I did our annual quiz for the parks last night and Andrew helped me mark. Out of 11 teams and 100 questions 2 teams were equal on 86 and a half points. There was dispute on the answer to one question and both teams had given me a different answer but both argued their case for being correct..........

Question was: How many noughts in a billion?

Thank goodness for mobile google, we solved it but what would your answer have been?

To quote Monty Python:

"What's the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
"African or European?"

Depends if it's a US billion or a UK billion.

US billion is 1000 million so 9 noughts, UK billion is 1 million million, so 12 noughts.

US billion is becoming more popular and is typically used for financial figures as it makes things sound bigger than they are 8-)

Best to qualify which is being used. Either answer should be acceptable in a quiz.

Oo-er that all just went straight over my head ::)

I was thinking about that the other day and I thought OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO what a question. I hope no one ever asks me that.

Quoted from siddarz

Depends if it's a US billion or a UK billion.

US billion is 1000 million so 9 noughts, UK billion is 1 million million, so 12 noughts.

US billion is becoming more popular and is typically used for financial figures as it makes things sound bigger than they are 8-)

Best to qualify which is being used. Either answer should be acceptable in a quiz.

(iagree) i would of put the UK one  ;)

Quoted from O-B

Oo-er that all just went straight over my head ::)

All of it, or just the Monty Python reference?

Quoted from siddarz

All of it, or just the Monty Python reference?

Never did get in to Monty Python - that was my husbands' thing - and his giggling at it put me right off ::) but to answer your question all of it (hysterical)

I did state Uk billion but even that caused controversy as the figure changed too so to keep the peace I accepted 9 or 12 but learned to research my questions more.

are you allowed to google an answer in a Quiz ????

doesnt that count as cheating

Penny I think Rita was the Quis Host person well thats how I understand the post then again it would be the first time I've been wrong.....

Quoted from penny

are you allowed to google an answer in a Quiz ????

doesnt that count as cheating

Mark is right. We had prepared the quiz and Andrew used google to settle the dispute. I walked around to ensure no cheating. The worse bit was I had to hijack some of the raffle prizes to be quiz prizes. Last year I had 6 teams show and was shocked to have 11 teams turn up. I ran out of tables, chairs and answer sheets but luckily the function room at the restaurant helped us out.

(Andrew on as Rita)

When one of the teams asked Rita if she wanted a British or American billion I got a bit nervous and checked the online Cambridge Dictionary. (I know I'm a bit sad but it is one of the favorites on my phone. I do have quite a few favorites - and it does irritate me that we use "US English" to spell favorites.)

Anyhow, the dictionary confirmed my thought that the American billion is 1,000 million and the traditional Brit one is 1,000,000 million. So to have covered ourselves we should have said traditional British.

Thankfully it didn't affect the result.

So do you think you will do things different next time or will you just not bother because you suddenly realised just how much pressure a  can get if someone disagrees. If you do not bother just think how much the park will lose and the good will decisions, decisions, decisions. By the way you wouldn't get me organising anything like that.

Quoted from Terry

So do you think you will do things different next time or will you just not bother because you suddenly realised just how much pressure a  can get if someone disagrees. If you do not bother just think how much the park will lose and the good will decisions, decisions, decisions. By the way you wouldn't get me organising anything like that.

I will bother because they all enjoy it and compared to what you have to achieve this is peanuts. I was self sufficient this year on the PC preparing my quiz but missed Andrew's help.

We raised  £300 for the wildlife centre and that's what matters.

That's a brilliant amount - well done you :-)