I was really glad to be able to watch the World Cup final yesterday in a cafe in Cormatin, Burgundy, with Anne, F and my sister who lives nearby.
The clouds were threatening, and we did get sprinkled at one point.
But the atmosphere was fantastic with local fans of all ages watching intently.
Sometimes you make the most of what you’ve got.
It was probably the most exciting World Cup final of my lifetime; my family, none of them particularly football fans, came along to humour me and were captivated. And for our fellow customers, the result was the right one.
Speaking of results, I can now reveal the final scores for my predictions contest:
| ✔ | N | % | |
| 36 | 64 | 56% | |
| 29 | 57 | 51% | |
| 28 | 50 | 56% | |
| 28 | 58 | 48% | |
| 27 | 49 | 55% | |
| 18 | 31 | 58% | |
| 17 | 32 | 53% | |
| 16 | 30 | 53% | |
| 15 | 32 | 47% | |
| 14 | 20 | 70% | |
| 14 | 25 | 56% | |
| 11 | 22 | 50% | |
| 8 | 13 | 62% | |
| 7 | 10 | 70% | |
| pseudomantid | 6 | 9 | 67% |
| 5 | 7 | 71% | |
| 4 | 9 | 44% | |
| 4 | 10 | 40% | |
| 3 | 3 | 100% | |
| 3 | 7 | 43% | |
| 3 | 9 | 33% | |
| 2 | 3 | 67% | |
| 1 | 1 | 100% | |
| 1 | 1 | 100% | |
| 高円美砂子 | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| 1 | 1 | 100% | |
| 1 | 2 | 50% | |
| 1 | 3 | 33% | |
| 1 | 4 | 25% | |
| 0 | 1 | 0% | |
| 0 | 1 | 0% |
Congrats to
There were seven matches where nobody predicted the result: Iran/Morocco, Portugal/Spain, Iceland/Argentina, Brazil/Switzerland, Senegal/Poland, Saudi Arabia/Egypt and Spain/Morocco.
Thanks to all of you for participating. Livejournal is not yet dead! Though it is worth noting that when I did this in 2010, I had 281 participants rather than 31.
Thanks. I read and greatly enjoyed McWhorter’s The Power of Babel a bit over a decade ago; I was interested by his Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue though found it a bit uneven. I’ll have a look out for Nichols – sounds very interesting.