Old Vocabulary List

NOTE: this is the lexicon prior to 2008.
NOTE: the following section does not reflect the opinions of some members of the UCLA College Bowl club, particularly those of Ray Luo. See also the Cal Berkeley lexicon.

25-SECOND RULE (n.)
1. Club member Steve Kaplan's rule that a passenger must alert the driver 25 seconds before he can no longer hold it in.

ANTICLIMAX! (interj.)
1. Our unofficial battle cry before big games in which we are favored to win.
2. Any such rallying cry preceding a game marked by terms opposite to those connoted by the cheer.

AQUITAINE (n.)
1. A province of France whose acquisition provided the impetus for Eleanor of Aquitaine's marriage to Louis VII and Henry II, kings of France and England.
2. Anything gained from any sort of inter-club quiz bowl relationship in terms of power or financial considerations, sometimes despite the sanity of the player seeking to acquire Aquitaine.

ASS (adj., n., v., adv.)
1. As termed by Cal Berkeley, it designates especially egregious questions.
2. A term overloaded into life outside of quiz bowl to mean anything crappy, and generally used in any tense in any grammatical form, e.g. saying "that's ass" instead of "that sucks," and "I think I just assed it" for "I just f***ed up," and "another question on explorers, that's ass-erific!"

BIG IRISH (n.)
1. An enormous hamburger vanquished by Erik Nielsen at Bennigan's, despite a lackluster performance at ICT New Orleans. Generally, refers to any great culinary accomplishment made in spite of mediocre performance at any tournament.

BITHEISM (n.)
1. The act of worshipping two, and only two, gods.
2. The ostensible religion of Charles Meigs, who has repeatedly declared, "Oh, God! Ah, Snap!"

BUZZER IMPERSONATION (n.)
1. The act of making a sound similar or identical to that made by a buzzer system, especially a system one's team is playing on.
2. A practice nearly perfected by club member Dwight Wynne with Zeecraft buzzer systems.
3. A clock-killing strategy that has yet to be tested in an actual match situation, by which a team member impersonates the sound of the opposing team buzzing in, leading to general confusion among the game officials and the opposing team.

CAL-TRANS, GETTING STUCK ON (v. phr.)
1. When one disappears for quizbowl for a period of at least one month. A Berkeley club member once missed two months of quizbowl practice due to a harrowing two-month-long thirty-mile journey on CalTrans from Palo Alto to Walnut Creek.

CLUBBING (v. phr.)
1. A deformity of the fingernails.
2. A more-or-less healthy activity undertaken primarily by image-conscious, post-pubertal, socially extravagant, alcohol-seeking undergraduates.
3. The act of humiliating baby seals at a novice tournament.
4. A method of quizbowl membership recruitment whereby members of the club scatter into various other school organizations acting like they want to join the other clubs. After they infiltrate the other clubs, they attempt to meet numerous random friends and show genuine interest before spreading the gospel and disease of quizbowl, attempting to snatch them away for quizbowl.
5. A method contemplated by one UCLA college bowl member to use on the UCLA Astrobio Society and UCLA Undergraduate English Society in order to shore up the club's knowledge in astronomy and literature.
6. Also called (invasive) body-snatching by Cliff Galiher.

CONDENSATION (n.)
1. A reaction in chemistry involving the release of a water molecule.
2. A change in phase, such as gas to liquid, or liquid to solid.
3. An alternative name for the particle filter algorithm.
4. Controlling the length of questions by removing contentless, conversational words such as "the," "a," and "would," converting a grammatical sentence into an ungrammatical sentence for the sake of increasing clue density.

CONDENSATION TRANSFORM (n.)
1. A data compression algorithm for converting entire packets into shorter, more compact condensates. It is asymptotically lossless, but may induce the moderator to read modified Caprivian style. (see: Cal Berkeley lexicon)

CONDUCT VIOLATION (n.)
1. Any instinctive move thought by CBI officials to constitute conferring, also known as a conduct warning. At CBI Regionals 2004, UCLA players were warned for the following conduct violations:
  a. Making random hand motions.
  b. Holding up one's buzzer.
  c. Looking in teammates' general direction.

