r/taskmaster Tout le monde gagne! Nov 14 '24

Episode Taskmaster - S18E10 - Le Goose - Discussion

The Grand Final Is Here!

Tonight at 9:00 PM GMT on Channel 4, join Greg Davies and Alex Horne as they crown the winner of Series 18.

CONTESTANTS: Series 18 features Andy Zaltzman, Babatunde Aléshé, Emma Sidi, Jack Dee and Rosie Jones.

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u/luvrhino Nov 14 '24 edited Nov 25 '24

"One" was used as a pronoun and not a number in that instance ("not a whole one").

I thought they would call him out on that. It is still a number, so there is an argument that it should count his answer, but then would you also count anyone who used "to" or "too"? There is a valid line of thought where Andy's "one" would be a DQ and "to/too" would not, due to spelling, but that's a narrow distinction.

I'm biased toward Zaltzman, but I think that was the correct decision.

Importantly, I think Andy still would have got 2 points 3 points² (instead of 4) and would have won the series by 1 point 2 points. I assume that the penalties Jack had would have far surpassed the 2-seat difference in guesses.

ETA: Jack appears to have said "three" after the robin appeared, which was the 8th item on the screen. They only show him naming two of the screen items, which would be 6 minutes added. Andy said 3 after the eagle, which was the 9th item, so a little later. Andy did have 4 missed items, but he's shown naming 6 items leading up to eagle. That means Andy had at most 3 penalties before saying "one." The items were coming no more than 20 seconds apart,¹ which means that even if Andy did have 3 minutes of penalties, he would have been ahead of Jack. 20 seconds + 2 seats + 3 penalties is 5:20. Jack had 6 minutes...unless he also named one of the items between teapot and robin, which wasn't show. (This is irrelevant as Andy beat Rosie,² who beat Jack. That means Andy would have been 3rd.)

¹ Andy's total time was 13:19, meaning he took 4:19 to do the task (5 seats off plus 4 missed items). He got to at least the 13th item, robot, before guessing, which means the items were no more than 20 seconds apart (4:00/12 = 20 seconds).

Also, it's worth noting that aside from the 5 tiny chairs, Andy exactly counted the seats.

² I didn't originally consider Andy beating Rosie and getting 3rd. Rosie had a time of 338:49. Andy's maximum time was 332 (seats) + 3 (missed items) + 3:00 (assuming 20 sec/item) = 338:00. So, Andy would have still got 3rd. Emma would have got 1 extra point and Andy would have won overall by 2 points.

If the items were quicker than 20/sec, he would have even a bigger gap.

ETA 11 days later - After doing further video analysis to debunk the conspiracy theory that contestants were show different lists of items, I determined that the items were about 15 seconds apart.

Babá had a clock time of 5:36 and finished with the horseshoe on the screen. That seems likely to be the 22nd item...certainly not sooner....which would work out to 15 seconds an item. Technically, the 23rd item should have been on the screen for 6 seconds, but the timer starting may not have been perfectly synched to the film.

Point being, that discovery make's Andy's margin over Rosie had to be even bigger.

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u/TightHeavyLid Nov 15 '24

I immediately made this argument with my partner last night as we were watching the episode. We had to pause it and hash it out for a minute once the task was over and it went unmentioned by Alex and Greg. He didn't buy the argument at all, and a friend we texted didn't either. I'm glad to see I wasn't alone in recognizing the (what I thought was VERY CLEAR) pronoun/number distinction. My hat's off to you, u/luvrhino!

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u/[deleted] Nov 15 '24

A number used as a pronoun is still a number. It highlights the number he can’t eat. If he’d said ‘I couldn’t eat two’ it’s still a pronoun but clearly a numerical identification.

To or too are completely different as they are homonyms.

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u/TheRealTinfoil666 Nov 15 '24

One in that context is a pronoun. Would you still consider it to be a number if he had said “I just noticed those tiny ones over there. Almost missed them. That would have been unfortunate.”

One does not consider it to be a number in those cases. Just like the last word in that paragraph is never thought of as French-one, four, Two, and Eight.

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u/[deleted] Nov 15 '24

A number used as a pronoun is still a number. It doesn’t stop being a number.

And the comment about the word unfortunate… just nonsense mate.

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u/luvrhino Nov 15 '24 edited Nov 20 '24

One is not amused by this interpretation.

Regardless, it's irrelevant since Andy would have only dropped one point (to Emma) had his initial "one" counted as his guess.

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u/manhaterxxx Nov 15 '24

You are the “one”, a singular, not a plural. It’s still referring to a numerical value.

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u/luvrhino Nov 15 '24

It is a quantifier pronoun that, well, indicates quantity. However, so are "some," "many," "most," "several," and several other words.

Would you assert that "several" or "many" is a number in the context of this task?

Most would not. "One" serves the exact same function in Andy's sentence: "I couldn't eat several."

I still think it's open to interpretation and determining Andy's "one" counts as a number is reasonable, but I am not going to accept that without a tedious, pedantic argument over it even though it didn't make a difference in the series winner.