To think general knowledge quiz shows do not give a measure of intelligence, just of memorisation skills?

Shaming people for their lack of knowledge about particular TV shows, even currently popular TV shows, is daft. A lack of knowledge about a TV show has nothing to do with intelligence. PP have mentioned seeing things like trailers for Frasier, but even trailers for shows can be missed if you’ve never watched the right channel at the right time.

I also wouldn’t shame people for a lack of knowledge about marmalade or Seville.
I can go months without going down the jam aisle in the supermarket, so I can understand how someone might never have noticed marmalade and wondered what it’s made of. And I only knew that Seville’s a Spanish city through playing too much Civilization 2 when I was younger.

Although I can’t help feeling judgy about the contestant giving Scotland as an answer to the question which Spanish town beginning with S is famous for oranges.

Knowing that Scotland is a country that makes up part of the U.K. (rather than a Spanish city!) is really, really basic common knowledge for any adult living in the U.K.

As a result of this thread, I now know a lot more about marmalade than I need to

Apparently Valencia oranges are popular as well.

www.thespruceeats.com/what-is-marmalade-1807033

This thread reminds of the community activist, who when interviewed by a newsreader and asked if Churchill's statue should be removed, she said that she doesn't know if he's racist as she hasn't personally met him.

It comes from the French mer malade)

Yep this is bollocks!

General knowledge is not a measure of intelligence per se ,but someone with good general knowledge often reads a lot and follows the news etc I know all know all kinds of obscure facts ,I read anything and everything though.

@7Days

I agree with everything you said about connecting the dots.

This was one of the reasons that I absolutely loved EggHeads.

They sometimes didn't know the immediately outright answer but their powers of deduction and logic gave the correct result.

As an aside, I hate that the BBC ended Egg Heads - my favourite EggHead is Kevin Ashman, several times World Quiz Champion. He was so cool and modest. 😍

Not knowing where Frasier is based is less a sign of low intelligence, and more a sign of having better things to do with your time than watching TV As Daisy I've never watched it but have seen trailers and know who the star is, where it is set (again the Space Needle - built for the World Fair in the early 60s - used a lot on TV and films like Grey's Anatomy and one of the Austin Powers movies) what it is a spin off from etc.

I have never looked those facts up. They just arrive from books, films etc. There must be a song attached to it somehow! Whenever I have to think about something to recall it I usually include a song in my musings.... sounds odd and drives DH mad, but it is how my recall works (I think it was probably Seattle by PIL!!).

That recall thing can be a curse... I often have to hum snatches of songs to get to an answer that is hiding... not good at work, more acceptable in a quiz though

Marmalade comes from the Portuguese for quince paste (marmelada). It then became generic for other fruit pastes, including oranges.
Common sense should indicate that the French seasick “derivation” is bollocks. There’s an almost equally silly one about Mary Queen of Scots or similar.

I'm pretty good at quizzes - been on Pointless & The Chase - but am absolutely useless at questions on soaps, reality TV, newer celebs, football etc. Not being the next Mastermind doesn't mean you're not smart.

I've never watched it, but as a result of this thread I looked it up on IMDb:

"Dr. Frasier Crane moves back to his hometown of Seattle, where he lives with his father, and works as a radio psychiatrist."

So I now know the character's full name, his hometown and his profession and could answer those questions in a quiz.

I do think there’s a connection between intelligence and knowledge. Not a perfect correlation, but it’s unusual to have one without the other

It is fine to not know much about popular culture before you were born. It is not so fine to not know much about significant historical events before you were born. As Richard Osman said, “before my time” does not cut it then.

Not knowing where Frasier is based is less a sign of low intelligence, and more a sign of having better things to do with your time than watching TV

That’s not necessarily true. I’ve never watched Fraser (Frasier?) but I can picture a graphic I’ve seen connected with the show. It’s of a skyline with the iconic space building with what looks like a flying saucer. So I’m going to say that I think it’s set in Seattle.

