I've noticed a few things since I first designed the Lexica in Review. First, the name is pretty obnoxious, but I'm too damn lazy to change it unless someone sends me something good. Second, the whole 1-5 scale is pretty retarded, but I guess that's what happens when I start coding things half-assed at 2 in the morning. So I've decided to change it to a 1-10 scale by the oh-so-innovative scheme of multiplying everything by 2. Finally, some people take this thing way too seriously. If I had the foresight to save some of the hate mail I've gotten it would have made a nice addition to the page. Holy shit people, the real purpose of this page is to provide a listing of all the quiz team lexica out there. The reviews and stuff are just there in the slim chance that you find them amusing. So if you're going to send me some crazy hate mail, at least remind me to put it up on this page.
Oh yeah, check out Anthony de Jesus' Quizbowl Webpage Ratings for a similar endeavour on a more general scale.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Boston | 10 | 4 | 6 | N | 3 |
BU takes an interesting approach with their lexicon; in fact; I wouldn't even call it a
lexicon. What I would call it is a list, proudly described as "inside jokes" from the
BUCB constitution, that tries to be funny, but fails pretty well. Mercifully, the
big red ugly-ass stars are now gone.
Many thanks to K. M. Wilcox, for giving me the updated URL, so that people can once again laugh at this and wonder why it is still accessible.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Brigham Young University | 5 | 4 | 8 | N | 4 |
Unfortunately, this lexicon covers only the years 1984-6; evidently very little of
worth has happened since then. The content contains so many references to obscure
incidents from the quiz bowl Stone Age that it's hard to relate. Highlight: "Grand Slam."
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Caltech | 50 | 6 | 10 | Y | 6 |
Highlights: "Wang Scale," "Defensive struggle." "Less than epsilon" is still pretty disturbing.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
California -- Berkeley | 50 | 6 | 10 | Y | 6 |
There have been some very nice changes since I checked it last. Most importantly, the
page has been separated into a lexicon and a subculture section. Cool layout too.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Carleton | N/A | 6 | 5 | N | 5 |
Carleton has a quote list, not a lexicon, so it is expected to be full of team-specific
jokes. Highlights: It mentions the VAX and "sputum."
Evidently this page is gone now. Is there some sort of replacement in the works? I'm getting all tingly just thinking about it...
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Carnegie Mellon | 20 | 4 | 8 | Y | 5 |
The CMU lexicon appears to have changed from the McElroy Self-Aggrandizement Society home
page to a lexicon chock-full of pedestrian pop-culture references. Highlights: "Shotgun,"
"Knowledge Whore."
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Case Western Reserve University | 30 | 4 | 4 | Y | 5 |
Case Western has a whole lot of stuff on their info page, including the typical road trip
disasters/favorite restaurants. The lexicon, although hard to read, mocks and busts
on a lot of people, which is pretty cool.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dartmouth | 30 | 6 | 9 | N | 6 |
This lexicon beats many others even though it hasn't been updated in quite a while. Highlights: "ACF Trash," "D-Plan."
According to their home page, their website is in the process of being redesigned.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Delaware | 5 | 4 | 8 | Y | 4 |
Delaware's lexicon is in the form of an "enemies list," which evidently is a synonym for
"lots of obscure inside jokes which no one else gives a damn about."
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Duke | 25 | 5 | 4 | Y | 4 |
Hmm. Well, there are some good things on here. Unfortunately, they're overshadowed
by the high level of ignorance that dominates the page. Much like "Escape from L.A.,"
this lexicon has taken things that were done before and made them much much worse,
except we don't even get the consolation of mocking Kurt Russell's attempts to look tough.
Ignoring the laughably incorrect ACF entry and the NAQT-worshipping (NAQT's the only format that
rewards answering a tossup very early? uh, ok), there's stuff like the rather dismal
explanation of Harvest Bowl.
Highlights: "Cassandran," "Chris Webber rule."
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Florida | 25 | 0 | 2 | N | 2 |
Not much there, and what's there isn't worth looking at.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Georgetown | 5 | 4 | 10 | N | 6 |
Plenty of inside jokes, but you really get a feeling of the team composition while reading them, because they're not all silly negs or car trip accidents. Highlights: "Chest Hair," "Who wrote Paradise Lost?"
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
GWU | 60 | 6 | 8 | N | 7 |
Contains definitions that most quizbowlers assume everyone already
knows, and also some inexplicable entries. Highlight: "Deb Fuller Award."
Bonus points for mentioning the Knot, and
for correctly asserting that a team simply called "Maryland" is
obviously from the flagship school at College Park, a fact lost on
some other (lesser) members of the University of Maryland system.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Harvard | 50 | 6 | 8 | Y | 6 |
A lot of the crap has been cut out, and what remains isn't that bad. Probably
the most amusing thing is that they included a definition of Colvin
Science. Highlights: "People Bowl," Top Ten List."
