A few months ago, I caught a snippet of the US gameshow Jeopardy! Contestants are given answers to questions, and they have to figure out the question. Here is the answer a contestant was given.

“Dustin Shuler arranged eight of them on a spike to make a sculpture in 1989”

The question was:

“What is a car?”

That is not how any sane person would answer the question “What is a car?”. It’s very probably the absolute final thing people would say in answer to that question. Better answers include:

• A motorised vehicle with four wheels
• A sinkhole for money
• Not a bike
• Larger than a lion, smaller than a cruise liner
• Blue (if it’s mine)
• Badly driven (if it’s mine)

In fact, rather than being an answer, the supplied answer would work much better as a regular question: “What did Dustin Shuler arranged eight of on a spike to make a sculpture in 1989?”

This angered me, for many insignificant and boring reasons. I have no idea why I’m posting about it months (actually over a year) after the fact. I have no idea why I’m posting about it at all, but it’s out there now, and we all just have to make the best of it.

Good morning.