I think you are doing well if you had a serious illness and memory problems TBH. Dont beat yourself up ,and listen to people saying "quizzes arent for you shit.

I am great at general knowledge quizzes. I dont know why as I am fairly average in anything else. I just seem able to retain that pointless information for some reason. I remember a bitch of a cousin years ago who always thought she was a genius and above everyone else was sat watching "millionaire" with us when it first started and I got all the questions right and she said to me "oh, how do you know these answers when I don't? You are normally just so.......errrrrrr........ well average". Bitch.

I am in general intelligent, have a good IQ, good general knowledge, am always Googling things, and have a good level of education. But I don't think that I would do well at quiz shows as I have little knowledge, and less interest, in subjects such as popular music, sports, soaps, American TV etc.
From what you have written OP you would do well on science questions, and the periodic table based questions on Pointless. Not knowing where Frasier is based is less a sign of low intelligence, and more a sign of having better things to do with your time than watching TV.

I think intelligence helps as you could in some circs work out an answer you didn’t otherwise know (the Benelux question quotes above is a good example of that) but I think being good at quizzes is thanks to be interested in the world around you, well read and well travelled. I’m not particularly well read but well travelled, speak many languages and am genuinely interested in current affairs so can do quite well in such quizzes: that said any question about history pre 1900 or science or literature and I’m usually stumped. So it’s about what you’re interested in I think.

Sorry op but I do think it’s a bit daft that you’d never considered where oranges come from.

Most of the test cricket on the tour was actually played in 1933.

I was just thinking about what people said about school. I am a TA. When I hear children read at school I never just hear them read. If a country is mentioned, I ask them if they know where the country is. If they don’t, we google it then and there. I ask them what words mean. If they don’t know, we see if we can work it out from the context and if not, we look to see if there is a glossary or something that will help us out. If not, we look it up. We google pictures of things mentioned that they aren’t sure about. The same as I do if I’m reading something. Kids I hear read spend about fifteen minutes with me and often only read a couple of pages but hopefully they learn to question what they are reading and to show the sort of curiosity that will lead them to making connections and having a good general knowledge that they can bring together.

I haven't read a book that wasn't a textbook since I took my English A level

That will be a really big part of why you aren’t good at quizzes then OP!! To some extent general knowledge is something that you just absorb as you go through life (a glance at a newspaper headline, a half heard news report on the radio) but if you aren’t actively curious about life and broadening your knowledge through reading, for instance, you are not going to be well rounded. It’s just not possible!

Oh OP I don't think quizzes or AIBU are for you.

People often do associate knowledge with intelligence because most intelligent people are intellectually curious and have good memory retention. They read a lot and are interested in the world around them.

You really didn't help yourself with the drip feed about memory loss from an illness. How are posters supposed to know that unless you tell them upfront hence the pile on about your lack of very basic general knowledge.

Wandering away from the main point perhaps but it seems to me that the issue actually is that some people find it OK to shame others at all. We all have different skills and talents and are better at some things than others. Shaming people for knowledge-based issues is shameful IMHO and is something we should not accept in a civilised society. IMHO it's morally unacceptable and akin to bullying. Not sure why it is so acceptable. Our worth is not measured by our intelligence - however we chose to define that.

Are they shaming you, or do you feel ashamed? There's a difference.

My MIL watches quiz shows and acts with downright amazement when I answer questions like "which of these is the real type of wild mushroom".

I don't know things like that because I'm intelligent, but because I grew up learning them. But it does baffle me that she thinks of knowledge like that as something arcane, specialised and unacquirable without special effort, when it's no more or less memorable than details from soaps that I've never watched and she answers lightning fast.

(Mind you, I do have an abnormally excellent memory - that's the opinion of a psychologist friend of mine, not my own judgement!)

I'd say a much better display of my intelligence was in an escape room, when three different times I worked out ways not to solve the puzzle put to us, but to shortcut the process by solving the issue a different and faster way (without using BODMAS, which always irritates me).