What Revolves Around the Earth? [ The French Answer ]

Rotate and Revolve are frequently confused. Ite helps to know the etymology of the words.

Rotate comes from the latin word Rota, wheel. In other words, rotate means to spin like a wheel or top, on its own axis.

Revolve means to come back again, to cover the same path once more. That’s what you do when you go around in a circle.

The question was originally asked with Revolve. If the questioner had asked, “what travels in a circle around the earth?” the answer might be clearer to the participant. But he was obviously confused, because he immediately changed revolve to rotate.

And in fact, neither the Earth or the Moon truly revolve. Their paths are more like a twisted braid as they revolve together around the sun. It so happens that the center of mass of the Earth-Moon system is beneath the surface of the earth, but it is not at the Earth’s center.

… And of course, I use the term circle loosely. The approximate path in the Earth’s non-Newtonian reference frame is more elliptical than circular.

Well, “gravite” is certainely not a word used in every day conversation. it shouldn’t be directly translated into rotate. Actually for somebody who doesn’t know the correct definition it’s not easy to guess what it means. It could as well mean what have a gravitational influence over earth, in which case the sun could be a correct answer. Not to justify this guys lack of knowledge, but I can easily understand that the public gets confused. The poll would have given a completely different result if they used the world “tourner” ou “rotation”.. OR maybe not ;-)

Everyone gets nervous- and this sometimes leads to a bout of temporary confusion.

It’s a human thing.

There are no excuses for this.

The question is poorly phrased and linguistically non-specific. Given that this is a show that is based on one factually “correct” answer, this question should never have been asked. If it were more akin to the American LSATs where multiple partially correct answers are allowed and you are instructed to select the most appropriate, this question, and the answer, the moon, would make sense.

The concept of frame-of-reference at the very least comes into play, and is not mentioned in the question. From our perspective on Earth, both the Sun and Moon orbit the earth, and only the Sun appears to rotate or revolve (the same face of the Moon always faces the Earth). Gravite, does not mean “revolve” or “rotate” to begin with. Orbit is the word that should have been used.

Jeopardy doesn’t have these same problems.

I’m never watching TV again. Don’t misunderestimate me: I’m serious this time.

Because TV’s gots electrolytes. And no, our childrens is not learning. To the batcave with a hard drive full of survival pdfs!

This is originally a UK show, you know

Palindrom makes a good point, if I was in the audience; I would’ve picked the Sun too. Screwing around with the guys head would be hilarious. (Not because I didn’t know the basic science in it)

Oh yeah, someone said that they would hope his “geography teacher” wasn’t watching… I don’t remember learning about the celestial bodies in Geography.

‘MERICAN SMART, FRENCH STOOPID! U HUH HUH HUH

epic!

he did look frozen staring at his screen, and ‘gravite’ is not the best word, but still hilarious!

don’t judge all French by one contestant, uh and one studio audience har har

Actually, there’s a known trivia research that established that 50% of americans actually do not know the name of the first man on the moon – some even said Kennedy!

Let’s face it, all countries have idiots in equal proportions. So the question might be, which country has more idiots or the bigger idiots ;)

For the record “Millionaire” was first an English show. The stupidity of the audience and the contestant say less about a nationality than it does about people who watch game shows, or nearly any television shows for that matter.

I admire the host the most. If it was me I’d crack out hysterical when he said final answer is the Sun.

I really don’t think it is necessary to have all this America bashing…We Americans aren’t as dumb as you think. Sure we have a stupid president but that doesn’t mean that we are all morons.

America has some really stupid people, but we also have a lot of smart ones. Most people are somewhere in the middle.

Sarcozy caught the dumbing-down virus from Bush. This guy must have kissed Sarcozy on the lips.

I think it’s so cute that all the foreign countries think it’s necessary to flame the US when the French can’t figure out what revolves around the Earth. Grow up.

1.) The French, in general, are not stupid. 2.) Americans, in general, are not stupid either. 3.) The stupid ones always end up on the internet, thus embarrassing and creating a poor image of the person’s home country. 4.) It’s very sad when people honestly believe an entire country is stupid or ignorant just because the media portrays them as such. Is it “cool” to think Americans are stupid? Because honestly, as I sit here typing this as an intelligent, educated adult, I find myself thinking, “I don’t think any country as a whole can be categorized as stupid, fat, arrogant, horrible, or otherwise. So, as such, why do people assume those things of me, simply because I was born to a country portrayed as such on the news?”

Think before you type. It could just make all the difference.

The French, in general, are not stupid. Well mistakes like that are very fecking stupid. (gobshite)

Pues que va a ser? La luna pendejos. Tenia razón Nietszche:

“Pinches Europeos de mierda decadentes”

Que pendejismo, sigan viendo Big Brother!

Que asco se ha vuelto la humanidad!

@ American Expat Well said! When I watch all of these games shows and watch people make the wrong answer on obvious questions I always yell at the TV about how dumb they are. But I’m pretty sure if I was on said show with all of those damn people staring at me and cameras and stuff I’d make the same damn mistake! =)

re: and why do French copy-cat exactly an US production ?

Comment by matelot — 12/1/2007 @ 6:20 pm

They don’t, it’s produced by the same company and/or licensed there by. Now as for you, the correct usage is “A US production.” don’t get caught up in the a[n] preceding vowels, it only proceeds vowel sounds. U of US is Yoo in sound, thus An Yoo-Ess not A…. don’t make fun of a culture if you yourself cannot extend the reason around your own languages grammatical structures.

Hey, at least he’ll be working more hours if the French finally shake the Socialism yoke. Of course, do you want someone like him working more? Let’s hear some guesses as to his occupation. Seriously, some US guy several years ago blew a gimmie question early on in the game. It was so simple I can’t even remember-all I know is I said “What an idiot”. I didn’t say “What a stupid American”. So. we’ll leave it at “What a stupid idiot”.

“don’t make fun of a culture if you yourself cannot extend the reason around your own languages grammatical structures.

Comment by robeph”

That should of course be “language’s”, unless you happen to be patronising a polyglot, when “languages’” might be appropriate. Feeble-minded amateur grammar Nazis (the sort who correct single-character mistakes that could easily be typos) are often troubled by confusion stemming from the similarity in form of possessives (which generally take an apostrophe in English) and plurals (which don’t). Do take better care next time…