Controversial Answers: Roy G. Biv Edition

In our continuing series of blog posts that we hope fosters discussion on a few of our more controversial quizzes, we're tackling a deceptively simple quiz that has generated a lot of discussion: The Colors of the Rainbow.

The point of issue is that many people learned the acronym Roy G. Biv (or the more dramatic Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain) to describe the color spectrum. As you may notice, these include the first letters of seven colors. This group of colors is exactly how Isaac Newton first described them. Newton wanted to align the color wheel with musical notes, the known solar system (which is edging closer back to 7 as the years go on) and the days of the week. While this is a pretty great idea for fans of the number seven, it's not a terribly accurate one, as modern research has proven the color indigo is almost impossible to distinguish from either blue or purple.

In our quiz, we accept either indigo or blue for one of the answers as well as both purple and violet for another, so we're hoping to at least give you credit if your description of the color is accurate. In the future just remember the Sporcle mnemonic device: Richard of York Grew Bulbous Vegetables, and things will work out just fine.

All that being said, we're open to suggestions here, if you want a Roy G. Biv quiz to relive your elementary school days, shoot us a comment and let us know why.

Controversial Answers

Hey Everyone,

In what we hope will be an ongoing series of posts about controversial answers on Sporcle, we're tackling a subject that raised some questions in the comments of the Safe Cracker Quiz.

Part of the quiz concerned naming the planet's Oceans and many users expressed surprise or outrage at the inclusion of the Southern Ocean. A lot of people on Sporcle (us included) learned of only 4 Oceans (and 9 planets) in school, and we understand the confusion.

So here's the deal: in the year 2000, the International Hydrographic Organization designated the area from the coast of Antarctica north to 60 degrees south latitude as a new ocean, which they called The Southern Ocean. In some places, this area is also known as either the Antarctic Ocean or the South Polar Ocean. Not everyone on the planet agrees with this stance, but we believe it should be included as the answer in our quizzes.

Most importantly, we want everyone to be having as much fun as possible on our site, not becoming frustrated when it might seem like we're making an arbitrary stance on a particular answer.

We're hoping to continue the discussion on some other topics in the future, and maybe make a few more posts celebrating some of our more frequent answers (Kyrgyzstan and Vinny Testaverde anyone?), so check back often (or subscribe to our feed) to hear more from your pals at Sporcle.

Thanks,

Sporcle