CURRENTLY UNDERWAY (adj.)
1. Hopefully not underway.
2. Referring to a match, occurring while neither participating team is present. The original match of this description pitted Stanford and UCLA in the finals of CBI Regionals 2004; when the finals were "currently underway," both teams were eating dinner and listening to a speech stating that the finals were "currently underway."

DEIFIED (adj.)
1. Having assumed the powers of the announcer in a game of Mafia, thus being omniscient and omnipresent regarding the game.
2. A description Berkeley quizbowler Jon Pennington took way too seriously in a game of Mafia involving players from both the UCLA and Berkeley Quiz Bowl clubs.
3. A pretty cool-looking palindrome.

DINNER ROCK (n.)
1. Any person who does not perform in eating challenges, usually involving breadsticks, and thus spoils team unity and the challenge. Inspired by Jason Mueller.
2. Dwight Wynne, usually.

DRIVING IN HYPERSPACE (v. phr.)
1. The ability of Berkeley quiz bowl player Jon Pennington to access other dimensions while driving a vehicle, thus allowing him to accomplish an impressive feat in which he drove through Tulsa, Memphis, and New Jersey on the way from the 2004 ICT to our hotel in suburban Saint Louis, a journey of no less than 2900 miles, in no more than an hour. Coined by David Farris.

FARRIS POINTS (n. pl.)
1. Points awarded solely due to the opposing team providing your team with the answer through sheer inattention, often bonus points accrued by the other team mistakenly thinking it's their bonus. Named after David Farris, who provided the UCLA team with 20 additional points at BLaST II when on two separate occasions in the same game he gave them the answer to bonus parts they didn't know.
2. The reason why some UCLA quizbowlers exclaim "Thank you, David Farris" upon getting points they don't deserve.

FLOATING CAPTAIN (n.)
1. According to CBI officials, any captain on a team which features more than one captain at a tournament.
2. A captain of any UCLA team where this strategy is used, a frequent occurrence on UCLA teams, especially the 2003 Technophobia tournament where no less than four captains were used.

FLOODING (n.)
1. The act of a tremendous amount of water accumulating in one location, which at some point on any quiz bowl trip will be caused by Charles Meigs.
2. The soaking of garments one left on the floor, resulting from an overflowing used toilet, while one is watching; this happened to Charles at CBI Nationals 2003.
3. The soaking of one's garments resulting from an overly aggressive sink; this also frequently happens to Charles.

HAND-ME-UPS (n. p.)
1. Any articles of clothing acquired by virtue of being too big for the original owner to wear.
2. Two identical large shirts given from Charles Meigs to teammate Steve Kaplan at CBI Regionals 2004.

HOSE BOWL (n.)
1. Any unedited packet, typically used in guerilla bowls (see Caltech's lexicon) in which every tossup is designed to have an answer other than the one the question is obviously going for. These can be particularly annoying when read by members of the packet-writing team who seem to take joy in the massive amount of negs compiled by both teams.

I-5 ROMANCE (n.)
1. Any romance involving two or more people separated by various stretches of Interstate 5, that when referred to in quiz bowl terms, usually reflects an attempt to acquire Aquitaine. (see: AQUITAINE)

I HEARD A FLY DIE WHEN I BUZZED (n. phr.)
1. A famous poem by Emily Dickinson.
2. What happened when Ray Luo killed an insect upon negging on a biology question during practice.
3. A feat also accomplished by battery-operated fly-swatters.