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Johns Hopkins | 60 | 8 | 9 | N | 8 |
Highlights: The beginning manifesto on how to make a good lexicon, "Ho," "Negmeister."
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kentucky | 90 | 7 | 7 | Y | 7 |
Any lexicon that mentions Carrot Top and Andy Wang has to be pretty cool. Lots of good stuff.
It also provides useful annotations when necessary. Highlights: "Hat Trick," "Wangfest."
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Michigan | 5 | 2 | 2 | Y | 2 |
Hmm. Although I feel bad for getting around to reviewing this a full four months after Craig Barker
asked me to, I still can't say much positive about it. True, other lexica pretty much
cover everything qb-related, that's no reason to inflict us with an entire page of
hockey and Canadiana.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
University of Maryland | ? | ? | ? | Y | ? |
Since I'm a little biased, I will let you decide about this one. There are actually three separate parts to the
MAQT lexicon -- the core lexicon, the recreational lexicon, to where most of the in-jokes are relegated, and the retired lexicon. If you look hard enough at the wallpaper, you should be able to figure out what "nothosonomia" is.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
North Carolina | 85 | 8 | 10 | N | 9 |
The lexicon idea at its best -- humorous and obnoxious, it reeks of the North Carolina teams of yore. Highlights: "Bawl Star," "B.P.P.," "No Soup for You!"
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
University of Oklahoma | 15 | 6 | 4 | Y | 5 |
Aagh! Bright green! Still contains a lot of whining about bad coaches and school
bureaucracies, (not like any other school has those problems), and plenty of travel crap.
When exactly did team lexica start becoming large lists of junk which no one would actually
say? Highlights: "Dilithium effect" (although the name isn't great), "Smithing."
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Oxford University | 30 | 6 | 4 | Y | 6 |
Touted by its author as the first international lexicon, or as they pompously put it,
"Dictionary of Quizzing," it's fairly good for a first attempt. I was a little
disappointed to see a definition of "University Challenge," and no reference to the
episode of The Young Ones where they went on the show and it ended with
a giant eclair falling on the set. I might be remembering that last part wrong since
it sounds pretty retarded, although a big-ass sandwich did fall on their house
one time. Anyway, highlights: "Toss-up," "Quiz Machine."
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Princeton | 10 | 4 | 8 | Y | 5 |
I was optimistic when I saw a reference to this review on their lexicon,
but was disappointed to see that they ignored every principle which
has been set forth in this page. I was rather amused that they mocked me, however. Mocking
is always a key element of any good lexicon.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Queen's College | 60 | 7 | 8 | Y | 8 |
Bonus points for using the suffix "-ass" repeatedly, and for putting the inside jokes at the end. Highlights: "American bias," "Bitch-ass," "Dungeons and Dragons" (needs a better name, though).
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Swarthmore | 20 | 6 | 9 | Y | 6 |
Some definite improvements since I checked last time. Highlight: "Liberal Arts School," "'Lame!' Rule."
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
University of Texas | 70 | 8 | 10 | Y | 8 |
Really nice layout. Cool pictures.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vanderbilt University | 80 | 9 | 10 | Y | 9 |
Yo, this is some good shit. First of all, they separated the inside jokes from the rest of
the lexicon. Many things which quizbowlers take for granted but which have never been
precisely defined on a lexicon before are here. And it's pretty amusing too. I linked
directly to the uncensored lexicon to spare you the time of going there yourself, but any
lexicon that purports to also need an uncensored version has to be pretty cool.
What the hell kind of insult is Sphere-Boy, though?
Highlights: "Albert Round" (Al Whited's always a highlight), "Funk," many others.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Virginia | 100 | 6 | 8 | Y | N/A |
Well, I really can't blame them.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Virginia (Old) | 5 | 3 | 4 | Y | 2 |
The source who alerted me to the fact that the UVA page had been updated also commented that,
"Amazingly, it has become even more Hightocentric and delusional." Although it
has been superseded, I have salvaged it for posterity.
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Virginia Tech | 80 | 8 | 7 | Y | 8 |
A definite improvement over the last lexicon, the most amusing parts of which can still
be seen in the "Old School" section. A lot of amusing stuff, and plenty of things no one
else had thought to define before. Highlights: "Feeling dirty," "Hardcore," "Flossin'"
School | Gen% | Ent. | Style | Updates? | Overall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Wichita State | 5 | 3 | 2 | ? | 3 |
Hmm. Get those broken image links fixed, then get back to me.