to not understand what the problem is?

[complainingcommuter]

A couple of weeks ago I went to a quiz with friends. We were in a larger group at the quiz with friends of friends, the event itself was organised by a club 2 of my friends are members of, so they knew most people there.

I like quizzes and am pretty good at them - I'm just lucky to have a memory for trivia. Sadly I don't find it anywhere near as easy to remember what my DC have on at school, or what I'm meant to be doing at home or work, as I do to tell you which monarch ruled 1702-14.

Anyway we all joined in with the quiz, I knew a fair few answers but by no means all. A few times others disagreed with my suggestion, and I went with the majority each time (some of the answers ended up being wrong). However we did win in the end, by a couple of points only.

During quiz, one friend keeps commenting on how i should 'let other people have a go, hahaha' although it really wasn't that funny. I corrected a couple of spellings (place/ people names) which were quite wrong, just by changing the spelling on our answer paper and had other friend saying that's nearly right isn't it, and when i said no, inferring i was bring difficult/ making a fuss/ putting other people down. On the night after we won friends said oh you won't be able to come next time as we did too well.

All that i was just like whatever, til today nearly 2 weeks on, friend texts that this person and that person was really annoyed my team had won and how they weren't happy at me coming back hahaha, and maybe i should answer less or dub myself down next time!

Which has now annoyed me all over again and left me thinking wtf?! Is it me and am i being completely humourless if this is all meant in a jokey way?

All, yes I know completely what you mean. I had a lot of that weird inverse snobbery around not being intelligent at school, even teachers would accuse me of being a know it all (because I sometimes corrected teachers when they'd marked my work incorrectly), and it was that horrible experience at school that has made me really keep a lid on my knowledge ever since, hence being really careful not to dominate at quizzes, and why I was upset they still moaned at me!

As to the spellings, I wasn't correcting grammar, or adding punctuation, or changing anything that was basically correct, only ones where the spelling was so wrong it was effectively a different answer altogether. I didn't think that was wrong, and I'd be happy to be corrected in those circumstances.

I'd probably annoy them too.
I'd assume everyone wanted to win and I'd correct anything I thought might lose a point. You never know, it might come to a tie and one team spelled something right and the other didn't and that's what decided the winner.

Imagine being the person whose answer OP corrected on the sheet!

Oh the indignity! .

I'd be grateful to be corrected if I were wrong. Because I'm also a know it all so I love expanding my knowledge.

I usually volunteer to scribe so I can make sure things are written correctly.

Op yanbu. Those people are not your friends. Do what a pp suggested and thrash them on your own team next time.

Take the piss all you want, Stoic.

Personally, I'd prefer not to embarrass someone like that. A pub quiz isn't that important to me.

Only those with very fragile egos would be embarrassed. As you say, it's only a pub quiz.

Sounds like school to me too, both the one I went to and the first secondary my DDs went to.

So knowing that it's possible someone has a fragile ego for whatever reason, I personally wouldn't want to upset them, whether I think they have a valid reason to be upset or not.

Your friends are a over reacting. It's things like this which I like about my mates. I like it when they have character and quirkiness.

I suggest making your own smaller team with people who are less intimidated by your fantastic memory.

Yet you come on here Madmags and tell a stranger you think they sound like an insufferable know it all? That's not very kind.

My DM was an amazing quizzer, and did actually get banned from certain regional quizzes because it took all the fun out of wondering which team would win.

I loved doing quizzes with her even though my memory is shit and my spelling is worse. DM would scribe to prevent spelling correction issues. She would wait for everyone to pitch in answers, before saying anything herself and would go with majority answers (except once people heard she disagreed with them they would usual roll over).

So everyone had their say, noone got spellings corrected and we ALWAYS won. What's not to like!

The OP's ego is hardly fragile.

She has referred to herself as a know-it-all and having a great memory for trivia.

I'm sure she's fine. 😊

The OP's ego is hardly fragile.

Oh you're psychic, as well as highly educated!

Oh dear.

Your 'friend' is a stirrer and the others have chips on their shoulder. They all clearly have too much time on their hands too. They're still going on about some quiz two weeks later?

Fuck em.

I kind of see what they mean and I do think they're trying to tell you nicely by making it a joke. When I've done quizzes, there's always a leader who basically wants to do it himself but just have a bit of help.

To me, it should be a team effort and not be one person taking over the whole thing, otherwise everyone is sitting there watching one person writing and it's boring. Perhaps some of their suggestions were incorrect but were all your responses really all correct? I've been to many a quiz where the leader has refused a correct answer because he has better knowledge, generally.

I would like everyone who beats us in a pub quiz to not come to any pub quizzes in future. Seems reasonable. Although given that my DH and I have quite a skill for coming last, that wouldn't leave the pub with much business...

I can see that correcting spellings would annoy people, but if they were all as indecipherable as your Seychelles example then it's fair enough really.

Meh, they're just being grumps. Ignore them.

Personally, I'd prefer not to embarrass someone like that. A pub quiz isn't that important to me

Thats fine, but then don't play on pub quiz teams. The point is to win, and to win you need the right answers. Letting other people put down clearly wrong answers just so you don't look like a know it all is fucking ridiculous.

And also you can be damn sure men don't have these discussions.

Our team won a pub quiz - £80 and it was super competitive. We had half a point deducted after another team pointed out a technicality. The quiz master was very apologetic but had to deduct as the team had insisted. We still won by half a point though!

I wouldn't hesitate to correct spelling - our team wants to win which means having the correct answer.

I agree it's because you are a woman.

I'll be on you're (winning) team anytime op. I might be embarrassed with myself if you correct my spelling, but not with you for pointing it out.

Funnily enough my dad answers all the questions in quizzes and the like no one ever tells him he's embarrassing them or needs to dumb himself down to fit in.

Just ignore them. Find a new pub to do quizzes in. Or set up your own and devise the questions? No one goes into quizzes to lose? I dearly remember going with DP and two friends who are slightly antisocial and between the 4 of us beating the 6 strong team who'd won for 8 years. We haven't been invited back.

I'd love you on my quiz team, OP! We like to win! What pisses me off is numpties coming along going "Oooh can I join your team? I'm terrible at quizzes by the way, haha" then contributing sod all but happily waltzing off with a share of the prize money when we win. Grrr.

Also at a music quiz I go to the quizmaster docks half a point for things like not putting the ! in P!nk or the umlaut in Motörhead. So spelling can very much matter

It's difficult to know when to correct things. Almost every day of the year a client sends me a document and I make it legally correct and then have the difficult decision of when to change grammar and spelling. Usually I will correct it but not always if it would upset them and perhaps not matter. On the whole I do correct it. I think you've done the right thing in playing to win. Also I like people telling me when I get something wrong as that is the way we all learn. As I say to my teenagers I learn something new every day.