INDIAN RULE (n.)
1. The empirical observation that quiz bowl players who grew up in India, or is a child of parents who grew up in India, or who have otherwise some blood ties to India are more likely to get questions on India geography, mythology, religion, history, and literature, regardless of their prowess or amount of experience in quiz bowl, due to their lack of reluctance to buzz in on anything remotely related to their ancestors.
2. The empirical observation that Chinese quiz bowl players are all over the Chinese history, literature, mythology, and classical music questions, and similarly, that Jewish quiz bowl players are all over the Jewish religion, history, and literature questions, etc, for players of each ethnicity and culture.
3. A phenomenon attributed either to the fact that players of a certain ethnicity or culture know more about that culture, or, more likely, that players of a certain ethnicity or culture feel more compelled to buzz in on questions about that culture.
4. A rule that also expands to the observation that Indian players love writing about Indian history, religion, mythology, etc, and Chinese players love writing about Chinese history, literature, philosophy, etc.

KETTLEMAN CITY (n.)
1. A city at the intersection of the I-5 and CA-41 Freeways, which Dwight Wynne has been to at least n times, a fact he constantly reminds us of on every trip n increases. Currently, n is eight.

KIMCHI-STYLE (adj.)
1. A quiz bowl hygenical strategy in which one goes without showering for a period of several days before a tournament, so as to let a player soak in his own juices, but in which that player showers the night before the tournament so as not to be obnoxious. Coined by Charles Meigs after the 2004 ICT, at which a 3000 mile train trip forced him into this behavior.

KOHAN (adj., n., v., adv.)
1. (see: ASS)

KOHAN INDEX (n.)
1. A measure of quiz bowl performance calculated as 10 times the number of tossups you get minus 15 times the number of negs you accrue, to recognize the fact that most negged tossups get picked up by the other team, and that basically, negging is Kohan.
2. A metric separating Seth Teitler and Selene Koo's prowess from those of the rest of the QB community.

KOHAN LINE (n.)
1. The Mendoza Line of Quiz Bowl, equivalent to a tossup-to-interrupt ratio of 1:1. Named for Martin Kohan of Berkeley Quiz Bowl, who opened 2004 NAQT Sectionals with 6 straight games at or below the line.

LANSING, MICHIGAN (n.)
1. A mythical place beyond which a socially awkward, mama's boy quizbowler with little experience of leaving his own home, feels awkward and out of sorts due to being too far from their parents or the life-giving energy of Matt Weiner's enormous head. Coined by Charles Meigs.

LEE HENRY (adj.)
1. With the succeeding term "Quiz Bowl," any quiz bowl format in which no teams are allowed to win for the sake of damaged feelings, with every team attending having won the tournament simply on account of their entry fee.
2. With the succeeding term "championship," a term which teams doing poorly can use euphemistically to describe their performance, e.g., "We may be 0-11, but we're still gunning for the Lee Henry championship!"

LETTER OF MARQUE AND REPRISAL (n.)
1. A warrant issued by a sovereign entity against an offending person, nation-state, or other political entity allowing members of the first sovereign entity to seize all possessions belonging to the latter.
2. When used in UCLA College Bowl, a declaration, equivalent to a fatwa, against any offending college bowl club or member, with the same rights being granted to us as indicated in the first definition.

LIT (adj.)
1. Under the influence of drugs, especially marijuana.
2. Appearing to be under the influence of drugs, as judged by Billy, a Burger King employee in Davis.
3. Evidently, what Dwight Wynne looks like he is at 11:15 at night after a day of travel and Quiz Bowl.

MARTIN TERRITORY (n.)
1. Where one is if one has ten or more correctly answered tossups but is within five negs of the Kohan Line. (see: KOHAN LINE)

MEADOW (n.)
1. A grassy field usually employed for producing hay.
2. An item that cannot be simulated by the sensable.com's Phantom haptic virtual reality system, not that anyone would want to simulate it.
3. An object that the human brain cannot easily mistake for a plastic cup.
4. A topic of conversation nudged upon Ray Luo during a lifeless tournament by Steve Kaplan, and possibly the latter's idea of neuroscience research.
5. An answer that, as far as Ray knows, has never come up in a tossup.

MEIGS CONJECTURE (.n)
1. The hypothesis that a certain male quiz bowler in northern California has the ability to squeeze coffee out of his right breast. (see: SHAPIRO-TURETZKY-LUO COROLLARY)
2. A statement that, like the P != NP problem, is generally considered to be true though it has yet to be proven.

