These 38 brilliant examples of pedantic quiz arguments were anything but pointless

20.

I had a quiz master refuse to accept that Usain Bolt didn’t win Olympic gold in JAVELIN once. I shit you not. Apparently he had to accept what was on the card. Javelin. I nearly trashed the place. We came second.

— christhebarker (@christhebarker) September 22, 2018

21.

Quizmaster: what do Eddie Redmayne, Dominic West and Benedict Cumberbatch have in common?
Our team: It’s a trick question, people will say they all went to Eton, but Cumberbatch went to Harrow. Let’s say they all went to public school.
Quizmaster: They all went to Eton….

— Louise #immodestprof (@LLocock) September 22, 2018

22.

QM: Who lives at 221b Baker Street?
Everyone: Sherlock Holmes!
QM: Wrong – nobody does because 221b Baker Street doesn’t exist.

Cue bedlam and shouting between the Quizmaster and 60 angry students. The quiz ended prematurely. Nobody won. We all lost.

— Benjamin Longthorne (@BenLongthorne) September 22, 2018

23.

Incredible. Knobhead.

Mine:
QM: What’s the flag? (🇷🇴)
Me: Romania, or Chad.
QM: Everyone who put Romania, correct. You, you’re wrong.
Me: They’re identical flags.
QM: Different shade of yellow. Nobody else is trying to be a smart arse.

Quiz also ended prematurely. Nobody won.

— Connor Wray (@ConnorCliveWray) September 23, 2018

24.

In Australia, a pub quiz question was: “Who played Darth Vader in the film Star Wars”. I shouted “voice or body?” to bemused stares, and was docked a half point for writing both James Earl Jones and David Prowse on the answer sheet. Lost my shit…

— Guy Buckland (@buckybantam) September 23, 2018

25.

Q – Name the fastest mammal
Me – Free tailed bat
Q – Wrong. It is a cheetah
Me – That is the fastest land mammal
Q – We said mammals, bats are birds

Severe facepalms all round

— SomersetChris (@somersetchris) September 22, 2018

26.

Had a full blown row, which ended with my former Head of HR (the Quizmaster) loudly telling a colleague to ‘fuck off’ when their question of “Which constituency is Nigel Farage MP for?” had an actual answer of “Thanet”. Unbelievable scenes. I still haven’t let go.

— JMN (@So_Very_Tired) September 23, 2018

27.

It was the stock question of the last battle on British soil, to which the stock answer is Culloden. Our team argued for Wireless Ridge, on the Falklands. The quizmaster – Jeremy Beadle, no less – gave us the point.

— Andrew Mueller (@andrew_mueller) September 23, 2018

28.

QM: What is the most drunk drink in the world?
ME: Water.
QM: I’m afraid it’s coffee, but I would also have accepted Cola Cola.
ME: But it’s water. Obviously it’s water.
QM: You’re not thinking it through. This includes cappuccino, americano, etc.
ME: Yep.

— Ollie Horn (@olliehorntweets) September 23, 2018

29.

QM “Which Egyptian pharaoh was buried in the Great Pyramid?”
Us: “Khufu”
QM: “Sorry, its Cheops”
Us: “Cheops is the greek version of Khufu, so its the same person”.
QM: ”
sorry, according to the answer in the book, its Cheops”
Us: “we’re archaeologists”
QM “huh?”

— Chris Down (@PlingetheElder) September 23, 2018

30.

It was about 1994. Quizmaster claimed the UK’s biggest-selling single of all time was Bryan Adams’ Everything I Do, I told him it was Band Aid. Impasse. In the week I phoned Gallup, got them to fax me the list and took it to the next quiz.

— Matthew Horton (@matthewjh) September 22, 2018

31.

I had an argument with a quizmaster who insisted an answer was ‘Kim Jong the Second’ because he’d read ‘Kim Jong-il’ as ‘Kim Jong Il’.

— Martin Donnelly (@PollokFan) September 22, 2018

32.

That the t-rex was the largest of the ‘man-eating’ dinosaurs 😂

— Johnny Holmes (@johnnywholmes) September 23, 2018

33.

Q: Which country is furthest from any sea or ocean?
A: China. Yes, the China with the massive long coastline.

— Simon Edmond (@Tuckineddy) September 22, 2018

34.

“What is the largest organ in the human body ?” Was the question. The answer was The Skin. I said it was the liver ….to make “the Skin” correct the Q should have been “What is the body’s largest organ”. Divided opinion in the pub 😏

— Giles Dilnot (@reporterboy) September 23, 2018

35.

Q: What were the occupations of Burke & Hare?
A: They were grave-robbers.
Wife: No they weren’t, they worked on the canals. Grave-robbing isn’t an occupation. Also, they didn’t actually rob graves, it’s a myth.
Outcome: Everyone got a point. FFS

— Neil WS (@sharmadelica) September 22, 2018

36.

Picture round: name the building.

Naturally I wrote the Parthenon. They would only accept the Acropolis. I explained that the Acropolis is the citadel, not the building. Nope. They refused to look it up. pic.twitter.com/R7a7J7gosb

— Maria Power (@mariapower) September 23, 2018

37.

“In heraldry – how is the left-hand side of a shield described” – I asked for clarification, based on his description answered ‘Dexter’ and damn near burned the pub down when he would only accept ‘Sinister’.

— David Goodsell (@dgoodsell1) September 23, 2018

38.

https://twitter.com/contestedground/status/1043896249248882694

This one proved that it isn’t only provincial pub quizzes that can suffer from this scourge.

I was on University Challenge, was asked which Greek hero performed twelve labours. “Heracles”. Paxman: “wrong, Hercules”. Me: “you said Greek, Hercules is the Latin name”. Deferred to producer. I was given the point but they re-shot the question because Paxman is always right…

— Mike Prior-Jones 🏳️‍🌈 (@mrpj100) September 23, 2018

Finally, a quizmaster might have given away the reason for some of these apparent mistakes – they’re baiting pedants.

As a former pub quizmaster, I would regularly ensure there were questions to which the answer was “The Doctor from Doctor Who” and accept “Doctor Who” as the answer to annoy one particular team.

— Conor Pope (@Conorpope) September 23, 2018

You were right, David. It was a megathread.