007-2010, so another tough set, although our guess of tweet was the second-worst available for this one.

How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 point or more)? Would you have helped us win (2 points or more)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


My alternative questions

Question 2

1) The Disney character 'Simba' takes his name from the Swahili word for what?
2) In comics, the Court of Owls is an organized crime group - specializing in the kidnap of child circus performers - based in which fictional city?
3) Like many quizzers, I only really know about Anne Hathaway (the actress) because of questions about Anne Hathaway (the wife of William Shakespeare). With that in mind, the stage name of which actress, known for her roles in Live and Let Die and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, is shared with that of the third wife of another famous 16th Century figure?
4) What 8-letter, German-inspired alternative to 'information superhighway' was coined around the same time?

Question 7

5) Commonly encountered in jazz, what colour describes a note that is sung or played at a slightly different pitch than standard?
6) Word of the Year questions are fun, so here's another. What puzzle was Oxford Dictionaries UK Word of the Year in 2005?
7) Earlier this year, the Royal Mail produced a stamp set to celebrate British innovations. What invention does this (slightly censored) stamp commemorate?
8) Let's pretend that the word 'subprime' means 'whole numbers that are equal to a prime number minus 1'. So for example, since 17 is prime, 16 is 'subprime'. Defined this way, how many subprimes are also prime?

The answers

1) Lion (of The Lion King fame)
2) Gotham City
3) Jane Seymour
4) Infobahn
5) Blue
6) Sudoku
7) Cat's eyes
8) 1 (as every prime number except 2 is odd, every subprime except for 1 must be even, so 2 is the only prime subprime)

How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!

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