MICHAELIS-MENTEN (.n)
1. Reciprocal of the Lineweaver-Burk equation.
2. One of the M&Ms in quizbowl that is not Michelson-Morley.
3. The answer to every question that contains the words "enzyme" and "kinetics" given in any order separated by however many fillers.
4. Proof that women should be doing science, ..., and quizbowl, just ask Maud Menten.
5. The answer to an utterance by scientist Paul Lujan at ACF regionals: "When I hear buffer, I say, ..., wait a minute, what do I say?" after which nonscientist Juliana, the voice of reason, surmised (after some needed convincing) that the answer is Henderson-Hasselbalch.
6. An entity once mistakened for Kaluza-Klein.

NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY (n.)
1. The act of photographing dramatic Central Valley landscapes on a quiz bowl road trip while a teammate vomits on other parts of said landscape; especially regarding an instance while going to the 2003 Buzzerfest Mirror when Charles Meigs got sick after some bad Carl's Jr. and saw his then Caltech teammates exit the car and take pictures of various unexciting hills and brush.

OBELISK PAIN (n.)
1. A nagging pain in one's legs, back, and bottom, such that one cannot sit down without experiencing pain. The original of this name, happening to Steve Kaplan, was caused by climbing a staircase inside a 102 foot tall obelisk.

PAPER TOWEL GAME, THE (n.)
1. A diversion, popularized by a certain West Coast quizbowler, in which, after washing one's hands, one takes several paper towels in quick succession to dry their hands with, making certain to only dry off as much as the act of quickly grabbing a towel will allow. The object is to use as many paper towels in this fashion as is possible; the game ends once no moisture transfers to a paper towel. The current American record is five.

PILLOW-BEATDOWN MAFIA (n.)
1. A game, played at the 2004 ICT, in which the pseudo-intellectual fun of the popular game Mafia is combined with the teenage girl slumber party whimsy of a pillow fight, with the following rules:
  a. Any person lynched by the townspeople is subjected to a twenty-second pillow beating, with the ability to defend him/herself by the remaining players.
  b. Any person killed by the Mafia is subjected to a ten-second beating without defense.
  c. In the event of a Mafia victory, the person deemed "God" is subjected to a ten second beating by the disgruntled dead townspeople.
2. A game in which the strategy of Mafia, in which it is advantageous for the townspeople to lynch Mafia, becomes mixed with bloodlust, as players will lynch any person who they want to beat with pillows regardless of any suspicions.

QUIZ BOWL: EXILE ISLAND (n.)
1. A new singles format named by Charles Meigs and invented by Dwight Wynne, rather loosely based on the television show Survivor. "Tribes" compete for individual and tribal immunity; alliances are formed and broken; and at tribal councils occurring after every round, one player is voted to Exile Island and must complete a certain arbitrary task the next round to stay in the game and eliminate another person.

ROLL CALL (n.)
1. The act of making sure that all CBI name cards are present, accounted for, and placed near the correct buzzer. This is typically done by having the captain yell out the name on the name cards, and the player to whom it corresponds answering "here," or equivalent answer, hence the name.

SATELLITE CAMPUS (n.)
1. The hopeful end result of acquiring Aquitaine, in which several members of another club are working in the UCLA college bowl club's best interests, thereby rendering them effective extraterritorial versions of the UCLA club. (see: AQUITAINE)

SAUCY (adj.)
1. A combination of sassy and alluring.
2. A description perfectly fitting a certain West Coast quizbowl player, according to UCLA member Steve Kaplan.

SCOTT GREEN SCHOOL OF SPELLING (n.)
1. A place where people learn to confidently misspell words that show up in spelling bonuses, especially when overriding teammates with the correct answer, thus costing their team easy points. Named after Illinois captain Scott Green, who blew off teammate Mike Sorice only to flub "Thucydides" in the 2006 CBI NCT playoffs. Usage: (after someone misses a CBI spelling bonus) "Dude, did you go to the Scott Green School of Spelling?"

