Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2012 September 27

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September 27

Prometheus

Is “Prometheus” some kind of prequel of “alien”? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iskander HFC (talk • contribs) 05:04, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

The 2nd paragraph of our Promethius Prometheus article explains it all. StuRat (talk) 05:09, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

So does Prometheus.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:05, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Corrected. StuRat (talk) 18:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Tournaments with a group round followed by a knockout round

Our article Badminton at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's doubles describes how four teams all tried to lose their last match of the group round (round robin) in order to favorably influence their draw in the subsequent knockout round. During the Olympics I heard that this had been the first time the group round plus knockout round system was used in badminton, but I also heard that that system has been used in other sports. What other sports is/was it used in? Have there been comparable scandals in those sports? If not, why not? Duoduoduo (talk) 17:18, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

The World Cup in soccer (association football) uses a similar arrangement at all levels: both in the final quadrenial tournament and in most of the continental qualifying tournamnets. And, though the tournament was formatted somewhat differrently, see Barbados 4–2 Grenada (1994 Caribbean Cup qualification) for a description of a game negatively affected by tournament rules. --Jayron32 17:22, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that wikilink. That has to be one of the most bizarre sports situations I've ever heard of! Duoduoduo (talk) 18:04, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

It was a singularly strange game. If you ever get a chance to view video of the game, you should. It is something to behold. In general, intentionally losing or playing worse to improve one's standing in the end is often called "sandbagging", so if you do some google searches for that term, you can likely turn up a lot of similar situations. --Jayron32 18:08, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

This one's pretty odd, too: AS Adema 149–0 SO l'Emyrne. And no, that's not a basketball score. Or a cricket one. Or even rugby. --Dweller (talk) 13:05, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

See Priority draft pick#Tanking for the relevance to Australian rules football. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:48, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

And then that links to Match fixing#Motivations and causes. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:01, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Tanking for draft picks is very common in the NBA, or at least it is widely suspected to be, do a Google search and you'll turn up a wealth of information. The NBA Draft Lottery was supposed to put a stop to it, but it still happens a lot. Also, do a google search for the phrase "Suck for Luck" and you'll see a whole lot of discussion about whether or not NFL teams were intentionally losing games last year to assure the right to draft Andrew Luck. --Jayron32 22:03, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

See West Germany 1–0 Austria (1982 FIFA World Cup) for an infamous match which caused a change in the World Cup and many other soccer tournaments with group play: The last matches in a group start at the same time. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:58, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

It's not unusual in a variety of sports. Unfortunately, it's used in the UEFA Champions League and the impossibly bloated UEFA Europa League*. Fortunately, this sort of problem has yet to publicly raise its ugly head in either. Rugby league and American football have systems that should preclude the problem, because the advantages of qualifying in a higher position outweigh merely the chance to avoid a certain opponent in the next round. --Dweller (talk) 13:03, 28 September 2012 (UTC) *I heard the Europa League described by a pundit this week as "the only competition in the world it's harder to get out of than into". --Dweller (talk) 13:03, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League both use the system I mentioned where the last matches are played at the same time. This greatly reduces the risk of such problems. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:16, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

History of superhero as a "term"

I did some reading of the superhero wiki article, and was interested in the first (or at least very early) uses of the term itself: superhero. Anyone know of the earliest usage of the term as applied to a fictional character, sources would be greatly appreciated199.94.68.91 (talk) 23:41, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

EO claims it dates to 1917, but doesn't give any specifics otherwise.[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:45, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The OED pushes the first citation date for the word back to 1899 in The Daily Mail where Mathieu Dreyfus (brother of Alfred Dreyfus) is called a super-hero. The OED doesn't distinguish between real people and fictional characters, the first cite they have about someone fictional is from 1937. The earliest reference I can find to someone fictional is a quote from The Literary Digest March 4, 1916 says: "Siegfried, conceived by Wagner as a superhero, is incredibly brutal." meltBanana 03:14, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Interestingly, Superman dates from 1903 based on an earlier German term Übermensch which dates from 1883, though I don't think either usage was meant to refer to a "superhero" in the modern understanding. --Jayron32 03:26, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Nietzsche also used Über-Held, often translated as superhero. meltBanana 12:16, 28 September 2012 (UTC)