For anyone who sits at home watching University Challenge over their dinner, chances are you could have spat some tea out at the telly this week.
The BBC show witnessed some foul-mouthed drama when one of the contestants shouted ‘whore’ in response to a question about freezing fog.
Realising he’d buzzed too early, Jamie Perriam from St. Andrew’s University was looking to answer the question:
‘What short word can mean frost formed from freezing fog and is also an archaic term for a poem?’
His response, which shockingly enough wasn’t right, didn’t sit too well with Jeremy Paxman.
Later speaking to Buzzfeed, Perriam did actually have a pretty reasonable explanation for his slip-up:
“When I heard “frosty mist” (or whatever the question was) the answer leapt out at me – I’d been studying Middle Scots poetry and there had been plenty of hoary beards and the like there,’ he said.
“Unfortunately, while I frantically jammed the buzzer, Señor Paxman continued with “… and poet-” and I knew I was missing a trick. “Hoar” was all I had in the barrel, so I went with it regardless – although it immediately occurred to me that that term has a rather less poetic homophone…
“In the end the opposition had a steal with the Coleridge reference, whilst I was, appropriately, left with an albatross about my neck.”
Even with the genuine enough sounding explanation, we love Paxman’s face.
Hilarious!
Video via Rodia Raskolnikoff