SETH TEITLER KEG PARTY (n.)
1. Any event at which three key conditions are met:
  a. Berkeley quizbowler Seth Teitler is present.
  b. There are large amounts of alcohol being consumed, hopefully being dispensed in keg form.
  c. There are ample drunken sorority girls with whom Seth Teitler can discuss the present place of Neptunism in geology and other favorite science topics of his.
2. Generally, any event which reminds UCLA quizbowlers that in addition to playing for selfish reasons, we are in this for some greater altruistic good.

SHAM (n., interj.)
1. Any tournament or quizbowl where any of the following occurs:
  a. Stand in place and walk in a circle and you've just taken a campus tour and seen all seven buildings on campus.
  b. Campus vending machines hawk nonsense drinks such as Grapico and Vibe, the latter of which is in fact disguised Hawaiian Punch.
  c. The most prominent landmark appears to be something called the "physical plant."
  d. Long-dead Supreme Court justices are selling real estate in the area.
  e. Important tournament officials concoct crazy quizbowl stories about love brewing at CBI Nationals and the son they've never had, all of which is quite easily disproven by a quick glance at pre-tournament literature.
2. Auburn University at Montgomery.
3. An exclamation made when realizes they are at a sham quizbowl function.

SHAPIRO-TURETZKY-LUO COROLLARY (n.)
1. The hypothesis that a certain male quiz bowler in northern California has the ability to squeeze milk out of his left breast, but only his left breast. (see: MEIGS CONJECTURE)
2. A statement whose proof requires the Lemma of Montgomery's Tubercles.

SHOELACE (n.)
1. An object found in Dwight Wynne's goodie bag at CBI Regionals 2004, which did not appear in anyone else's bag. Despite continually asking for and receiving permission to ask other teams' players if they had received a shoelace, Dwight never did.

SHOPPING WITH THE HOMELESS (v.phr.)
1. Engaging in any sort of seeking of consumer goods with people who live on the streets.
2. Soliciting members of the homeless class, through money, food, pornography or whatever goods they are interested in procuring, to lead you to alcohol in a city (Philadelphia, Youngstown (OH), et al) where finding alcohol is hardly difficult and even is a local pastime.

STANFORD SINGLES (n.)
1. A new singles format originating on the campus of Stanford University. Each round, teams and match-ups are randomly assigned, with the goal to be on as many winning teams as possible. In extended format, the top eight records duke it out in a series of seeding-style rounds, in which every player must answer a certain number of tossups to advance to the next round, and a third neg results in automatic elimination.
2. Stanford students who are currently not in a relationship.

STEVE'S NEMESIS (n.)
1. Hawaiian Pizza
2. Victoria Woodhull
3. Military History
4. Former Supreme Court Justices Joseph Bradley and Ward Hunt
5. Dairy Farmers
6. Anything else which prevents Steve Kaplan from performing a feat, or which he strongly dislikes enough for a mention of said dislike to go in the club minutes.

SUPER MODIFIED PRUSSIAN (n.)
1. A Modified Prussian (see Berkeley's or Caltech's lexicon) game enhanced by the ability to champion non-present members of other clubs through some sort of telepathic channeling.
2. The only reason Berkeley player Andy Penner is the scoring leader among non-UCLA club members at UCLA practices.

TEAM INDIAN (n.)
1. A position created to compensate for a general team lack of ability to answer the 2/2 India-related questions per packet in the ACF canon, the holder of which must possess the following items:
  a. Fake knowledge of Indian history, literature, mythology, and religion.
  b. Easy access to a communication device with which to conjure up a native from India with a real Hindi accent.
2. A way of getting paid, because in India, they pay you to play quizbowl (according to Rajarshi Gupta, formerly of Cal Berkeley).
3. A position designated to Calvin Pan, who loves Bollywood and has tons of Indian friends.

TEAM WOMAN (n.)
1. A position created to compensate for a general team lack of estrogen, the holder of which must possess the following items:
  a. A superior knowledge of feminist literature and culture.
  b. A marginally-working female reproductive system about which they can get questions.
2. A position once uncontestedly held by Matthew Sherman.

