Last night’s contestant on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader was asked what country England fought against during the Hundred Years’ War.
She eliminated France as a possibility because France doesn’t do too well in wars, and wouldn’t have lasted that long.
She locked in Spain.
Mind you, this was the $500,000 question. She already had $300,000 if she decided to not answer and walk. Answering it wrong dropped her down to only $25,000, thus losing $275,000 for believing the cliché.
Thats great. I missed last nights episode I wish I could have seen that.
She lost a bunch of money but as least ignorance was fought and that is way more important.
Does the glorious military history of France never get taught any more?
History starts sometime in the 1930’s. There wasn’t a great deal of TV and movie cameras before then.
Not when many people think Napoleon is a crazy guy wearing an old-stlye marshal’s uniform while standing around in an asylum.
My wife had the show on, and I just knew there would be a thread about it when I heard the woman (Katy Kat?) say the line about France.
I see why these shows- Smarter, Deal or No deal, and the like- get their player base to be enthusiastic, but not too bright. It makes better TV to lead them to the edge and lose it all, everyone gets to feel better about themselves, in “I can’t believe how stupid they are.”
After preview: Gotta agree there, if it’s not on camera it didn’t happen.
You could easily argue that the Hundred Years War lasted only from 1337 - 1360:
http://www.theotherside.co.uk/tm-heritage/background/100yearswar.htm
As posters have said, centuries later Napoleon had a tremendous record of military victories.
MilliCal IS a fifth grader, and got that one.
And there’s quite a bit more to French military history than Napoleon, with a long history of victories. I think this current meme of “French Surrender Monkeys” is absurd. That people buy into it is outrageous.
It’s ‘Cheese eating surrender monkeys’. And it needs to be said, or at least heard in your minds ear, with a heavy Scottish brogue.
I’m aware of the origin, but it’s not the point, and it ain’t relevant to the discussion, which is why I didn’t say it. Neither is the brogue.
Although I wouldn’t be surprised if a contestant on a French show answered with the metric equivalent of “54 inches” as the average American waistline.
Go to google.
Enter “French military victories”
Hit “I’m feeling lucky.”
I’d be interested to hear from an actual historian on this list.
I beg to be forgiven. Sorry for trying to add a little levity to CS thread. :rolleyes:
Is a lame joke creaated by google-bombing supposed to prove something?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to be snappy.
I give up too easily
What are you? Fr…
I can’t.
Oh, and fwiw, here’s a page found by a googling “French military victories” and not stopping at the Google bomb.
I was watching part of it in between Ugly Betty. What was the question where the answer was lion?
No. It’s just cute.
What animal makes up the body portion of the Great Sphinx in Egypt?
(It was phrased a little differently than that.)
Maybe, I dunno. It is the kind of thing that cost that nice lady so much money, though.
I probably get more annoyed about this than I should, I’m not French and have never been in the military. But sometimes I think about all those brave poilus fighting and dying at Verdun and in so many other hellholes of WWI, and think it’s sad that so few people in the English world seem to care.