US Presidents.

BlindBoyGrunt

BlindBoyGrunt

Well-known member
I was watching Pointless tonight when the question came up, name a US president without a T their name. Ignoring the caveat in the question two things struck me. The first, that American Presidents comes up an awful lot In quizzes and on quiz shows, and the second is that you couldn't do this with any other country. Even countries like The UK, France, Germany, Italy or Russia with lots of history and culture and also lots of leaders, would not make great quiz questions outside of their own boundaries.

A couple of reasons suggest themselves but I wonder what others think.
 
It's an interesting point and utterly true. I dare say most of the UK would know more about US presidents than UK prime ministers. Are we brainwashed by absorbing a lot of American TV? Or is the US that powerful that it is important to know. But if that was the case we should know Chinese premiers and emperors too
 
People are probably more likely to have a post-WWII knowledge due to the general cultural impact of the US and 'leader of the free world' aura during the Cold War.

They do 4-8 year terms which means that people can attach them to eras and cultural bookmarks, unlike some tinpot countries where figureheads can go on for 70 yea... Ahem.
 
youallloveit said:
A more interesting fact is that all their presidents except one, are related to each other.
Fancy that eh.
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It always happens in small countries. ;)

Being serious, I would say SmallTown touches on the US being such a powerhouse that the president is mentioned on UK TV nearly every day. The difference with the Chinese leaders is that our media portrays them as the bad guys.
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
I was watching Pointless tonight when the question came up, name a US president without a T their name. Ignoring the caveat in the question two things struck me. The first, that American Presidents comes up an awful lot In quizzes and on quiz shows, and the second is that you couldn't do this with any other country. Even countries like The UK, France, Germany, Italy or Russia with lots of history and culture and also lots of leaders, would not make great quiz questions outside of their own boundaries.

A couple of reasons suggest themselves but I wonder what others think.
Click to expand...

Joe Biden
Abraham Lincoln

Both answers probably score about 90 each. I’m rubbish at pointless.
 
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