UCLA CAPTAIN (n.)
1. A title given to a person who meets the following characteristics:
  a. He runs a tight ship.
  b. His loot consists of tossup points; his plunder, bonuses.
  c. CBI officials will recognize him as such, even though his name card says something different.
2. A title once held by Steve Kaplan.

UCLA PRUDY McPRUDE (n.)
1. A title given to a person who meets the following characteristics:
  a. Any vulgar suggestions mentioned in his presence are met with passive-aggressive disdainful looks.
  b. Ask him if he's lit and he'll freeze up like a dead Aborigine in the Barents Sea. (see: LIT)
  c. The closest he's ever come to drunken euphoria is a travel-related Honey Nut Chex Mix binge.
2. A title undeniably held by feverishly puritanical papacy lover Dwight Wynne.

UNDER THE TABLE (prep. phr.)
1. Where one keeps one's hands and buzzer in order to avoid conduct violations. This buzzing position was used by Steve Kaplan during every round of CBI Regionals 2004 that he did not receive a warning for conduct violations. (see: CONDUCT VIOLATION)

UNWIELDY BEHEMOTH (n.)
1. Any non-bus automobile that seats fifteen or more people, which usually only functions as the automobile of choice for prodigious Mormon families, but which was used for a UCLA College Bowl trip to Davis for 2004 CBI Regionals. Coined by Steve Kaplan.

UC MERCED (n.)
1. An enchanted land of mystery and intrigue.
2. Supposed home of building number 26, 58 faculty members, and the famous communal bus "CatTracks."
3. A mythical location among the fogs of Yosemite, which requires one to navigate a swampy-looking maze in the middle of the night by using directions supplied by the nearest KFC and Raley's. (see: SHAM 2.)
4. A place without a restaurant.
5. Supposedly a place of higher education with an absurdly large population of Asian Americans.
6. A must-see stopping point for any UCLA trips to northern California, including those in which Caltech quiz bowl players are passengers.
7. Location of UCLA quiz bowl team's photo-op with wannabe college students. (see: SATELLITE CAMPUS)

USC (adj.)
1. Referring to a tossup or bonus part, containing clues or an answer closer to popular culture than the actual category the question is supposed to represent. For example, comic books and H.P. Lovecraft works would be considered USC Literature. Coined by Andrew Yaphe at WIT XIII.
2. Referring to a tossup or bonus, on a subtopic that deviates significantly from the normal set of subtopics for a particular topic, while not being supplemented with a question on a more standard subtopic in the same packet. For example, questions on random diseases would be considered USC biology.
3. Referring to a packet, one in which a large number of questions are USC questions, thus making it extremely likely that members of the USC Quiz Bowl club wrote the packet.

USC (n.)
1. A glorified summer camp where each year, five affluent Stanford rejects and five dyslexic Saudi princes assemble to convince themselves that their next four years will be spent in pursuit of a valuable education.
2. The only college that can unwittingly conspire to win its own high school tournament.
3. Our ostensible rival school.

VICE PRESIDENT BONANZA (n.)
1. What hopefully every next set of four or five questions will be, but rarely ever is.
2. The expected distribution of the 2004 CBI Regionals play-offs, after a dearth of vice president related questions as pointed out by team member Steve Kaplan.

WAR VETERAN (n.)
1. Any quizbowler pushing well past forty who appears to be hobbled from shrapnel injuries; usually a phenomenon only seen at CBI Regionals and Community College Championships.

YOGESH RAUT (n.)
1. An anagram of "Hasty Rogue."
2. Author of a famous blog on film, politics, and life whose effect on popular culture has been compared to the role of the Bible in western intellectual history.
3. Probably the best active NAQT player in the west coast.
4. A force of nature.
5. A scholar and a gentleman, probably USC's finest, subject of much undeserved ridicule.
6. The only actual human being famous enough to deserve an entire set of definitions on the UCLA lexicon.